Making a difference one bandage at a time
There is a long standing saying that college students should use their four years of university wisely. This is where we are supposed to branch out as people, have new life experiences, and develop skills that will follow us through the rest of our lives. Darby Payne, a junior nursing major at Florida State University, took that advice to heart, and in her sophomore year created a new on-campus club called Bandages for Raju. As described by its Facebook page, Bandages for Raju is an organization dedicated to sending medical supplies overseas to clinics that need them. These clinics can then provide care for under-served and impoverished people, improving their health, and ultimately allowing them to have a brighter future.
I got a chance to sit down with Darby and talk a little bit about her club, what it’s all about, and what it means to her.
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How did your club, Bandages for Raju, get started? What gave you the idea to do it?
Bandages for Raju (BFR) started last year after I attended Leadershape. Leadershape is a week long institute that encourages student’s to pursue their passions and begin to create the change that they wish to see. I personally became passionate about sending basic medial supplies overseas after my first trip to India, where I met a boy named Raju. He had fallen and scraped his knee while playing cricket, and it had become massively infected, to the point where he could barely walk. Because of where he was living (a very rural part of India) I do not think that he had access to the care he would have needed. Unfortunately, I will probably never know what happened to Raju, but I do know that a bandage and basic antibiotic cream would have made a world of difference in his life. From that, BFR grew to help meet the basic medical needs of people all over the world.
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How has pioneering this club affected you and changed your views?
Starting this organization has really changed me as a person. I have been challenged in ways that I could never imagine before, and I have learned the values of integrity, honesty, and working tirelessly for something you believe in. It has helped me to become a person with higher expectations for myself and for the people around me, while teaching me that extending love to others is always the best course of action. Overall, leading this organization has helped me grow into the best version of myself that I can imagine.
What is your intended goal for the club, and how far have you come to reaching that goal so far?
Long term, I hope to make BFR a not-for-profit organization and build a clinic around the same principles that BFR has been founded off of. Specifically for our time at Florida State, I hope to continue seeing our influence grow as we create student advocates and draw attention to a need that is far too often ignored. I would love for our shipments to be bigger and more frequent with every year, and we are currently taking steps as an organization to make that goal a reality!
We have made three shipments, but they were relatively small because it was our first year being on campus. We have shipped 70 tubes of basic antibiotic cream, and around 300 crepe bandages. Since every one of our shipments are carried over in the suitcases of volunteers, we have to make the best of the space we have available. This year, we are hoping to take in more money than we have before and therefore have larger shipping, if there is enough space!
How can people get involved with BFR? ![]()
People can get involved by coming out to our meetings (September 26th, October 17th, and November 28th) as well as coming to our various events through out the semester. We are always accepting donations, monetary or in the form of basic medical supplies, and we aim to educate students about the need for basic care overseas. I would say that coming to our meetings is by far the best way to get involved.
@thenamessteph
