Greeks hold benefit concert for Haiti

Greek life at GCSU came together earlier this week to raise over $200 for Haiti relief with a concert and a dodgeball tournament.

Kayla Jones, a junior psychology major, was in charge of the fundraiser to aid victims of the Jan. 12 earthquake in the small Caribbean nation.

“We’ve been planning it the whole semester,” Jones said. “It’s kind of been a work in progress, but these past few weeks have really been crunch time for us.”

Sororities and fraternities pitched in this past Tuesday and Wednesday, along with the help of Baptist Collegiate Ministries, to make the events possible.

“The money is going to Red Cross,” Jones said. “Also we’re going to give half the money we raise to BCM to help ship their ‘Buckets of Hope’ because it’s a lot of money, $10 a bucket, to ship. We’re going to help ship those.”

The “Buckets of Hope” are a part of a Southern Baptist ministry. They’re filled with nonperishable food items and $10 in aid money. Once the food and cash has been used, the buckets can also prove useful to the survivors of the earthquake left with nothing.

There was no specific goal that Greek life wanted to reach with the concert and tournament, but the project leader hoped for the best.

“We just want to raise, really, as much as possible,” Jones said. “We didn’t set a goal because we knew we would be splitting the money with BCM.”

100 percent of the money raised is going to be donated to the Red Cross and BCM.

“We’ve had a table out on Front Campus selling tickets for $3 and also having signups for the dodgeball tournament,” Jones said earlier this week. “The dodgeball tournament is for a seven-person team and it’s a $25 registration fee. That money and also the ticket sales, that’s how we’re getting our funds.”

Jones is working out details to have T-shirts made for students to purchase. These funds would also go to helping Haiti.

The concert took place Tuesday from 11 p.m. to 2 a.m. inside the Velvet Elvis Supper Club, located at 225 N. Columbia St., with the David Atchison Project and Elastic Skyline volunteering by playing for the cause.

Charlie Rollins, a member of the David Atchison Project and junior business management major, said he was happy to do what he could for the fundraiser.

“It’s not every day you get an opportunity to do something like this selflessly to help people out,” Rollins said. “We thought it’d be a great opportunity, plus we love doing it. We had a lot of fun doing it. It was a win-win for us.”

Elastic Skyline members Ryan Anderson, a sophomore management major, and Alex Brown, a senior musical therapy major, also said they were glad to take part in the fundraiser.

“We thought it would be a good cause,” Anderson said. “Help people with the disaster and play some music.”

To get into the concert, students had a choice of paying $3 in advance or $5 at the door.

The dodgeball game was originally scheduled to take place before the concert, but was pushed back until the next night on March 3 at 8 p.m. on the West Campus intramural fields. Teams of seven players registered to play.

While the fundraising events are over, students that want to help can still donate money to the cause.

Now at least 10 Buckets of Hope can be shipped and the Red Cross has a bit more money to work with thanks to BCM and Greek life.

Posted by Courtney Murrah on Mar 5 2010. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry