During two days at the beginning of the H1N1 outbreak in fall 2009, members of the Purdue Chapter of the American Red Cross, along with other student volunteers, distributed brief informational materials on H1N1 to students while riding CityBus vehicles on routes serving the campus. The students also gave passengers four ounce bottles of waterless hand sanitizer. The object was to use direct student-to-student communication to create awareness of the illness, symptoms, remediation and containment strategies, while encouraging immunization with the H1N1 vaccine as it became available. CityBus gave its enthusiastic support to the project. Student volunteers distributed materials to over 5,000 other students in two days. The project was supported by Purdue University and the Tippecanoe County Health Department.
