By Spencer Bates

Throughout the month of March, SHOP (Students Helping Oz Peers), SUNY Oswego’s on-campus food pantry, has conducted the March Madness Bottle Drive.

A competition between club sports programs, Assistant Director of SHOP Caryn Nabrizny based the idea off of the NCAA March Madness tournaments that take place during the month of March. While the original plan was to get 10 or more clubs involved, due to short notice they ended up with five. Women’s club basketball, women’s club rugby, men’s and women’s club volleyball and the equestrian team have each been participating in the program in which the women’s club basketball team is leading the race.

Nabrizny said that SHOP had to pivot from a bracket style competition to more of a race where the five clubs will race to see who can collect the most bottles by the end of March. However, people not involved in the club sports teams participating in the bottle drive are still encouraged to help by reaching out to whichever team they want to support.

“I gave them [the club teams] the option of of going out and asking their friends,” Nabrizny said. “It doesn’t necessarily have to just be them alone, but obviously it’s whatever the club wanted to do. If they have their own system or they want to outreach I was more than happy to let them do so.”

According to Helena Buttons, Director of SHOP, the program is in partnership with Great Lakes Redemption Center. All cans and bottles that are collected will be sent there and all money raised will go to SHOP.

The bottle drive will end March 31 but Nabrizny has said that this program was designed to have longer term effects as well. Reaching out and making connections with the club sports teams is something that SHOP has been wanting to do for a while.

“The whole idea of the bottle drive was to outreach to the club sports because the main goal of SHOP is to reach out to the campus community and I’m like ‘what’s one area that doesn’t know much,’” Nabrizny said. “So the whole point was to make sure they know SHOP was there while also doing the whole fundraiser so that they know what they’re doing is going towards something. So short term it’s going to end in March for the bottle drive but long term I hope they know that SHOP is still here.”

Nabrizny said there are others who are working with fraternities and sororities and that SHOP is trying to solidify these partnerships so that in the future they can do more events and programs with the help of these organizations.

“Whoever’s working next year on this can get more clubs involved so it will be more successful than the first time around.”

With less than a week left in SHOP’s March Madness Bottle Drive, students who are interested in helping are encouraged to get in contact with representatives whichever club sports team they would like to support in the race.

Image via SHOP Instagram