Leading up to the Thanksgiving holiday, members of the Electronics Systems Technology club tirelessly campaigned on behalf of a worthy cause. For the second year running, the organization collected cans on behalf of the homeless community.

This past Wednesday, a representative from the Fresno Rescue Mission picked up the bounty of canned goods just in time for the holidays.

“Last year, we had a goal of 100 cans and got 300. This year we decided to up it a little bit to 300,” said EST Vice President David Lindsey. “The final number is 1555 cans, total. We raised five times our goal.”

Many students in EST themselves came from troubled backgrounds only to overcome adversity and uplift the poorest among us supplementing their dire needs.

“We’ve got a lot of community involvement. Some of the teachers on campus have collected cans for us. One teacher brought in 60 from her class; another one’s bringing in another 100 today,” said Lindsey. “Patrick Smith is the coordinator for this. And he’s just done a really great job getting it together and getting everybody focused on bringing these in.”

Although Smith coordinated the drive, EST President Matthew Ford provided a great deal of support as well.

“This is the first time that I’ve been involved in it,” said Smith. “We made some attempts at some businesses but didn’t get a very good response. But our club president did. He got Chicago Title in on board, and they donated over 250 cans. He also distributed a memo to his classes and got some people to cooperate.”

None of this would have taken place without the inspirational leadership of the EST adviser, Martinez.

“Mr. Martinez, our adviser, the first thing he thought was, ‘Oh boy. We’re setting the bar high next year.’ And that’s fine because we want to continue to grow. As people become more involved with the club, they’ll become more involved with the community. We’ll be able to go ahead and help out.”

Through these student’s gracious deeds and thanks to the encouraging leadership of their adviser, the organization is building upon their strength and conviction.

“We have a really good adviser. He doesn’t tell us what we need to do. But the fact that he gives so much to us, it makes us in turn want to give back,” said Lindsey. “We’re becoming a very tight knit group of people. We’re really starting to grow.”