USD Clubs Collaborate with Hygiene Drive
One University of South Dakota student is giving back to her community. Jenisha Gurung is currently serving as Miss Dakota Prairie 2026.
As part of her pageant community service initiative, “Okk Period,” she decided to start a hygiene drive.
“I’ve always wanted to do a campus wide hygiene drive to give back to my community, the Vermillion community, and I thought of clubs that, hopefully, would support me,” Gurung said. “I’m the president of Asian Students in America and I’m the Co-Director of Marketing for She’s the First. I have a lot of friends in the LaHSO (Latin and Hispanic Student Organization) and BSU (Black Student Union), so I asked them to collaborate with me and that’s how I came to be.”
The hygiene drive ran from Feb 5-27, and aimed to build community and give back. The products were donated to Charlie’s Cupboard on campus. For Gurung, it’s important to have drives like this.
“It’s super important because sometimes we forget the beauty of community and how much it emphasizes belonging,” Gurung said. “When you find your people, it helps you with your mental health, it helps you with your physical health, so there’s so many benefits to building community.”
As part of her pageantry, Gurung visits elementary schools to teach children about health.
“I don’t expose them to mental health, but I do expose them to physical health,” Gurung said. “We need to start somewhere to achieve our ending goal of educating others about health. So before you advocate, you must educate, so that’s why everything goes with each other.”
101 items were donated across 13 different locations on USD’s campus. Gurung was extremely happy with the outcome of the hygiene drive.
“I am hoping that I will be able to continue collaborating with these amazing student orgs, and maybe even more,” Gurung said. “I really want to build our coyote community. Hopefully this can be an annual thing, and we can just go bigger and better from here.”
For those who may have missed the hygiene drive and still want to donate, Gurung is hosting another hygiene drive, this time with Northern State University in Aberdeen. The drive will last from March 9-13 and have designated collection spots around NSU’s campus.
