Students, faculty and members of the community who were looking for a way to help after the Feb. 14 tragedy found more than just ribbon making this past week.

Robert Budach, assistant director of Student Involvement and Leadership Development, said the ribbon campaign was started for multiple reasons.

“First of all, it’s a sign of unity and support,” Budach said. “Second, the ribbon campaign started as early as this week. The students that were on campus and wanted to help out and felt the need to get involved in some way – we set this up for them to come help us out.”

The goal for the campaign was to make 30,000 ribbons before Sunday’s

Memorial Service and have 100-plus individuals helping out.

Budach said they set the goal for number of volunteers because they wanted it to be a student effort and not just a staff effort.

“We really wanted to come together and just bond as a community,” Budach said.

Both goals were surpassed, with well over 40,000 ribbons made by over 200 volunteers.

“The Ribbon Factory” was located in the Campus Life Building’s foyer with four other off-site locations at Borders, Java 101, Caribou Coffee and Starbucks near the corner of Annie Glidden Road and Lincoln Highway Tuesday and Thursday last week.

Around 80 percent of supplies were donated from local businesses and stores in the Chicagoland area, Budach said.

Volunteers ranged from students, faculty and community members, but all came out for a similar purpose.

“I just think that as a university, we’re a community in itself, and it’s just a natural feeling to want to help do something,” said Sarah Hanson, senior criminology major. “It just brings people together. You actually see people’s faces and see the way the whole community is pulling together.”

Karyn Higgs, a secretary in Assessment Services, had a similar reason for volunteering.

“I really felt like I wanted to do something,” Higgs said. “It feels good and seeing people out here all week, it’s very comforting seeing students, staff and people from the community.”

Debbie Ficken, a senior psychology major, said she found out about “the factory” through Facebook and saw it as an opportunity to give back.

“If nothing else it’s just being able to talk with other students and have conversations of hope, so I definitely think this has been really helpful,” Ficken said.

Others brought family to help with the effort, like Jeannine Szostak, a graduate student in industrial management and teaching assistant for a disaster preparedness class.

Szostak originally was supposed to make ribbons at her children’s grade school, but the ribbons had not come in. She then decided to head to the Campus Life

Building to do the ribbon making and brought her family along.

“I think it was very good for the kids to feel like they could be a part of something,” Szostak said. “I just kind of wanted to feel like I was doing something. It has been really cool seeing the community pull together. It has been incredible.”