Reynaldo Sylla ‘12 (foreground) and Ruth Victorin ‘11 helped collect donations for Sunday’s Dining Services point drive for Haiti. Paola Chavez ’12 (foreground) and Jesus Baeza ’12 were among the students who signed up to contribute. (Photo by Christopher Huang)
Dining Services Point Drive Raises $5K
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Boston College students offered a special tribute to the many Haitian natives employed by the University’s Dining Services by donating $5,000 worth of BCDS meal points in last Sunday’s one-day drive to assist victims of last month’s devastating earthquake in Haiti.“Our employees are family,” said Dining Services Director Helen Wechsler, noting that some 18 Haitian natives are employed on a full-time basis by BCDS and another 50 Haitian teenagers – most of whom attend Boston public schools – work at BC dining facilities on a part-time basis.
“It was the right thing to do,” she said.
Wechsler said the earthquake occurred while Boston College students were on semester break and most campus dining facilities were closed.
“A lot of our employees go home to Haiti over the extended break,” she said. “We had a few employees who were there but were able to get out.
We know that there are still a lot of stories coming in about missing family members, friends and relatives [of employees.] All of them were touched by this – some of them were touched tragically; some of them were lucky.”
Employees of Haitian descent manned the donation tables at BC dining halls from 4:30 through 8 p.m. on Sunday and more than 120 students stopped to make contributions. Point drives are also partially funded by Dining Services, Wechsler said.
The proceeds of Sunday’s drive were contributed to the Jesuit Refugee Service. Another point drive, this one to benefit the St. Boniface Haiti Foundation, will be sponsored by BCDS and the University’s Volunteer and Service Learning Center during the week of Feb. 8-12, Wechsler said.