Building bridges: Citizen Katie connects campus with furniture bank
By Mia Timlin
At the beginning of the month, St. Kate’s hosted their 20th annual Citizen Katie, an October event that gives students and community members an opportunity to volunteer their time to a community-impact project. This year, projects included Empty Bowls, the Welcoming the Dear Neighbor? Project, the Dialysis Sweatshirt Project, working in the St. Kate’s/CSJ garden and for the third year, building dressers for Bridging.
Bridging is a furniture bank that provides donated furniture and other household essentials to people transitioning out of homelessness. The organization started in 1987, in Eden Prairie, Minn., and since its founding has grown to have two locations in both Bloomington and Roseville while serving nearly 110,000 households and over 330,000 individuals. According to their website, Bridging eliminates 11 million pounds of waste each year that would otherwise go to landfills.
Through Citizen Katie, volunteers were able to assemble 50 dressers in the Butler Center to donate to Bridging, an endeavor that was funded by Student Senate.
“Bridging is a good opportunity to do good work for a local organization, and not just do it, but do it with the St. Kate’s community,” says Senate Official Melody Her ‘24 (Political Science/Economics, Criminal Justice minor).
The impact of the partnership between Citizen Katie and Bridging on the broader community was one of the biggest things that played into Student Senate’s decision to help fund the dresser-building, according to Senate President Louise Ba ‘24 (Political Science/Economics/Public Policy).
“There were a lot of opportunities for Student Senate and CFW to get involved in a partnership,” says Ba. “One of the main thoughts that we had was, ‘How come no one has gotten involved with this organization in the past?’ We’ve been doing [Citizen Katie] for so long.”
Bridging invited members of Student Senate to tour their facilities, which Ba describes as “smooth” and “impressive,” and get a firsthand look at the work that the funding is doing.
“It was the best thing in the world honestly, to be able to see that over half of the dressers that we built were already donated — and we had Citizen Katie on a Saturday and we went to Bridging the next Thursday, so they were going really fast,” says Ba. “It was really nice to see the impact that we had on this amazing organization, and how we can work to continue that.”
Beyond just seeing the tangible effects of Senate’s funding, Ba, Her and Senate Chair Mahalia Norton ‘23 (Political Science/Legal Studies) saw some connections between Bridging’s work and the mission of Student Senate.
“We give back to our community,” says Norton, on the place of Senate’s role in the community. “We see real life happen, but we also get to bridge that gap.”
“It’s about cultivating leadership skills,” says Her. “Bridging centers voices who have used their services. In some ways Senate does the same in that we’re centering the voices of the student body.”
You can learn more about or volunteer with Bridging on their website!
