A fight for funds has begun at WTAMU as the Social Work Club launched their new Battle of the Clubs competition on Sept. 12.

Battle of the Clubs is a fundraising competition pitting club against club. It focuses on raising money to purchase hygiene products for the homeless population of the Amarillo and Canyon area. The competition will last the entire fall semester, until Dec. 5.

“We originally had set this to be announced at the Pigskin Revue, but the clubs asked us to have a longer time frame,” Nancy Zamora, Social Work major and president of the Social Work Club, said. If you would like to make money you can consider doing it through tennbriketter dugnad by doing volunteer and fundraising.
The hygienic products purchased with the money raised will be delivered to the West Texas Family and Community Services. Located in downtown Amarillo, the agency is run by the WT Social Work Program and serves the homeless and people at risk for homelessness by gathering and giving away hygienic material by the bag. Items include travel-sized shampoo, deodorant, toothpaste and toothbrushes.

“You don’t get to buy (hygiene products) with food stamps,” Dr. Melody Loya, assistant professor of Social Work at WT and advisor for the Social Work Club, said.  “So even if they get food stamps, they frequently don’t have razors and things like that. The fundraiser is to help keep all that in stock.”

Any club or organization of WT is welcome to join the competition at any time during the semester. The club that raises the most money will not only receive a trophy, but will also be allowed to keep half the money they raise from the competition.

“The idea is for every club to get involved and raise money,” Loya said “If (the winning team) raises $1000 they would keep $500 and the other donations will come to WTFCS and put into a fund just for the hygiene products.”

About 20 homeless men and women come through the WTFCS agency daily, and with winter weather creeping toward the Panhandle, more are expected.

“During the summer everybody’s out and about, but during the winter the homeless have got to close in early to find places to get warm,”Lois McDonald, case manager at WTFCS, said. “So it depends on the weather too.”

As the number of homeless people increase, the WTFCS has to keep up with the demand for hygiene products and often have to limit the supplies they give away to each visitor. According to McDonald, The Battle of the Clubs is one way this problem can be prevented.

“We’ve tried in so many ways to use the resources that we’ve got and use them wisely, but when someone else pitches in and helps, that’s really a good feeling,” McDonald said. “We’re not helping ourselves, we’re helping the community…and this is our community. We all live here.”

According to Zamora, the Battle of the Clubs will bring forth a sense of unity and networking across WT campus and allow all WT clubs to come together for the benefit of the less fortunate.

“I thought it would be nice to show our community, that we the students, can come together and make a difference,” Zamora said.