Operation Donation fights local poverty

Mike Ilardi Staff Writer

Here’s something to think about: While Vassar students are busy studying, 2.5 billion people, or 40 percent of the world’s population, are trying to survive on less than $2 each day. For 1.2 billion of those individuals, that daily income is less than $1.

Operation Donation (OD) is an anti-poverty group founded by Jimmy Kelly ’09 during his freshman year at Vassar. It works to combat poverty through awareness and action, which Kelly calls a “double-A” program. OD is dedicated to addressing poverty on the local, national and global levels. “Poverty is a real issue. We need to take action,” said Kelly.

On a local level, OD uses funds raised by its members to purchase “basic food and hygiene products in order to enhance the basic quality of life for Dutchess County residents in need,” said Kelly. “Since we’re entering into a recession, food prices are going up exponentially.” OD runs grocery drives at the local Stop and Shop, “getting as much as we can for the least amount of money possible,” said OD President Rachel Glicksman ’09. This semester alone the organization has raised $11,921. Their yearly total was $15,779 as of April 24.

In addition to providing basic food and hygenic items, OD assists Poughkeepsie’s youth at The River Haven, a shelter located on Catherine Street that provides crisis intervention services and emergency shelter to homeless and runaway youth. Glicksman said that OD is currently working to establish an on-call tutoring system in which volunteer members of OD would be ready during certain hours of the week to go to the shelter and assist youth in need. In addition, Glicksman said that during the last Parents Weekend on April 11-13, eight River Haven youths came to campus and attended events, including a Barefoot Monkeys show.

The group has been working on a larger scale as well, having spent one day each semester in Washington, D.C. lobbying for change. Kelly explained that “Charity is a starting point. To really end poverty, you need to interact with those in power.”

And that is exactly what OD did. The first lobbying day addressed the creation of an equitable farm bill to protect small farmers. Students in OD lobbied several senators, stressing that 90 percent of agricultural subsidies are centralized into five key crops (corn, wheat, rice, cotton and soy), but that 72 percent of those subsidies go to the top 10 percent of farmers. This drastically unequal distribution of funds hurts foreign farmers as well as domestic ones, as it results in the overproduction of crops in the United States.

The second lobbying trip centered on climate change. “The developed world has done the most to negatively contribute to climate change, but those in developing countries will be affected most,” Kelly said. Many developing countries rely heavily on the agriculture industry, which will be impacted if major changes are not immediately implemented. The most important of these changes would be a cap on greenhouse gas emissions, which would reduce emissions by two percent each year through 2050.

Next semester, because nearly all legislative attention will be turned toward the 2008 election, OD is planning to “take off from lobbying,” according to Vice President Dorie Obertello ’11. Although the group regarded the days spent in Washington as highly effective, Obertello said that next semester’s resources could be used most efficiently by “channeling energy in a more local way.”

One event already in the works is a fair trade bazaar next semester. This event has taken place in the past, but has always been hosted at an off-campus location.

Obertello is optimistic for the future. “Considering how much money the organization was able to raise for the Poughkeepsie community this year, I think we’ve shown that we can make a big difference locally,” she said. “I think we’ll be able to do a lot more next year, as well.”