January 13, 2022
Shawnee State University’s Master of Occupational Therapy Association (MOTA) recently held a donation drive for their autumn semester service project. A student organization representing the university’s Master of Occupational Therapy (MOT) program, for this project students collected items to benefit the Care Closet at Stepping Stones – a recovery project for mothers and their children through The Counseling Center in Portsmouth, Ohio.
Completing field work at Stepping Stones in the MOT program, the students saw the need for donation items at the facility. The Care Closet at Stepping Stones provides necessary items including diapers, wipes, bottles, diaper bags, baby blankets, hygiene products, cleaning supplies, and more. When it came time to choose their service project, MOTA knew Stepping Stones would be an appropriate cause.
Sarah Sloan, a second-year student in the MOT program, serves as the Vice President of MOTA. She and her fellow students were grateful for the opportunity to complete the service project.
“Our service project for the semester allowed us to directly help a community of people that we had personally been around,” said Sloan. “Some of the MOT students were able to observe how the mothers in recovery and their children benefitted from and appreciated the items they received from the Care Closet. We wanted to demonstrate how much they helped us by helping them in return.”
A total of 186 different items were collected and donated by the MOTA students. Throughout their service projects each semester, MOTA aims to benefit the local community through fundraisers and service projects.
“The MOTA officers are constantly working to plan opportunities focused on volunteering and service with the goal of making us more rounded occupational therapists for the future,” said Sloan. “As for this semester, we plan to have another service project for our program that will benefit the community.”
Current MOT students interested in joining the MOTA organization can reach out to any officer, including Vice President Sarah Sloan at sloans2@mymail.shawnee.edu.
To learn more about Shawnee State University’s Master of Occupational Therapy program, visit shawnee.edu/mot.