ZANESVILLE — Ohio University Zanesville is asking the campus and the community to help keep Muskingum County families warm this winter, as the annual Good Samaritan Blanket Drive collects blankets through November 30, according to a community announcement reported by the Zanesville Times Recorder.
Donations may be dropped off in Elson Hall and Herrold Hall on the Zanesville campus. The drive is organized with the campus Student Nurse Association, and every blanket collected will go to Eastside Community Ministries, which will distribute them to residents in need, the Times Recorder reported.
The effort has deep roots. The drive began with the Good Samaritan Nursing School class of 1960, and in the decades since it has collected more than 7,000 blankets and raised money to help residents pay their heating bills, according to the announcement. What started as one nursing class’s project has become a standing tradition carried forward by today’s student nurses.
Teresa Polen, a Student Nurse Association adviser and faculty member, has led the campus effort for many years, the Times Recorder reported. For the nursing students who run collection points and sort donations, the drive is also practical training in the community side of their profession — meeting a basic need, warmth, before winter settles in.
The need is straightforward. A blanket costs little, lasts for years, and matters most on the coldest nights, when heating bills stretch thin and a household’s margin disappears. Eastside Community Ministries will put each donated blanket directly into the hands of a local resident rather than into storage, according to the drive’s design.
The collection runs through the heart of the heating season’s first cold snaps, and it lands alongside the drive’s second tradition: over its long history, the effort has also raised money for residents’ heating bills, according to the announcement, pairing the blankets it hands out with help keeping the heat on in the first place. For a family choosing between a utility bill and everything else in the budget, the two kinds of help work together.
Anyone who wants to help has until November 30 to bring a blanket to Elson Hall or Herrold Hall at Ohio University Zanesville. Organizers ask only that donations be suitable to give — the kind of blanket you would hand to a neighbor, because that is exactly where it is going.