With the help of several university organizations and volunteers, the Associated Student Body hosted their 21st annual Adopt-A-Basket event in the Union Ballroom on Tuesday, Nov. 19, during which they stuffed 174 boxes.
The Adopt-A-Basket program is an initiative that puts together Thanksgiving meals to give to university employees and the Lafayette-Oxford-University community. Since Oct. 24, ASB has collected food and monetary donations from around the university to build the boxes.
Here is a list of items that were placed into baskets:
- Two cans of corn
- Two cans of green beans
- Cranberry jelly
- Bag of cornmeal
- Bag of brown sugar
- Cinnamon
- Vanilla extract
- Bag of marshmallows
- One quart chicken broth
- Three-pound bag of sweet potatoes
- Five-pound bag of potatoes
- Four-pound bag of sugar
- $25 gift card to Walmart, Cash Saver or Kroger.
Braxton Dagg, a junior IMC major and ASB secretary, led the program and commented on the amount of support the event received.
“The ASB office was overflowing with donations, and I’ve never been so thankful,” Dagg said. “Thank you Ole Miss and the LOU community for giving back.”
Riley O’Neal, a senior public policy major andASB’s Undersecretary of Operations, helped arrange the event.
“We know that Thanksgiving is a very important holiday, and it can be a very expensive meal to plan and prepare,” O’Neal said. “So our hope is that everybody that wants to celebrate Thanksgiving or have a nice meeting with their family can have this opportunity.”
ASB members and volunteers packaged the boxes through an assembly line.
Walker Jacklin, a junior public policy leadership major, was surprised by the efficiency of the event.
“The turnout was absolutely unreal,” Jacklin said. “The amount of work that was put into this in order to supply these packages and meals for the community really shows the impact that can happen when different groups around our campus are willing to come together and give back, especially during the holiday season.”
ASB Vice President Jack Jones shared similar sentiments.
“Braxton did a great job this year,” Jones said. “It took only about 30 minutes to do it when in years past, it’s taken several hours to do it. He improved the entire system of it, and it was really seamless.”
Several people outside of ASB attended the event to volunteer. According to O’Neal, roughly 150 volunteers assisted in packaging boxes.
“We had so many volunteers this year,” O’Neal said. “We had a bunch of people from ASB come out, and we also had other organizations reach out to us that said that they wanted to help us pack, which was great. It takes a lot of people to get it done, but since we had so many people this year, that’s how we got it done so quickly.”
ASB Senator Troy Christian, a sophomore multidisciplinary studies major, attended the event and shared his thoughts on the amount of people willing to help.
“I really enjoyed seeing the great turnout for the Adopt a Basket event sponsored by the Associated Student Body this evening,” Christian said. “It warms my heart seeing the hard work and dedication of future innovators and world leaders striving to help our community.”
Christian is also Vice President of Men of Excellence and was pleased to see some members within the organization volunteer to help.
“Our brothers continue to excel and exemplify excellence every chance they get, and it is no surprise that our brothers showed up to work the minute they arrived at Adopt a Basket,” Christian said. “Our mission is to serve our community, and that is what we did tonight.”
