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By WSU News Service

 

PULLMAN -- Washington State University student volunteers will be

Andrew Appleton, director of Global Studies and Malawi project adviser,   during shooting of a commercial for the program Thursday.  Dozens of faculty , staff, and students turned out for the event to show their support for the shirt drive which will run from Nov. 26 through Dec. 2 .

collecting T-shirts on and around the Pullman campus Nov. 26-Dec. 2 to distribute to orphans in Malawi.

 

The idea for "Take Your Shirt Off For Malawi Week" arose from discussions among students in WSU's Global Learning Community in Coman Hall about ways they could help some of the desperately poor people in the landlocked African country. Malawi orphanages are homes to thousands of children, many of whom have lost parents to the African AIDS epidemic.

 

Sydney Wheeler, a sophomore from Kelso, said the goal of the effort is to collect T-shirts for 15,000 orphans. She said economic conditions in the country are such that usable clothing is a luxury for many of these children.

 

"Collecting T-shirts seemed like a small gesture that we could make that would let the children in Malawi know that students in the United States are concerned about them. Maybe we can bring a smile to their faces," Wheeler said.

 

Sydney Wheeler, WSU sophomore and founder of the Malawi week project.

Wheeler said the group has received excellent cooperation from people around the university in getting the word out about the event, setting up sites for collection stations, and arranging for the handling and shipping of the T-shirts. Wheeler said organizers have also had a positive response from Pullman schools about joining in the collection effort.

 

Andrew Appleton, WSU's director of global studies, said that the WSU initiative has already had an impact, even before the collection officially begins. Appleton said a Buddhist monastery in Seattle contributed 263 shirts upon hearing of the initiative, a WSU alumna at Microsoft is organizing a collection effort and other universities are planning similar drives.

 

For more information on the project, see
http://www.ip.wsu.edu/shirtoff/Home/Home.htm

 

WSU has been active in development and extension projects in Malawi. In 2006, then-President V. Lane Rawlins visited Malawi and later wrote about his experiences in Washington State Magazine. The article is available at http://washington-state-magazine.wsu.edu/stories/2007/February/Malawi.html

 

Photos