Year: Sophomore
Major: Cultural Anthropology
Hometown: Lancaster, PA
Her Campus: What organizations are you involved with on campus?
Chantelle Farley: I’m in involved in my church, H2O (the ones who give out free drinks on Sundays). I’m also part of the Panther Pitt, I’m on the eboard for that, which that is our student section.
HC: So I saw that you posted about raising money for a homeless veteran on the Pitt 2018 page. Can you tell me about that?
CF: So one of my friends was telling me about this homeless guy that he talks to sometimes, who’s like really sweet, and he’s a veteran. I was like casually walking back from somewhere when I saw him, but I didn’t know it was him at first. I talked to him and heard his whole entire story and he seemed like really genuine. It wasn’t like he got kicked out for an addiction or anything. He was just happy enough that I stopped to listen to him. Most people just walk by and don’t pay attention. After hearing his story, a few of my friends and I were like “What can we do to help?” I wanted to help him ‘cause he’s applying to jobs, but he has a bad neck, so he’s applying for disability. And so we’ve been raising money for his bills for the biopsy for his neck and gas for his car and it’s been really amazing, the support. I gave him some of the money this past weekend. He was really excited to see his kids, he doesn’t get to see them that often. He can’t really do much ‘cause he can’t drive his car very far. So I called him and was like, “We told people your story. There’s been a lot of support and we have money to give to you.” He just called me to thank me. He lives with his family now, but he still can’t provide for his kids. I’m going to keep trying to raise money for that.
HC: If someone wants to donate money to this cause, how would they do it?
CF: They would go on gofundme.com/stevesstory.
HC: You’re pretty involved with your church. What do you do there?
CF: Well this semester I became a leader. We break the church into little groups to get to know people better. It’s been really cool because we plan events every other Friday and we lead our weekly talks, which are called dialogues. We try to reach out to the student body, but we’re not forcing it on anyone. We’re all about loving people and each other, and we’ll just hang out with people and be like “What’s your story?” and “How are you doing?”
HC: That seems like a great way to spread acceptance.
CF: Yeah, I just feel like this world has so much prejudice and we’re always judging each other all the time. It’s so frustrating. It’s not up to me to judge anyone. It’s the same thing with Steve – I could judge him for living on the street in his car, or I can accept that this is the card that God dealt him. ‘Cause I’m all about loving each other.
Photo Credit: All pictures provided by Chantelle