Utah Tech University’s Be the Light Club hosted its Crafting for a Cause night March 24 in the Gardner Student Center’s Ballroom.
Students were able to create crafts for children with cancer at Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City. Tables provided supplies for various crafts such as bracelets, pipe cleaner flowers, keychains and port pillows to help protect chemo ports from seat belt irritation. There were also drawing and painting materials to make posters and notes for patients.
Avery Lee, a senior nursing major from Boise, Idaho, is the president and founder of the Be the Light Club. Lee founded the club to spread love and light to those affected by cancer through creating awareness and involving college students in acts of service.
“The whole name ‘Be the Light’ comes from childhood cancer, and it’s a dark time for both the kid, their family and everyone around them,” Lee said. “So we just want to be a little bit of light in that darkness. These crafts will hopefully brighten someone’s day.”
The club usually has weekly meetings on Thursdays, but for this event, the club’s presidency wanted to do something bigger to get more involvement.
Taylor Jones, a freshman general studies major from Hooper, is the vice president of the club.
“I think something that we’ve done really well is reach out to all the different businesses in the community and get their feedback on what we can do,” Jones said. “People from the community don’t really come to the school for help but go to other places, so we reach out to them to make that connection.”
The club often holds meetings to give back to the community around it. Some previous meetings they’ve had involved making dental kits, decorating ornaments for the hospital and making homemade pet treats for the Humane Society of Utah.
“We make things like crafts or kind things for the community,” said Jaidyn Kinnear, a sophomore psychology major from Coalville, who is in charge of the social media for the Be the Light Club. “We’ve done it for the hospital, for pets and animals shelters, women shelters, just a bunch of different things.”
The club is a newer club on campus. Through the Crafting for a Cause event, they hope to expand and share with people what they do so more people can participate.
“Out of this event, specifically, I hope it reaches more people,” Jones said. “Just to give people a taste of what we do but also what they can do to help other people.”
At the Crafting for a Cause event, students who attended were able to serve through volunteering.
“I hope from this event, people can take away kindness and giving back, and knowing that any action is a good action and people will appreciate it,” Kinnear said.
