Student Senate sends packages to military

The UW-River Falls Student Senate has made preparations to organize and send care packages to 31 UWRF students who will be leaving for military service in war zones overseas.

The Student Senate has approved a budget of $1,500 to fund the creation and organization of the care packages.

The Senate is also putting together a list of items to be included in the care packages comprised of recommendations from student members of the armed services who have previously returned from military service. 

Cindy Bendix, former president of the UWRF Student Senate, said that the packages will be organized and assembled at UWRF and will then be sent to a military contact in Eau Claire, Wis., who will then send the parcels onto the locations of each student. This would make personalizing the packages a difficult task. 

“They’re going to have to be the same because we can’t know anything about them or who they’re going to or where it’s going,” Bendix said.  Bendix said that the Student Senate plans send a series of three packages to each deployed student during the summer months. 

“We organized sending care packages to those students and right now we are looking at sending out three different shipments while they’re gone so that they don’t just get one and then they feel we forget them after that, so there’s three,” she said. 

The contents of packages sent previously have been used as another reference in the organization of the shipments.

The packages will contain a variety of items ranging from essentials such as toiletries to things like candy. An effort to write letters to deployed soldiers is also being organized, Bendix said.

“It’s going to be like socks, underwear, tank tops and then there’s going to be some candy, toothbrushes, baby wipes,” she said. “We’ve been making a list based off of what people who have come back have told us what they would like while they were there.” 

The first packages in the series will be sent in the beginning of the summer and will be followed by two other shipments. Bendix also said that the Student Senate will hopefully plan to send care packages during the next school year. 

“We’re going to send out one at the end of May, beginning of June, and then probably one again in the middle of summer and then at the end,” she said. 

Students can get involved in the effort by making donations for the contents of the packages and the Student Senate has also been working to inform students by asking faculty members to make announcements about the packages in classes. Students may also donate items they have leftover while moving off campus as the semester ends. 

“If they have any books, if they have anything like that that they’re willing to donate, comic books and things like that, we’d love to put them in the care packages as well,” Bendix said. “We have a bunch of movies now and we’d love to add to it.”