Students Helping Honduras help with donuts

By LAUREN GUSTAFSON

Campus Walk in spring plays host to clubs and organizations hosting fundraising sales, recruitment events and news about different types of campus activities. These tables attract bustling students moving between classes or meals and are as necessary to campus life as free food.

On Wednesday, March 30, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Students Helping Honduras hosted a bake sale in front of Lee Hall. The club is partnered with Habitat for Humanity for this fundraising event, featuring a bake sale with local business, Sugar Shack.

Students are very familiar with Sugar Shack’s glazed confections which quickly became a cemented staple in the typical UMW student’s life, thanks to their close proximity to the campus. Donuts and assorted baked goods were donation based, meaning that you donate what you want in exchange for a glazed confection.

The goal of the bake sale was to raise money to send money to the Students Helping Honduras organization for more school supplies and building materials. The club also hopes to use the money raised to get more volunteers to attend the upcoming trip over winter break.

This past winter break, members of the club went to Honduras to “help build a school and reflect on international relief,” said president of Students Helping Honduras Emily Ferguson.

The UMW chapter is known for its frequent bake sales and the annual “Thrift SHHop,” where students can donate clothing and then shop to replenish their wardrobe and helping a charitable cause in the process, all of which takes place on Ball Circle.

Students Helping Honduras is a non-profit organization, with clubs at over 100 universities across the United States. According to Ferguson, the mission of the organization is to “end extreme poverty and violence in Honduras through education and youth empowerment.”

The UMW chapter was founded by alumni Shin Fujiyama in 2007, who began the non-profit by raising money on his college campus for orphanages in Honduras after his week volunteer trip.

Shin then established his fundraising efforts as a non-profit to contribute more to the surrounding community and the globe.

According to the website, the organization states that “we do not invite international volunteers to ‘do’ development.  We invite them to learn. We pull back the curtain on a global nonprofit for young people to see how difficult this work is – but how possible it is to do make an impact for those that need it most.”

The bake not only helped to provide funds for relief efforts in Honduras, but also indulges the campus’ sweet tooth.