With the holiday season quickly approaching, those fighting overseas might not make it home in time to be with their friends and family.

A local group on campus, ENACTUS, (Entrepreneurial, Action, Us) recognizes the sacrifices that America’s troops make every day for the country and have taken the initiative to give back where they can to those men and women.

TJ Dooley, senior and president of ENACTUS said ENACTUS is a social entrepreneurship club, where social issues are identified and projects are developed to combat those issues. ENACTUS encourages students to bring projects to the club that they want to see active on campus. There are currently five active projects including SHIP Sends.

In regard to working with our troops, Dooley said that is when SHIP Sends was born. SHIP Sends encompasses various fundraisers and events around campus to send letters and care packages to those fighting overseas. The project is managed by juniors Courtney Thomson and Syerra Freeman, and overseen by Dooley.

Throughout the week leading up to Thanksgiving break, the group was set up in the Ceddia Union Building (CUB) tabling for items for the troops.

“The event was simple,” Dooley said. “We used the CUB as a central drop-off place for care package items, which allowed people to even send items to a specific troop if they wanted.” 

“The event was overall very successful. We got a late-start but were able to receive a lot of food donations, and even received monetary donations,” Dooley said. Thomson agreed, saying, “We got a big turnout in donations and were able to send two boxes to both locations. In the end, we need more hygiene products but we got A LOT of candy.”

The group hopes to host a similar event for the troops again during the 2019-20 school year, according to Dooley.

Dooley also wants to better publicize and market ENACTUS’s future events as the new semester approaches.

Dooley is hopeful that the group will continue to host easily accessible events and continue to spread the word around topics which sometimes go overlooked. ENACTUS is looking into partnering with local veteran groups in the future to connect with the community. 

ENACTUS holds meetings every Tuesday at 3:30 p.m. in Grove Hall in Room 203. Prospective members are encouraged to stop by the general meetings. For more information about ENACTUS, visit enactus.org

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