Sigma Beta Delta Hosts ‘Feed-A-Friend’ to support Dr. Martin Luther King Center

By: Steven Bianco
Posted In: News

In a charitable initiative involving students and faculty alike, the Sigma Beta Delta Chapter at Salve Regina University was successful in collecting $512.95 in donations to Newport’s own Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center. The “Feed-A-Friend” event took place on Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2010 and was characterized by students volunteering to withhold receiving a meal off of their meal plan. The withheld meal would be converted into a contribution.

“We had around 125 students volunteer,” said Dr. Arlene Nicholas, Salve Sigma Beta Delta Chapter Advisor. “We raised $480.50 through students, received $72.45 in cash donations and will now be able to send a check for over $500 to the Martin Luther King Jr. Center.”

Nicholas explained her inspiration for putting on this benevolent project. She got the idea of students donating to food banks when not using their meal plans after watching a story on the national news. According to Nicholas, many students at Salve skip meals often, and the Salve meal plan does nothing with the unused points. Armed with this information, Dr. Nicholas assigned a student project in one of her management classes to develop a program using Salve’s meal plan to advocate for a local community organization, particularly the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center. After gaining feedback from her students and speaking with Salve’s Business Studies & Economics Department, Nicholas succeeded in putting together such a program for one day, which became titled “Feed-A-Friend.” Sodexo, which organizes on-campus dining at Salve, cooperatively agreed to give $3.50 to the MLKCC for every student volunteering to waive their meal plan for dinner on Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2010.

“It’s for a good cause, I figure; I could get a meal somewhere else,” said Marc Nunes, a freshman. To promote the project, Nicholas advertised awards to volunteering students by entering them into a raffle for winning gift certificates. “I went to restaurants on lower Thames Street in Newport to see if we could get some gift certificate raffle prizes,” said Nicholas.

Students who took part in “Feed-A-Friend” now have a chance at winning discounts at restaurants including O’Brien’s, Tallulah on Thames, Asterisk, Pizza Hollywood and Thai Cuisine. Overall, Nicholas is fairly pleased with the amount of students who joined and is very happy to have assisted the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center.

According to its website, the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center in Newport functions an agency providing numerous human services to the Aquidneck Island Community from enrichment programs for youth to giving meals to the poor. Originally founded as the Newport Community Center in 1922, the organization was renamed the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center in 1968 in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Since its beginnings, the MLKCC has acted as a gathering center for members of multiple cultures and backgrounds with mutual needs. Currently, the MLKCC host a number of significant community activities including Hunger Services, the Light House Preschool Program, After-School Academy & Summer Camp, and the Teen Center. This organization is not publically funded and relies mainly on the Newport community for financial as well as eleemosynary support.