The Allen P. Kirby Center’s Kirby Cares Campaign will be collecting items to support Ruth’s Place up until April 30.

The Kirby Cares Campaign is a social initiative run by the Allan P. Kirby Center for Free Enterprise and Entrepreneurship. The campaign is focused on the importance of giving back to the local Wilkes-Barre community.

The campaign started in 2017 with donating to the local homeless shelter. The idea for the Kirby Cares Campaign was initiated by the Kirby Scholar Michelle Lehman. The campaign started out collecting packages of warm socks to give to the local Wilkes-Barre community homeless shelters.

Lehman started this campaign after learning that socks were the number one thing that many people asked for when they receive services at shelters. Since the start of the campaign, Kirby Cares has donated to the homeless, veterans, and this year they are donating to a local women’s shelter.

“All staff and students of the APKC are very blessed to be part of a great organization and this is our way of helping the community in some small way. Different causes are chosen annually or semi-annually based on community need,” said Charles J. Pierce, assistant director of the Allan P. Kirby Center for Free Enterprise and Entrepreneurship and adjunct professor at the Jay S. Sidhu School of Business.

Pierce continued to explain that as long as the ultimate goal of helping the less fortunate is fulfilled, then the campaign is successful. The campaign will be supporting Ruth’s Place this year,  which is located in the Wilkes-Barre community. Ruth’s Place is dedicated to providing shelter, case management services and employment development services for women who are currently experiencing homelessness.

Any donation can be dropped off in specially marked boxes that are in several buildings and residence halls on the Wilkes University campus.This campaign is looking for donations of items like toothbrushes, deodorant, hand wipes, nail clippers, dental floss, tissues, wet wipes, Q-tips, bandages, maxi pads, tampons, lotion, sunscreen, soap, shampoo, conditioner, lip balm and toothpaste. These items can be dropped off at the Allan P. Kirby Center or at specially marked boxes placed around campus.

This particular initiative of the Kirby Cares Campaign is coming to close at the end of April, but the campaign will continue with new initiatives in the coming semesters. Taylor Baker, graduate assistant and the Kirby Entrepreneurship Scholar, shared that it is important to participate in a campaigns and events like these and stated that she is more than willing be involved with a campaign like this again in the future.

“I wholeheartedly believe that if you are going to have an organization or a business of any sort, then this needs to be a part of it,” Baker said. “If you are not part of the local community, you are not actually providing for it as they are providing the revenue for you.”

Baker later stated that in the future she will continue to volunteer and give back to her community as they are so important to the success of every business.

The Kirby Cares Campaign is open to everyone who wants to donate products. To donate drop off your products in one of the boxes placed around campus. Boxes are located in the Allan P. Kirby Center, the Farley Library, University Towers, Public Safety, the lobby next to Starbucks in the UCOM, and the lobby of the Henry Student Center. Everyone can donate their items in these specially marked boxes up until April 30th through the Kirby Cares Campaign.

To get involved with the Kirby Cares Campaign in the future, or if you have any questions about the campaign, please contact [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] or [email protected].