The end of the fall semester offers an opportunity for students to remove their library fines and donate to charity at the same time.

Syracuse University and State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry are holding Food for Fines amnesty day Thursday, which takes $1 off of students’ library fines for every nonperishable food donation.

All food collections this year will go to Syracuse Downtown Emergency Services for distribution across Onondaga County.

Peter Parillo, director of downtown Syracuse’s Cathedral Emergency Services, works with the libraries to arrange the donations to the food pantry. Cathedral Emergency Services gives out about 650,000 cans of food per year. In addition to the food drive, Cathedral Emergency Services has turkeys and food baskets during Thanksgiving and serves breakfast on Christmas Day, Parillo said.

With the involvement of the libraries, Parillo said, more food can be given to the hungry.

The program collected 1,484 cans last year, said Bevan Angier, a supervisor at Bird Library.

‘It’s not a huge fundraiser, but it’s a good enough effort,’ she said. Angier said she has seen students bring in cases of cans and collected from students without fines.

The United States Department of Agriculture reported Nov. 16 that in 2008, 17 million U.S. households had trouble putting food on the table. This was the highest rate of food scarcity in households since the department’s first report in 1995.

In 2001, SU started the amnesty campaign when an ESF student talked with Angier about a similar program at ESF’s Moon Library. The program ran twice at SU before being stopped because the university was losing revenue, Angier said.

In 2006, it began again and has operated with ESF once each spring and fall semester since.

Steve Weiter, director of Moon Library, said he did not consider library fines as a penalty or source of revenue, but as a way to ensure materials be returned.

‘It is pretty easy to offer ‘amnesty’ for fines in return for a donation of food for the needy at this time of year,’ he said.

Despite hard economic times, Bonnie Charity, circulation manager at ESF’s Moon Library, believes people donate more during times of need. Food donations offer an easy way for students to help themselves and others. ‘It’s not a lot to put in a backpack,’ she said. Charity remembers collecting enough cans from one student to pay an $80 fine.

The spirit of giving is key to the success of the program, Charity said.

‘This year, especially with the economy, it’s going to be well received by food banks,’ Charity said.

For at least 10 years, Charity has been involved with the program. She said she feels good with each item she collects.

Before ESF operated the program in conjunction with SU, Charity took donations from Moon Library to various food banks in the area, some of which, she said, had bare shelves.

Donations will be collected from 8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday in the business office in the lower level of Bird Library, as well as any branch library or reading room and the SU Law Library. Moon Library will be collecting donations from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.

dkmcbrid@syr.edu

Published on December 2, 2009 at 12:00 pm

Contact Dara: dkmcbrid@syr.edu | @daramcbride