For many students at Auburn, Parking Services is their worst enemy.
We’ve all seen them prowling around campus at some point in our college career, just waiting to give us a ticket and ruin our day.
Some individuals have even made social media accounts to show their annoyance and disgust with Parking Services. One parody account on Twitter has over 1,500 followers.
However, as difficult as it can be, we often fail to realize the main goal of Parking Services is to help us, the Auburn community.
This year, Parking Services is reaching out to and helping the community even more by teaming up with Beat Bama Food Drive.
According to their websites, the goal for Beat Bama Food Drive is to support the Food Bank of East Alabama, whose mission is to reduce hunger, provide a way to collect and distribute food, minimize food waste, and to raise awareness concerning hunger and food security problems in East Central Alabama.
In an article published in last week’s issue of The Auburn Plainsman, Sarah Perez, Beat Bama Food Drive’s president, explained that a student will receive a $2 credit off of a parking ticket for every can he or she brings in, and a student may earn up to $50 in credit. In addition, Perez explained five A-Zone parking permits will be rewarded to organizations that bring in the highest amount of cans.
We are impressed with the pairing up of Beat Bama Food Drive and Parking Services.
Not only will this pairing hopefully encourage students to participate in donating canned goods, but it will also raise awareness of poverty, which is a much bigger issue in our area than people seem to understand.
Beat Bama Food Drive’s website states the following statistics: “1 out of every 5 children in our area lives in poverty, 16 percent of Alabama’s seniors live below the poverty level, over 12 percent of Alabama population are food insecure, in 2004, Alabama had one of the Top 5 Highest Poverty Rates in the US, and 214,200 Alabama households are food insecure.”
While we don’t wish hardship upon anyone, people are likely going to receive parking tickets regardless.
If you happen to be one of those people, take advantage of the opportunity to help those in need.
Allow a good thing to come from a bad situation.
However, we also want to encourage students to participate and donate regardless of whether or not you receive a ticket.
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