Wichita State senior Felipe Lopez had a Thomas Edison-like moment for an idea to help the Sigma Lambda Beta fraternity start off the school year.

“A light switch went off in my head,” said Lopez, a former president and current community service chair for the fraternity.

Lopez’s idea was to donate school supplies to one of the Child Start schools, Fingerprints Head Start, just east of the WSU campus.

“Child Start is a nonprofit charitable organization providing early childhood development services that prepare children for lifelong success,” said Alicia Sanchez, director of the Office of Diversity and Inclusion.

Sanchez said Child Start works with low-income families, sometimes offering free services to help children from birth to five years old prepare for kindergarten and further schooling. Child Start also offers resources and training for childcare providers.

Head Start provides services for more than 1,200 infants, toddlers and preschoolers.

“We just know there’s a need for this kind of stuff,” Lopez said.

The Office of Diversity and Inclusion offered Sigma Lambda Beta use of its office as a central location to drop off supplies, and Sanchez helped increase awareness about the idea through WSU Today and Shocker Blast.

Initial advertising for the drop-off site was minimal because Sigma Lambda Beta didn’t expect many donations, but eventually donations built momentum, and, so far, the drop box —which is a large moving box — has been filled twice with the help of faculty, staff, students and members of the Gamma Phi Beta sorority.

“For members of Sigma Lambda Beta, it’s important that they are continuously promoting their mission and principles of the fraternity,” Sanchez said. “They want to be a catalyst to better serve the needs and wants of all people.”

Community service is also one of the four pillars on which Sigma Lambda Beta was built, and when they have an opportunity to give back to the Wichita community, especially low-income youths, they do, Sanchez said.

“The whole goal behind this is to give kids hope,” Lopez said. “We just came up with this idea and wanted to see where it went.”

Donations to Child Start can be dropped off in the ODI office — Room 208 of the Rhatigan Student Center — through Saturday.