Two MSCP Students Gave “Benefit Bags” to Their Community
Lyn Burton (left) and Jordan Dahl pose for a photo on the steps of the Jennie King Mellon Library.
While driving around Pittsburgh, Lyn Burton, MSCP ’26, and her boyfriend saw a person asking for money in the street. Burton said she wanted to do more than just hand them cash.
That was the germ of the idea that led Burton and her classmate, Jordan Dahl, MSCP ’26, to make “benefit bags” stuffed with personal care items for people in need.
With the help of dozens of students and faculty in the Master of Counseling Psychology program, they put together more than a dozen bags last year, filling them with items like toothpaste, deodorant, soap, snacks, and socks. This past winter, they did it again and filled 32 bags.
Part of the idea of the “benefit bag,” Dahl said, came from her childhood church, but she wanted to put her own spin on it.
“This is when winter was coming,” Burton said, “so [we’re wondering,] can we provide toiletry items? Can we provide warm clothing? Gloves?”
First, they got in touch with faculty, who helped with logistics and communication within the program. Then, they put together a list of items they were looking for.
For their second year of distribution, they decided to move away from clothing items to keep the bags more mobile and less bulky.
“I think it was a lot more successful than last year, because not only were we able to make more, but they were also all more consistent,” Dahl said. “They all had a water bottle. They all had snacks. They all had all the hygiene items. And they were all compact enough to put in your backpack.”
Burton, Dahl, and others personally handed each bag out around the city or in their own neighborhoods. They also received help from the Wilkinsburg Family Health Center, where some MSCP students do group therapy work.
Burton, who lives in Pittsburgh’s South Side, said she handed hers out to people in the neighborhood. “This guy that I speak to whenever I'm walking around, he just calls me the bag lady,” she said. “I gave a bag to him last year, and he was like, ‘Ooh, look at this! It’s all done up!’”
Other students gave theirs out to family members and neighbors who they knew needed help getting hygiene items, they said.
“And we really wanted to stress that these bags, we're not forcing these bags on anyone,” Dahl said. “It's more of a conversation starter. ‘Can I offer this to you?’”
Learn more about Chatham’s master of science in counseling psychology program at chatham.edu.