In addition to transitioning from high school to college and adjusting to life away from home, Colgate University Freshman Christina Weiler is not only helping fight hunger in Utica….she’s helping her fellow classmates, faculty and staff to do it, too. It’s as easy as throwing away empty containers.
“I founded UCan because I wanted to make change-making something that everyone could be a part of at any moment at any day,” said Christina Weiler. Weiler’s appropriately-named project enables anyone on campus to help the cause, and it’s virtually effortless. She and a handful of volunteers have placed 50 receptacles in 16 buildings on campus. Once a week, they put on protective gloves, collect the containers and redeem them. They give the cash to the Utica Rescue Mission.
“What we’ve seen so far is they’ve collected over 5000 units,” says Jim Haid, Executive Director of the Utica Rescue Mission. “They want to one, recycle. They have that mind frame. But they also want to help out social agencies like ours and particularly they want to help out in our food area.”
Weiler recently won an enterpreneurship competition at Colgate. She hopes to use it to show other colleges and universities that they can, too.
“We were awarded $4000 in funding as well as an introduction to Wal Mart, which could help distribute our facilities and distribution across the country, which is exactly what we want to do, and we want to bring UCan to every university possible.”
Reprinted from WKTV.com