Students in Camosun College’s Criminal Justice program finished off the fall 2021 semester by collecting a classroom-sized clothing donation for Our Place. The students gathered donations from all over Victoria, which, once delivered, were all re-homed within days.
Second-year student Sean Eversfield says that “basically everyone” in the second year of the Criminal Justice program was involved in the drive.
“We had students put up posters around Interurban and Lansdowne, and then we also had students distribute flyers around the communities around Camosun,” says Eversfield. “And we also had a community drop-off at the roundabout at Lansdowne.”
Our Place is a community centre with nine locations around Victoria that serves people facing homelessness, mental-health struggles, substance-abuse issues, and financial instability. Students in the Criminal Justice program have worked with them in the past, along with several other organizations in Victoria, according to Eversfield.
“Our Place is one of the major ones because of the shelter, and they really enjoy being connected with our program, but we are involved with almost every criminal-justice-related or volunteer-related organization in Victoria,” he says.
Second-year student Emma Godard says that due to the students not being able to work directly with these organizations because of learning online last year, as well as the impacts of the pandemic, the need for donations is growing.
“There’s definitely a need for it, and there’s definitely been an increased demand,” says Godard. “On our flyer there was a part where we specified men’s clothing, because that’s what’s really needed, men’s clothing like jackets, sweaters, and socks.”
Students in the program also hosted a sock drive earlier in the semester, and they have a bottle drive planned for the new year. After having put volunteer work on hold for the last year, Eversfield and his classmates found the clothing drive to be a meaningful experience.
“With the clothing drive,” he says, “the students who went to Our Place and the other shelters to distribute the clothing, they said it was a really positive experience, and it was eye-opening to speak with them and hear their stories.”
Despite the students being unable to work in person with their partner organizations during the previous school year, Eversfield says that program chair Wendy Taylor did. He says that she still managed to host smaller clothing drives for Our Place, and Godard says this is the program’s third year working with the organization. The organization also works with the students, presenting in their classes.
“We have a lot of people come in every single week for our seminar, and they were one of the people that came and talked to us,” says Godard. “They came in three or four weeks ago. It was one of their head coordinators for their volunteer program and then another person that helped run their facility down on Pandora.”
Godard and Eversfield both appreciate the organizational partnerships that the program offers, which also includes a job fair at the end of the year. Students in the program are in the midst of planning their year-end fundraiser, and Eversfield is looking forward to more community involvement. It’s something that he says he finds rewarding, and he views it as more than just a mandatory part of the program.
“It’s a requirement, and also a really important part of the field that we’re going into in general,” he says, “just being involved in the community.”