Potato Drop makes a difference

The GC&SU GIVE Center held its fourth annual Potato Drop on Oct. 22 in the spirit of Make a Difference Day.

Roughly 40,000 pounds of sweet potatoes were donated to various community organizations in Baldwin County and surrounding counties, such as churches, soup kitchens, domestic violence centers, the Salvation Army and individuals.

A grant of $2,350 covered the cost of shipping the sweet potatoes from North Carolina to Milledgeville, the potato bags and food for the many volunteers.

“We didn’t have to use much money from the GIVE Center,” said Kendall Stiles, director of the GIVE Center.

GC&SU junior Denise Chambers was in charge of organizing the volunteer sign-in area.

“There are tons of volunteers,” Chambers said. “Many of the volunteers are fraternity, sorority and RSO members.”

GC&SU students were given an added incentive to volunteer their time. All students who signed in and out were entered into a $50 raffle.

“I’m having a great time,” said Chambers. “The students rock.”

The Potato Drop was split into three stages, which included bagging the potatoes roughly ten to a bag, organizing the number of bags that were going to each benefactor, and loading the bags onto the vehicle of the receiving party.

Throughout the day Jennifer Irish, a GC&SU freshman, participated in each stage of the process.

“Loading the potatoes is more fun because you get dirty bagging,” Irish said.

The trucks carrying the sweet potatoes arrived at 7 a.m., and volunteers began bagging at 8:15 a.m. There were so many volunteers that at 10 a.m., they had to send someone to get more potato bags because they ran out.

During the four years that the GIVE Center has organized the event, the Potato Drop has overcome some obstacles.

The first year was great, the second was cancelled because of Hurricane Isabella, the third year the truck carrying the potatoes didn’t arrive until 10 a.m. and this year it is going great, said Stiles.

Usually regular white potatoes are donated through the Potato Drop, but when the people found out that sweet potatoes were going to be used this year, the community got excited.

Each organization was scheduled for a specific time to pick up their sweet potatoes. Large groups were scheduled from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. and could receive up to 1,000 lbs. Small groups were scheduled at 11 a.m., and individuals from 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. At 1:30 p.m. people who weren’t on the list could come and pick up whatever was left.

Each year the GIVE Center finds an organization to be the catch-all group, which takes any potatoes that remain at the end of the day. This year’s catch all group was Powell Grove Church.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Nov 4 2005. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry