College students meet their match

Students peforming in "RISD: The Musical!"  © James Dempsey

The Students For Haiti Challenge called upon college and university students to raise $50,000 for PIH in just one week.

To raise the stakes, the Entrepreneurs Foundation HelpHaiti Fund would match the students’ donations dollar for dollar for seven days, or until the challenge total reached $100,000 — whichever came first.

From February 22-28, participants from over 50 schools gave it the old college try. And how! From cupcake sales to weightlifting contests, we were blown away by the results—the students met the goal in just 5 days. By the end of the week, they had raised $110,682—for a grand total of $160,682! Read how some of the leading student groups met the challenge.

Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME

Alain Mathieu '12 and Kyle Dempsey '11 co-organized Haiti Action Week by recruiting a mix of student leaders. "To have any sort of community response we needed to...tap into all of these different groups," Dempsey explained. Unsurprisingly, an interesting variety of groups led to an interesting variety of events.

One such event was the Charity Bench Press--75 entrants flexed their muscles to compete for awards, including “Best Effort” and “Most Spirited.” The event owed its success to carefully planning around the participating students’ schedules, as well as their naturally competitive spirit. "[Most of the entrants] would have been in the gym anyway and were more than happy to...show off what they can do," said Mathieu. 

Other events included the Community Ice Skate, where Bowdoin Students and Brunswick residents circled the rink to Haitian music, raising $600 through admission; and the Taste For Change Dinner, which served a Haitian meal of fried plantains and poisson (fish) for a suggested $10 donation.

Bowdoin’s Haiti Action Week raised over $9,000 for PIH—over $18,000 including the match.

Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), Providence, RI  

Premiering with back-to-back sellouts, RISD: The Musical! parodied the RISD experience "from application to graduation — all in one hour", wrote producers Greg Kozatek '10 and Jean Kim '10. The student project raised $9,000 for PIH in two nights.

Cast member Andreas Nicholas '13 framed the event as a fundraiser, and spoke about PIH after each performance. "The musical is going to be talked about for a long time this year,” said Nicholas. “And with that, Partners In Health [will be] talked about."

RISD administration covered production costs, so all ticket proceeds went to PIH. In addition, students from "The Two-Legged Print" — a course that explores the T-shirt format — sold custom-made Haiti T-shirts in the lobby. For refreshments, students sold cupcakes through RISD dining services' "Cakes For Quakes" initiative.

Now, Nicholas says, "the buzz is huge [on campus]" and students look to apply their art and design skills to Haiti relief. Check out more examples here. 

University of Colorado (CU), Boulder, CO

Beyond sponsoring bake sales and improv shows, the student group CU Stands With Haiti harnessed the CU Buffaloes' competitive spirit. For example, the students took their cause viral during the "Half Hour for Haiti," racing to send over 3,200 personal donation requests. Future events may include a "Battle of the Bands" and a video game tournament.

The Students for Haiti Challenge also helped make a final push towards the school’s own goal to raise $100,000 to benefit PIH and several Colorado-based organizations working in Haiti. Student organizer Mark Arnoldy ‘10, pins their success on "incredible support from our administration that allowed us to work throughout all departments and levels of the campus."

CU  Stands With Haiti raised about $12,000 for the challenge.

Middlebury College, Middlebury, VT

Facing the Students for Haiti Challenge with no major events on the docket, Middlebury College improvised. At the library each night, members of GlobeMed — a nationwide student network — gave out "Stand With Haiti" stickers and spoke for a sustained student response.

Although Middlebury's GlobeMed chapter focuses on projects in Uganda, it has extended advocacy and fundraising efforts to Haiti. "As a global health organization on this campus, it's important for us to focus on current events as well," said co-president Hannah Burnett '10.

Earlier in February, co-president Ben Zorach '10 convinced Kaplan, the test prep company,  to donate one of their most popular courses—worth $1,300—to be auctioned off for PIH. After a $770 bid took the prize, Kaplan chipped in another $770.

See fundraising totals for these schools and more at http://act.pih.org/page/content/university.