One of the packages that The Kindness Project sends out to students who may have had a bad day or needed some extra support. Credit: Courtesy of Marla Gitelson-O’Brian
Ohio State students are getting a mother’s love delivered to their door by a group of parents assembling care packages.
Ohio State mom Marla Gitelson-O’Brian said she saw a group on Facebook at another university with a similar mission, and this prompted her to bring the idea to Ohio State, where her son Tyler O’Brian, a fourth-year in criminal justice, attends. Since the project’s start in November 2019, more than 100 Ohio State students have received care packages from the Kindness Project.
The Kindness Project gathered hundreds of contributors to help students who may have had a bad day or needed some extra support. Gitelson-O’Brian said the packages consist of razors, soap, shaving cream, tampons, snacks, microwavable dinners, cereal bars and a $20 gift card to select restaurants on North High Street.
“We describe it as: We’re a group of Buckeye parents that want to spread the love to all students and let them know people care about them,” Gitelson-O’Brian said.
The project coordinates distribution with the Office of Diversity and Inclusion and the Student Advocacy Center, which select students they believe are in need of support. The parents are unaware of students’ identities and are only told by the two offices the number of packages they need to make.
The Kindness Project delivers the packages to the offices on Sunday mornings, and the offices organize where the packages go from there, Gitelson-O’Brian said.
During the first delivery in November, Gitelson-O’Brian said there were 80 gender-specific packages and 20 nonspecific packages given out.
The project created a Facebook page called “Ohio State University (OSU) Parents & Alumni Giving” Jan. 23 to make it easier to share information with other parents without it getting lost in a larger Ohio State parent group that has more than 4,000 members, Gitelson-O’Brian said. The kindness group had 371 members at the time of publication.
“Even when we did the first care package, and I was overwhelmed on how many donations, I had so many parents tell me, ‘I didn’t even know about it. I would have sent you some,’” Gitelson-O’Brian said.
In the Facebook group, the project announced a February collaboration with Buckeye Food Alliance, an on-campus food pantry. According to the Facebook posts, monetary contributions, Amazon packages with baking supplies, spices, pasta, coffee grounds, toilet paper, personal-care items and cereal are all accepted. Students with meal plans can also donate swipes to BFA through Virtual Donations on Grubhub, and parents are able to donate to giveto.osu.edu.
BFA collected more than $400 worth of food, spices, seasonings, coffee and baking essentials for the Kindness Project Feb. 4. Another $370 order was made Feb. 9. According to a Facebook post, a Feb. 16 order brought the total to $1,600.
Before the Kindness Project began, Ohio State alumna and parent Crystal Duncan said about 12 families would create care packages for their own children at Ohio State in 2017 and 2018 by gathering in Panera Bread’s community room to assemble care packages with food, snacks and items such as stress balls. The packages would then be delivered to students’ residence halls.
“I just thought it would be really sweet to have local parents actually put something together and then deliver it to them at the door,” Duncan said.
The parents received an excess of donations for the care packages, and as a result, they gave out random acts-of-kindness packages to students on the Oval, Duncan said. However, the project slowed down when their own children did not need as many care packages.
“After assembling so many care packages with so much stuff that our kids weren’t in need of, Marla suggested maybe we try to find a way to help kids who didn’t actually have parental support while they were at college,” she said.
Gitelson-O’Brian and other mothers received thank-you cards from the students who received the care packages, which encouraged them to continue their efforts, Duncan said.
The Kindness Project plans to continue sending care packages in March, Gitelson-O’Brian said. The project is organizing another food drive with BFA in April and a school-supply drive in August.
