Members of the Student Government Association and the 25 sororities and fraternities on campus at Sam Houston State University teamed up last week to donate what SGA president Tyler Eberhart said was “an unbelievable amount of supplies for the wildfire efforts.”

The idea for a fundraiser for the fire relief effort originated with volunteer firefighter and SHSU student senior Chelsia Standiford.

“She came to the SGA office and suggested that we do a drive for supplies to go to the Texas Relief Fund,” Eberhart said. “We planned to make two trips to send supplies. The first trip we brought 120 cases of water for rescuers.”

By the time SGA was ready for the second trip to send supplies, Eberhart said that he heard about the canned food drive going on for Greek Week, which happened from Sept. 25 to Oct. 1, and saw an opportunity for the two organizations to team up.

During Greek Week, the 25 Greek houses donated together 9,000 cans of food, with SGA donating another 1,000 cans. They also donated more than 6,000 bottles of water and 1,000 lbs. of animal feed.

“I am so incredibly proud of the fact that all this started with one student and turned into a ridiculously amazing turnout of teamwork and relief effort on campus,” Eberhart said.

“We had people jumping in to help and everyone worked so hard on this project. It made a world of difference to those people affected by the wildfires. I think it really reflects the spirit and pride that SHSU students have for their organizations, school and also for their community.”