Volunteers pack 150 trunks for Chicago college students

CHICAGO — Summer is just getting started but back-to-school will be here before you know it. To help cut down costs for new college students volunteers gathered on Chicago’s South Side for a great cause.

For the 17^th year now Ada S. Mckinley Community Services is giving away college trunks to incoming college students. This year, 150 trunks were packed. That’s a record number since the program started.

They’re not the traditional looking old school trunks from back in the day and they’ve got just about everything incoming college students need when they head to campus.

More information and donation opportunities available at Ada S. McKinley Community Services

The annual college trunk scholarship program is an extension of Ada S. McKinley’s college preparation and placement program, which has placed more than 75,000 students into 400 plus colleges and universities across the country. The program is at risk of getting eliminated because of anticipated federal cuts to the education department’s trio program. The program has been been around for decades helping students from disadvantaged backgrounds prepare for college.

Volunteers assembled the trunks Friday. The students will receive the totes packed with campus essentials like laptops, desk lamps, comforters and toiletries in July.

Many of the students receiving a trunk are first generation college students. To apply for the items high school graduates wrote essays about why a college education is important to them.

The process to apply for the trunks is over. Students who wrote essays should know by Monday if they are awarded a trunk.