Nursing Students Raised Over $3,000 Worth of Supplies

During spring semester, the Nursing Student Association at San Francisco State University reached out to its members for their help in raising supplies for the residents of Next Door Shelter.   With the help of generous donations from friends and family, we were able to raise over $3,000 worth of supplies.

The level II nursing students at San Francisco State University were doing their psychiatric clinical rotations at Next Door Shelter.  Many of San Francisco’s homeless population suffer from mental illness, allowing us a place to practice therapeutic communication and nursing interventions with these patients.  However, we quickly learned that the shelter and its residents had a shortage of certain toiletries and basic supplies such as towels and laundry detergent.

The Nursing Student Association organized a competition amongst the cohorts.  As an additional incentive, the winning cohort would receive a donation to their pinning ceremony from NSA.  Some students used social media to reach out to friends and family, others bought in bulk or from dollar stores.  Between monetary and physical donations, the total was over $3000 worth of supplies.  With over $600 of monetary donations, NSA was able to purchase larger-ticket items like bed sheets and towels to be donated

NSA coordinators of the drive, Elizabeth Longacre and Sydney Eyre, deposited the supplies at Next Door Shelter.  After seeing the size of the donation, Next Door requested help in disseminating the supplies to the residents.  The level II students in Garfield Powell’s psych clinical rotation rose to the occasion.  On their last day of clinical, they created a goodbye party for the residents, complete with food provided by the clinical group.  Residents left the party with lunch and a bag of toiletry supplies for themselves.

Liz Longacre, Sydney Eyre, SF State Nursing Students, with Emeka Nnebe, Next Door Shelter Site Manager.