Quinnipiac University’s Department of Cultural and Global Engagement is hosting a winter clothing donation drive for international students through the month of October.
The drive is open for Quinnipiac students, faculty and staff to donate items such as winter coats, hoodies, gloves, hats, scarves and boots. People can bring items to Room 190 in the Center for Communications and Computing and Engineering between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday until the end of October.
Starting on Nov. 1, international students can begin to look at the free items in the office’s newly established “winter closet.” Students will then be able to come by Room 190 between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. Monday through Thursday for the remainder of November.
Sarah Driscoll, the director of International Student Services, said the idea for the donations arose amid conversations with international students about how they had never experienced a cold winter before. Winter clothing items can be additional costs for international students and a lot of people from the Northeast U.S. already own these items, Driscoll said.
“As you can imagine, even the weather now is an adjustment for some of our students from warmer climates,” Driscoll said. “And many of them are not prepared for what is ahead during the winter months.”
Driscoll estimated that the drive currently has around 100 donated items. Setting up the drive did not take long, she said, but there is still ongoing coordination between her and her staff.
“I think that it’s an opportunity to give back, to support students that are new to this country and to this community in particular, and to help them feel cared for and supported in this kind of small way,” Driscoll said.
Raya Al Wasti is the administrative assistant to multicultural and global education and helped with working on the clothing donation drive. She said she expects the number of donations to increase before the collection process ends.
“We are not entirely sure about the turnout, as this is the first year we are providing this service,” Al Wasti wrote in an email statement to The Chronicle. “However, we are looking forward to seeing a significant number of students benefiting from this initiative.”
Kikelomo Adetula, an office assistant for DCGE International Student Services and a graduate business administration student, created the design for the flyers and social media posts advertising the program. Adetula is from Nigeria, and came to the U.S. in December 2022.
“It will be cost effective because buying all these things now, most (international students) don’t have the money because they’re new in the country,” Adetula said. “I know that most of them don’t have jobs yet, so I’m pretty sure they will love this.”
Adetula said her family in the U.S. helped her figure out the changes in the winter months, but a lot of international students do not have that benefit.
“All year round, it’s about 80 to 90 degrees (in Nigeria), so coming from that to here even the spring was cold for me,” Adetula said. “It was a big adjustment, but I think I’m used to it now.”
