Wake Forest University students will gather on Manchester Plaza from 3 to 7 p.m. on April 16 to paint and donate desks for area elementary students. This annual service project began on campus in 2004 and is called Developing Education through Student Knowledge (D.E.S.K). The goal is to provide desks, chairs, and school supplies for children in the Winston-Salem community who are in need of a study space in their homes.
The service project was started by Tierney Kraft and Elizabeth Eubank while they were Wake Forest students after they identified a lack of workspace in the homes of the students they tutored. To address this problem, Kraft and Eubank created D.E.S.K to provide restored desks for selected Old Town Elementary students.
Student organizations—representing fraternities and sororities, sports teams, clubs and student government — have signed up to paint desks for 55 children from Old Town Elementary. The schoolchildren will be on campus from 3:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. and will also be given T-shirts and books. Each child is paired with a team of students who paint the desk according to the child’s interests.
This year’s student organizers are seniors Meredith Browne and McKenna Begin.
“This is a creative way to get kids excited about doing their homework,” said Begin, who has helped with the event since her freshman year.
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About Wake Forest University: Wake Forest University combines the best traditions of a small liberal arts college with the resources of a large research university. Founded in 1834, the school is located in Winston-Salem, N.C. The University’s graduate school of arts and sciences, divinity school, and nationally ranked schools of law, medicine and business enrich our intellectual environment. Learn more about Wake Forest University at www.wfu.edu.
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