The university’s Greek community joined together with crayons and scissors in hand, ready to give children in need school supplies to help them further their learning into the summer months.  
Organized by the Order of Omega, the Greek community of Southeastern competed to raise school supplies for The Summer BLAST Project. This Hammond-based campaign aims to distribute backpacks of educational materials to children whose families cannot afford to reinforce schooling into the summer.
“We bring it to the church, and they bring it to kids in need. All around the Hammond area they collect school supplies and divide them into backpacks and give them to kids who especially need school supplies,” said Caitlin Dupay, a sophomore studying business management, who helped to load the supplies.
This year various fraternities and sororities of Southeastern collected 8,471 items, more than quadrupling the amount collected in previous years. 2,500 backpacks were collected, and each item granted a certain amount of points to their group. These items were sorted, counted and delivered by the members of the Order of Omega to First United Methodist Church of Hammond.
Patti Gautreaux, the head of the project and resident of Hammond, was inspired to start the project by a child she met during her 23 years of teaching kindergarten. This child had not used a pencil or paper before he entered her class. The project hopes to serve the needs of children from Head Start to second grade throughout most of the Hammond and Tangipahoa area.
“It’s mainly for deserving children, children that cannot afford stuff like school supplies for summer time like crayons, markers, and activity books,” Said Gautreaux, who was amazed at the amount collected by the Greek community.
“We’re going to have enough to give a lot of kids supplies for the summer,” said Gautreaux as she looked at the magnitude of the donation that was delivered.
The Summer BLAST Program was greatly aided by this donation, and hopes to extend their collection to further help the children in need. Members of the Order of Omega plan to continue this event into further years, with goals to help many more children in need.
“We’re going to try and keep it going every year,” said Gautreaux.
If interested in donating to The Summer BLAST Project, contact Gautreaux at [email protected] or call 985-974-9762.