Volunteer Without Borders hosted a car wash fundraiser dubbed “Vehicles Without Borders” Oct. 12. At the circle in front of Carriage House (the small building behind the Tilghman House parking lot), cars in need of a bath could line up and get an exterior car wash for only $5.
According to Elliot Franklyn (’25), the co-president of Volunteer Without Borders, Volunteer Without Borders is a student organization at Drew that hosts weeklong trips during spring break, winter break and summer break. During these trips, members of Volunteer Without Borders work on-site with a local community partner or organization in order to help them accomplish their community-oriented missions and goals.
Volunteer Without Borders has traveled within the United States to many locations in need of support. “For the past two winters, we’ve gone to New Orleans,” Franklyn said, “We’ve worked with two different organizations. So, we’ve worked with Lower Nine. That was about helping to rebuild houses that were still affected by Hurricane Katrina. That was two winters ago.” This last winter, Volunteer Without Borders helped Common Ground Relief by planting 2,000 trees in a week in order to help fight coastline removal.
During most spring breaks, Volunteer Without Borders goes to West Virginia to help Coal River Mountain Watch, whose mission is to stop mountaintop removal coal mining. During the spring break trips, Franklyn said that they “spend the week learning about mountaintop removal coal mining, visiting old sites and active sites, seeing the effects firsthand and learning about the people who are affected by it.”
When asked why Volunteer Without Borders was hosting a car wash fundraiser, Franklyn mentioned that the travel budget for the organization has been cut by Drew this year to help mitigate university debt. Facing a budget crisis, the board of Volunteer Without Borders asked themselves how they could fundraise so they could still go on trips to support communities in need. Two ideas came out of this: a bake sale that happened during Parent’s Weekend in late September, and the wash fundraiser, which was scheduled for October before the weather gets too cold.
Thankfully, Volunteer Without Borders was able to get the help they needed in order to put on a successful “Vehicles Without Borders” fundraiser. They were able to get supplies from Facebook Marketplace, and friends of Mika Bidiak (‘27), the co-vice president of Volunteer Without Borders, also donated buckets and sponges. Both Bidiak and Cass Perez (‘27), the other co-vice president of Volunteer Without Borders, were able to provide a hose. Supporters from Drew’s Action Scholars program, the Madison Community Facebook Page and Drew University’s Yik Yak page were able to contribute their supplies and time as well. In other words, Volunteer Without Borders received what they have provided for so many communities across the country: indispensable support.
Some future events Volunteer Without Borders are planning are a Chipotle fundraiser as early as February 2025 and another Vehicles Without Borders event in the Spring 2025 semester. They are also interested in any kind of event that they can abbreviate into “VWB,” like Vehicles Without Borders, for example.
The next Volunteer Without Borders trip is a collaboration with Community Collaborations International (CCI), which specializes in disaster relief across the world. Their collaboration is meant to support those affected by Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton over the past month in states like Florida, Georgia and North Carolina. Applications for students to take the trip and volunteer will be available in late October.
Michael Indovina is a senior majoring in English, minoring in Theater Arts.
Featured Image courtesy of Michael Indovina.
