The MSU chapter of the women’s empowerment organization My Sisters Keeper gave out 100 backpacks, bus passes and general school supplies to incoming freshmen in need this past weekend.
My Sisters Keeper garnered support and donations from businesses such as Walgreens, Target and Office Max. Everything that wasn’t covered by them was paid for by the organization’s president and MSU alumna Andrea Reed personally.
“A lot of kids don’t come to college because they don’t have the money,” Reed said of her inspiration for this project.
A member of the group, human biology junior Mfon-Obong Eyo, said they didn’t want to hand things out to people who weren’t in need.
“Freshmen had to write something about why they needed a backpack or why they were seriously in need of school supplies,” she said.
“We had a lot of people who had touching stories,” accounting junior and treasurer Kamisha Burser said.
Advertising junior Sanjay Bonner said there was a great deal of freshmen who had a variety of family, financial or personal issues that would potentially affect their status at college.
The organization was founded in 2012 by Reed, whose abusive childhood inspired her to give back.
Eyo said My Sisters Keeper aims to better the community MSU students are a part of.
“(We want to) help out the community and have a type of sisterhood bond where (members) are family and can rely on each other,” she said.
The organization primarily focuses on leadership, personal and professional growth, and, in this case, community service.
In the past, My Sisters Keeper has also handed out bags of toiletries to the homeless, collected and donated 100 gently used shoes to the Greater Lansing Clergy Forum and regularly visits cancer patients at Sparrow Hospital in Lansing.
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