Collective Power

The Warmth for the Millyard warm clothing drive began for me this fall as a member of Kate Hansen’s Intro to Community Leadership class. One of the first things we did was to write a mission statement:

The mission of the Warmth from the Millyard Project (Fall2009) was to mobilize the UNH Manchester community in a winter clothing drive to demonstrate our collective power to address the community need for warm clothes through collaborative partnerships.

I was intrigued and inspired by the words collective power. Did this class of 8 have the collective power to address these needs?

As I look back I am amazed, in the course of 3 months this group mobilized the UNH Manchester students, faculty and staff. Who in turn used their collective powers to assist our core group. Our primary goal was to collect 700 pieces of clothing for three local agencies. We exceeded that goal by collecting over 5,000 pieces of warm clothing. We have provided warm clothes to more than 8 local organizations, which will keep hundreds of people warm this winter.

Not only is our success gauged in numbers of clothes collected. I feel that the real success was in the awareness that we created. Through our collective powers we informed our school community, co-workers, families and friends, and the NH community of the need for warm clothing in their community.

Through our collective power we became a place to go if you were in need, we didn’t turn anyone away, we tried to meet the needs of anyone that requested our service.

We collaborated with many groups outside of the UNH Manchester community to communicate the extensive needs of the community. We had a presence on both NHPR and WZID, both stations broadcast to thousands of NH residents.

At the conclusion of the official clothing drive, we celebrated with many of the partners that were made over the course of the project. I was proud to see what the collective power of the Community Leadership program had achieved, a program that will continue to provide warm clothing not only in the Manchester community but throughout the state of New Hampshire.

- Mary Ann Allsop