-: The moment where I,
my leadership and my experiences as a student,
all home together to really launch
was when I founded the BSU care bag initiative.
So it was in the summer of 2020.
A lot of us black students were watching
George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Briana Taylor.
And it seemed like life after life being lost
all across the media.
And at the same time,
all the national news channels were telling us that
black communities in the U S were dying at a higher rate.
And, sorry.
As a student and as a black woman living in this country,
I understood that I had a duty to my community.
So I called up my friends that go here to UNL.
And we were like, hey, like we have to do something.
We really felt a strong sense of urgency as well.
So we got together,
we created this graphic on Canva,
and like, we sent it out on our social medias
and we're just asking for donations.
We definitely thought we were going to get like
$100, $200.
I woke up the next morning to like
a thousand dollars in our Venmo account.
I had breakfast, $7,000 in our Venmo account,
had lunch, It was $14,000 in our Venmo account.
So we definitely like launched off.
And that same day we went to Walmart
and started gathering supplies.
We got disinfection wipes, groceries,
really the needed items,
wellness items to help people combat the COVID-19 pandemic,
and also give them the literal resources they needed
to stay healthy during that time.
And we drove up to UNL
and we told everyone that signed up for a care bag
to meet us at the loop,
right by the Jackie Gaughan multicultural center.
We couldn't even find parking
because of how many people had showed up
to get a care bag that day.
And I'll never forget the one mother we met,
she was a mother, a single mother of four,
who came up to us and started bawling her eyes out
and telling us that,
because of this initiative and because of the groceries
that we gave her that week,
it was going to help her survive the next two weeks
of the pandemic. And I guess that really kind of hit home,
like, my duty that I have to like the communities
outside of UNL.
And also the skills and resources
that UNL has helped me cultivate and learn
and really gather to help my peers and I
come together to create such, like, an impactful initiative.
And I definitely will always remember that moment
for the rest of my life.