Black River Technical College’s Rotaract Club put their club motto “Service Above Self” into practice this semester as they planned and organized a multi-site fundraiser event called “Cards for a Cause.”
Cassidy Yount, working with fellow Rotaractors Sara Benson, Bambi Palmer, Rebecca Lopez, Leah Morgan, and Megan Carey, proposed and implemented the project. Yount’s brother, a local wounded veteran, inspired her to be proactive in seeking recognition and humanitarian aid for military men and women returning from active duty. Through this inspiration, Yount developed the idea to send Christmas cards to active duty military stationed overseas this Christmas. In order to also aid local veterans, Yount’s idea morphed into a fundraiser project in which the Christmas cards would be sold for $2.00, and all proceeds from card sales would be donated to the Northeast Arkansas Wounded Warrior Group.
Rotaract members eagerly agreed to take on the planning and implementation of this fundraiser, and they decided to use a variety of local events as a platform for their “Cards for a Cause” fundraiser. For example, Rotaract members set up booths at the Veteran’s Fair on BRTC’s Paragould campus in October and at the Foothills Festival in Black Rock in November. In addition, they set up a booth on the Pocahontas campus during the week of Veteran’s Day, selling cards to BRTC students, faculty, and staff.
In all, over 100 cards were sold and sent to military men and women stationed in Kuwait, and a $200 donation was presented to Chad Overman, president of Northeast Arkansas Wounded Warrior Group. Overman expressed much gratitude for the donation, explaining that all of the organization’s funds are used locally, providing aid to disabled veterans in Randolph, Lawrence, Greene, Clay, and Craighead counties.