As a member of Frewsburg’s NHS, Becker said she is required to do one service project for the community, and that she wanted to do something big for it compared to something simpler. Becker chose to do a clothing drive for UPMC Chautauqua Chemical dependency and Mental Health units after seeing an anonymous post on Facebook asking for winter clothing, new packages of underwear, socks, shoes and jackets for patients of those units.

“I had to create posters and flyers to put up around school and share it on social media,” Becker said. “We had a large cardboard box in the front of the school for people to drop items off at. We had bags of clothing dropped off at our house. We had at least 25 bags overall.”

While this is not something Becker has done before, it is something that she said that they would like to continue doing in the community with the NHS. She added that all of the support she received from the community was “very rewarding”.

As far as dropping off the clothes at the hospital went, Becker said they took all of the clothes in a large trailer and had to take multiple trips.

Addison Becker pictured with UPMC employees. Submitted photo

“It was cool to see it all piled up,” Becker said. “The director of UPMC Chemical Dependency was there, with a lot of the staff, and the head, Suzanne Hummel, who is great,” Becker said.

For Becker, this project became not just something that is important to her, but something she said showed just how much the community cared as well.

“This project meant a lot because I was able to see people in the community care about others and that it was important to others and not just me,” Becker said. “With that amount of clothes we are going to be able to help so many in the area.”

Becker thanked those in the community that supported her drive, saying that there were new packs of things like underwear and socks that were donated, and that somebody donated hats and scarves that they had knitted themselves. The items will be used at the chemical dependency, mental health, residential program and warming unit of UPMC.

“People care a lot,” Becker said. “It was very good to see.”

Addison Becker drops off some of the collected clothing at UPMC. Submitted photo