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Home/Campus Ministry/Loving College Students Through Care Boxes
A cardboard box filled with treats and a note on top that reads, "let all that you do be done in love."

Loving College Students Through Care Boxes

If you went away to college, you may remember how receiving a box of goodies that smelled like home could immediately take you back to mama’s kitchen. Just the idea that someone was thinking of you enough to pack a box with goodies and send it your way was enough to bring tears to your eyes. And, when they remembered you with such a gift during finals week!– Wow! You could taste the love!

Enter College Care Boxes

Every year, our parish puts aside money in our youth budget for college care boxes. For a few weeks at the beginning of October, we include an announcement about this ministry in our weekly digital newsletter, so that anyone with a college-aged student can provide their most current address and information.

Here’s a sample of what my Google form looked like.

Creating The Care Boxes

Then I hop in my van and have the most fun thinking of all the ways I can spoil students. Here’s a sample of what I put inside our boxes: 

  • hand sanitizers
  • Post-It notes 
  • flair pen 
  • disposable masks
  • travel tissues 
  • gum 
  • miniature bubbles 
  • Dove chocolate  
  • beef jerky 
  • mini Kind bars 
  • Emergen-C packets 
  • Rice Krispies treats
  • trail mix
  • gummy bears
  • fruit bars
  • microwave popcorn
  • Nutella snack packs  
  • herbal tea
  • chocolate espresso beans
  • cough drops
  • $5 Starbucks gift card
  • Stickers and a card that I design on Canva with a note from our pastor and me

We pack these goodies in a Uline 12x9x4 box and ship them via USPS. I try to send them out a week before finals. 

Since our congregation knows that we send out these care boxes each year, some parishioners donate towards the boxes, purchase gift cards or offer other fun items.

I want our college students to know that, wherever they are, they are loved and cared for, and that they always have a safe place to come home to their church family.

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January 18, 2022 By Michelle Palmer (she/her/hers) Leave a Comment

Filed Under: Campus Ministry, Campus Ministry Popular, Intergenerational Tagged With: box, campus, care, college, exam, exams, finals, ministry, package, young adult

About Michelle Palmer (she/her/hers)

Michelle Palmer (she/her) is married to her high school sweetheart (Adam) and they have been serving in different capacities of ministry together for 26 years. She is a mother of five girls; it has been her greatest joy and honor to be their mom and she is constantly learning from them. There is nothing like a good roasting from a teenager to keep you humble! She serves as Children, Youth, and Family Minister at Fellowship Lutheran Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma and leads Contemporary worship with her husband Adam. She’s an Enneagram 7w8 and is known for her loud, contagious laugh and big opinions like a true Latina. She can often be found on her porch with her dogs, a good book, and an iced honey oat milk latte.

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