Arcadia University student and alumni volunteers and the Community and Civic Engagement Center continued on with their collection through freezing temperatures during the Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service on Jan. 21.

Even with subzero “feels like” temperatures, over 90 volunteers collected items from vehicles and sorted donations for 10 area organizations that were part of the Repurpose, eWaste, and Shredding event. Thousands of cars waited along the loop around campus, as well as off Church Road, to donate gently used and new items to Cradles to Crayons, the Women’s Humane Society, New Life Thrift, Salvation Army, Philadelphia READS Book Bank, Throwback Thrift, Women’s Veterans Center, Habitat for Humanity of Montgomery and Delaware Counties, VMC Thrift Store, Face to Face, and The Joy of Sox, an organization new to the event that distributes new socks to homeless individuals throughout the Philadelphia area.

611 Metals Recycling collected eWaste for the ethical disposal of electronics, while ShredOne was on hand for the safe and guaranteed shredding of documents.

“I feel like people have had a great attitude dealing with the cold,” said CCEC student organizer Kiara Jacoby ’20. “We can’t have people out in the cold for too long, so we’ve had to change our volunteer schedule, and we had some last-minute preparations for hot drinks and food. However, nothing has affected how we’re collecting items and helping the community, which is the important thing to us.”

Through the generous donations of the community, six box trucks and eight vans were filled for the nonprofit organizations, while approximately seven tons of eWaste was ethically recycled and two trucks were filled with shredded documents.