Nontraditional Iowa State students will host a rummage sale Saturday, with proceeds going toward a new adult-student social group, Older Adults Succeeding in School (OASIS).

Aside from raising money, the purpose of the sale is to provide adult students a way to purchase inexpensive items for themselves and their families.

The fund-raiser kicks off the first event for OASIS, a group striving to give adult students the social support they seem to be lacking, said Gwen Atkinson, graduate assistant for Adult Student Services.

“The group’s specific goals are more social than anything,” she said. “Adult students often don’t have a lot of time to spend with classmates outside of the classroom.”

Adult students have different social needs than traditional students, Atkinson said.

For example, going to the bars is not the type of social outing in which some students want to invest their time, she said.

Adult students might rather do something like going to see a play.

“From a personal standpoint, I’m married with two children. A lot of the social things I enjoy doing, I enjoy doing with those who have kids, and I don’t enjoy going to places where my children are not able to go,” she said.

Rob Wiese, program assistant for Off Campus and Adult Student Services, said about 12 percent of ISU students fall into the nontraditional category.

Typically, a nontraditional student is someone who is 25 or older. However, nontraditional students also include those who might be younger but have not come to school directly from high school, perhaps because they chose to start a family or go into the work force first.

“[OASIS] provides age cohorts for adult students. The fact is that adult students have different circumstances than other more traditional students,” Wiese said.

At least for one nontraditional student, Cindy Lind, junior in family and consumer sciences, family is her primary concern.

“I’ve met a lot of neat people [in OASIS], but by the time I [take care of] my family and my job and get to studying [it’s hard to find time for socializing],” said Lind, treasurer of OASIS. “The kids are great in my classes, but I don’t have a lot in common with them.”

Also, Lind said communication between adult students is really “scattered.”

It is difficult to find other adult students on campus with whom to socialize, she said.

The social issue is important to adult students because it is comforting “to know there are other people in the same boat,” Lind said.

“You kind of buffer each other and encourage one another,” she said.

Anyone who would like to donate items for the sale may drop them off at 100 University Village from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. Saturday. The actual rummage sale runs from noon to 3 p.m. in University Village.