“I don´t ever want to move away,” Victoria Lujan said. “I don´t know that we will find someplace else that will treat somebody like this and just take them as family.”
Faculty and students have joined together to help six WTAMU students get back on their feet after an apartment fire on Aug. 29 destroyed their homes.
“They are our students and we need to do everything we can and make them successful,” Dr. Don Albrecht, Vice President for Student Affairs, said. “When a student has an emergency, we need to see what we can do to help them through the emergency.”
He also said anyone interested in donating can bring items to the Office of Student Government.
“Anything [that] you think they can use, bring them to us. We will let them know we have it,” Dr. Albrecht said.
Student Body President Brandy Roberts said that Student Government will hold fundraisers throughout the week to raise money for the students affected.
“You can either buy a raffle ticket for a gift card gift basket or a movie gift basket,” she said. “Next Friday, I believe, we are going to do the drawing to see who wins.”
The raffle ticket for the gift card gift basket will be $5 and the movie gift basket will cost $1. Roberts said another way Student Government is helping raise money is through a Resident Assistant challenge.
“I sent a memo to all the RA´s challenging them to try to raise the most money for their hall and we will give them desserts for their next hall council,” she said.
WT has also given each student a book scholarship to replace their books.
“We put that straight into their Buffalo Gold Card so they can get whatever they need for their books and supplies,” Dr. Albrecht said.
Aside from the help offered by WT, the Department of Agricultural Sciences has expanded their aid to Andrea Spencer, Jake Becker and Victoria Lujan, two graduate students and an alumna of the department who were affected by the fire.
“In Ag we are a community,” Dr. Dean Hawkins, department head for Agricultural Sciences, said. “We say a ‘hand-up,’ not a ‘handout’.”
The department offered the students housing at the Ag education house where they are currently living.
“The Ag department is letting Jake and Andrea live here because they are both still students. I used to be a student, but I graduated,” Lujan, an Agricultural Communication alumna, said. “I am going to live with my friend until I can get on my feet.”
She said all of WT has been helpful, but the Agricultural Science department was the first to step up and contact people.
“They set up a fund for all three of us for people to go give money at the First United Bank,” Lujan said. “They contacted all kinds of people within the A&M System to get us furniture and anything we need that we lost.”
Spencer said the best way for other students and community members to help them is by donating toiletry items such as toothpaste and toilet paper.
“If they want to help, there is a donation under the Ag department or Dr. Hawkins’ name,” she said.
The three other students affected by the fire are freshmen Gabrielle Cantu, Cynthia Estrada and Janeth Estrada.
Dr. Albrecht said that these students have family in the area, so WT did not have the immediate need of finding them a place to stay.
“It may be that the Ag students got some immediate help quicker, but they didn´t have another place to go either,” Dr. Albrecht said. “They needed a place to spend the night and the Ag folks helped them right away.”
He also said that WT is waiting for the students to know what their needs are in order to give them more help.
“When I talked to one of the non-Ag students, I just told her ´I know there is more help, but we don´t know how to help you. Tell us what you need,´” Dr. Albrecht said. “If they were able to say ´what we need is…´ then we will put the word out there.”
