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Students Raise Funds for Various Causes

This year, paper flyers and posters inundated campus as students organized benefits to raise money for various world causes, including aid to Japan and Haiti and the improvement of literacy in Third World countries. Recent weeks have featured several fundraisers. Fundraisers for time sensitive causes have garnered the most donations. The Be the Match initiative, JusticeNOW Coffeehouse, Andover Japanese Society’s Relief, Republican Club, UNICEF and LiLiLi, a literacy program for Haiti, have recently held fundraisers. Fundraising ideas ranged from voluntary donations to selling candy for profit. A fundraiser for Be the Match registered people to be bone marrow donors in honor of Alice Hoffman, a Phillips Academy student who recently passed away after battling leukemia. “It was really nice, a lot of people were really generous and didn’t ask for change, or made additional donations, I was really impressed by how supportive the community was,” said Marga Kempner ’11. The group sold t-shirts that read, “Don’t Hassle the Hoff” outside of Commons to raise money for the foundation. Hoffman also helped with the design and the organization of the fundraiser before she relapsed and had to return to Texas. The fundraiser is continuing and funds have not yet been calculated. The JusticeNOW coffeehouse fundraiser used a mix of pay on entry and voluntary donations and raised more than $500 worth of donations, last month. “Every year JusticeNOW has a coffeehouse, just kind of by tradition. It’s a good way to raise money and gets the student body involved and we are donating the money to a school that was recently damaged by the Japanese earthquake and tsunami,” said Elaine Kuoch ’11. “Last year we didn’t have an entrance fee, we just had voluntary donations, but we though that people would be willing to give to Japan and we would make more money for our cause if we had am entrance fee,” said Kuoch. A school wide-scale fundraiser was the LiLiLi fundraiser for Haiti, which was held on campus on April 29, during the Edwidge Danticat reading at Cochran Chapel. This event was publicized heavily, going through The Weekender, mass emails to alums and students, E-Newsletters, the Phillips Academy website, posters over campus and even the local Haitan Radio. “The idea was that Danticat was coming here as an author to speak, and the fundraiser was gravy. We didn’t want to miss an opportunity to raise funds, and given that she was going to be here, we though that she’s the type of speaker that would inspire people,” said Stephanie Curci, Instructor in English. The fundraiser ultimately raised between 1,200 and 1,500 dollars. The funds then went split between two organizations: Partners in Health Organization, which has been featured at Phillips Academy in the Wellness Week workshops in the fall, and LiLiLi a Haitan organization to improve literacy rates in the ravaged country. The Andover Japanese Society (AJC) in conjunction with Phillips Academy for Natural Disasters Aid (PANDA) also contributed to the efforts in raising money for Japan by selling Japanese candy and snacks. Funds went to Youth for 3.11 and Rebuilding Houses in Damaged Areas. In the end, the clubs raised a total of $1400 dollars from the candy sales. AJC and PANDA set up a stand in Paresky Commons from April 5 to April 7 to sell Japanese candy including Hi-Chews and Pocky Sticks. “We thought it would be the most effective way to gather money since not many people can get Japanese candy here and we know that a lot of people know that its popular,” said Seika Nagao ’12. “It was really an effective way to gather a lot of money in only three days.” A similar fundraiser, using food as donating initiative was the selling of Chipotle burritos for UNICEF and Republican Club. “We tried to do a Frisbee tournament, but it didn’t really work out because all the Uppers were studying for AP’s and stuff and the Seniors were gone for some Alumni Meeting,” said Jaewon Suh ’12, Vice-President of the UNICEF Club and head of Republican Club. The plan was to have a Frisbee tournament on the Great Lawn on April 30 with Chipotle being sold on the side to raise money for UNICEF, but the club did not raise any funds for the organization. The Republican Club tried publicizing the event through The Weekender, but was unable to meet the deadline. Thus, the announcements for the event were a school-wide email and a Facebook event two days before the tournament. Though the Republican Club was not able to raise a significant amount of money this time, they are looking to hold a similar event next year with better planning.