News and Events

Hurricane Harvey Relief Drive Success

Thank you to everyone who participated in the Midwest Technical Institute (and our sister school Delta Technical College) Hurricane Harvey Relief Drive this September. The MTI and Delta Tech community came together to donate items that were transported to the Houston, TX area using three of our own semi-trucks.

We would like to extend a special thank you to our friends at Green Toyota of Springfield, IL and RBX of Springfield, MO, our partners in this effort.

Jon Peavey, from RBX Transportation, graciously donated one of his trucks to the Springfield, MO campus CDL Training Course and Professional Truck Driving students to use while we were using two of our own trucks to transport the donations to Texas.

We also would like to extend a special thank you to Mylas Copeland of Green Toyota in Springfield, IL, who organized the Springfield community to ultimately send a total of four semi-trailers packed full with 200,000 pounds of donated items for the victims of Hurricane Harvey.

There were many members of the community who participated, including Halle Robbins, a student at Glendale High School in Springfield, MO, who organized a diaper drive at her school, and donated a little over 7,800 diapers! The special education class at Glendale High School also wrote letters to the Hurricane Harvey survivors. Shelby Rupp of Springfield, MO also organized a diaper drive, adding another 8,000 diapers! Shelby even had her own drop off sites and met people everywhere to pick them up.

Special thank you to the team who transported the items: Justyn Merckling, Bobby Merckling, Al Mullen (a Midwest Technical Institute graduate) drove the donated items from MTI Springfield, IL to Houston, TX.

Items collected included bottled water, flashlights, batteries, diapers (all sizes), iPhone chargers, shovels, work gloves, trash bags, dust masks, dog food, cat food, cat litter, pillows, blankets, sleeping bags, cleaning supplies, chairs (folding/lawn chairs), paper plates, plastic ware (cups, silverware, etc.), napkins/paper towels, nonperishable food items, toiletries (toilet paper, soaps, body wash, toothbrushes, etc.) and towels. We also worked with local agencies to take monetary donations at each campus.