Mason Cru hosts third annual Love Week

Photo courtesy of Mason Cru

Mason students were able to show their love for Botswana in Mason’s third annual Love Week, hosted by Mason’s ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ, in association with Global Aid Network (GAIN) on Nov. 8.

Over 400 volunteers packed boxes full of school supplies in Dewberry Hall to be sent to Botswana. Volunteers also wrote encouraging letters and filmed video messages to accompany the educational packs. A fundraiser on Nov. 7 at Panda Express raised $221 for the event, according to the Love Week facebook page.

“We ended up packing 2,500 educational care packs, which is 500 more than our goal was,” Erwin Camacho Jr., the director of GMU Love Week and systems engineering major, wrote in an email.

According to Camacho, “approximately 30 student organizations, several sections of the University-100 class, and the international floor at Hampton Roads” participated in the event.

Love Week 2012 focused on Old Naledi, a subdivision of Gaborone, the capital of Botswana.

An extended summary of Love Botswana on the Cru website states “as of September 2012, 70 percent of all Old Naledi children attending school drop out before reaching high school.”

Camacho expressed hopes that Love Botswana would make a difference in the lives of Old Naledi students.

“[We] hope to increase the number of students that do go into high school and into college, so that they can become the future leaders and problem-solvers that their country needs,” Camacho wrote in an email.

According to their website, Cru partnered with groups such as GAIN, Naledi Baptist Fellowship, Tlamelo Feeding Station, and an orphanage in Botswana, to help create Love Week 2012.

Camacho wrote in an email that the educational packs “will be distributed to children who will be involved in a mentorship program run by university students from the University of Botswana.”

Mason’s Love Week began in 2010 with Love Haiti, through which Cru raised money by selling t-shirts. Volunteers packed seed packets to aid in subsistence farming during Love Week 2011 which focused on the new nation of South Sudan.

According to Camacho, this is the first Love Week organized solely by students.

“This year instead of having a staff member direct, we had a four-student panel of Directors,” Camacho said.

The event included snacks, dance breaks, and a visit from the Mason G—Men who showed support by offering encouraging words.

“[It] was a great success and we look forward to seeing this happen in the years to come and for it to become a tradition among the Mason community,” Camacho wrote in an email. “This is the simple idea behind GMU Love Week – that by reaching out to those in the global community who are most in need, each and every member of the Mason family has the power to actually change the world.”