TROY, Ala. (TROJANVISION) — Troy University’s Sparkle Mentoring Club is holding a donation drive to help college students outside of the Wiregrass.

It’s been nearly 50 days since Hurricane Helene made landfall and changed millions of people’s lives. Although the Troy area wasn’t affected by Helene, neighboring areas were.

Sparkle hopes to restore hope to Valdosta State University students who are still dealing with the strike of Helene. The club is asking people to donate basic necessities.

“They don’t have a lot of toiletries, food, and water. With it being cold and getting cold, we’re gonna provide them with socks, blankets, and other stuff to get them back on their feet,” Sparkle president Jakevia Williams said.

The idea to do the drive came from the club’s Community Service Director Kierra Montgomery. She’s from Georgia and has family and friends who live in the Valdosta area.

After hearing about people struggling, she pitched the donation drive idea to the club executive board.

”When the hurricane hit and everybody, on social media, was saying how they’re affected, so they needed clothes, water, and stuff like that, I just felt like it was the perfect time for our organization to help them,” Montgomery explained.

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Sparkle is an organization built to help people not only in its local community, but outside of the Wiregrass area.

”Us giving back to not only our city, but other cities as well as in another state is a big mission for us,” Williams told TrojanVision.

Montgomery hopes the drive shows how everyone, including people who don’t live in Georgia, can still lend a helping hand.

”Valdosta State is about three and half hours away from us,” Montgomery said. “This shows that we are always here and if anything happened to us, we would want other universities to help us to.”

After the drive, members of Sparkle plan to travel to Valdosta State University to deliver the donations.