Four different events to raise support, funds for Community Works Campaign

John Palmer Senior Editor

While a significant percentage of donations to the Community Works campaign is raised through donations online or through mailed pledge forms, on-campus programs also offer students further options to donate. Students make up the largest percentage of donors to the campaign. In 2004, 65.8 percent of the total donations came from students.

Kick-Off Harvest Dinner

A Harvest Dinner will serve as the official commencement of the sixth annual Community Works Campaign. The dinner, which will be held in the Villard Room on Thursday, Sept. 29 at 6 p.m., will feature donated food from local farms and area businesses in a celebration of the fruits of the Hudson Valley.

Last year’s student representatives on the Community Works Committee, Student Assistant to the President Emma White ’05 and VSA President Joe Wildfire ’05, suggested an awareness-raising kick-off celebration, to officially mark the beginning of this year’s $100,000 challenge. While the beginning of the campaign is announced at the first faculty forum of the year, there has never been an additional means of drawing attention to the beginning of fundraising efforts. This year’s committee organized this event to serve that purpose. “We wanted to make the campaign an on-campus presence,” said Student Assistant to the President Jen Dixon ’06, who is a member of the committee.

Most of the food for the dinner is donated, to ensure that all of the $5 donation for admission goes straight to the Community Works fund.

Food donations came from the recently-opened Subterranean Skye, two vendors from the weekly farmers’ market, an apple cake from Carolyn’s Best Biscotti, a bakery owned by Carolyn Joseph of the Development Office, and eight gallons of apple cider from Campus Dining, among many others. Wild Hive Bakery, the Clinton Corners-based organic bakery that tables in the College Center each Tuesday, has offered the dinner bread at a discounted price. “The point was to be Hudson Valley centric,” said Dixon.

This dinner also received money from Poder Latino and Community Action, in order to assist with the purchase of additional food. An ACDC point drive helped to purchase drinks and food from campus dining. Members of Christian Fellowship offered help cooking and setting up.
Representatives from Riverhaven and Dutchess Outreach will be present at the dinner, and literature on supported agencies will be distributed to students attending.

Arlington Street Fair

This Saturday’s annual Arlington Street Fair offers the Community Works Committee another chance to help raise funds and gain publicity. A Community Works table run by volunteers from the Vassar Student Association council will offer information to passers by alongside the additional organization tables and entertainment. The street fair is open to the community beyond Vassar.
The VSA has purchased an iPod Nano and an iPod shuffle, which will be raffled off to help raise funds.

Tickets will cost $1 each, or six tickets will be available for $5. In addition, there will be pledge forms so that some can offer money at a later date. Any students pledging $10 or more will receive a Community Works t-shirt.

This year’s official Community Works t-shirts have seen a change in design, and are now based on a design by Tiffany Chow ’07.

Follow Your Donations Tour

The Follow Your Donations Tour offers four opportunities to travel with Director of Field Work Peter Leonard and see several agencies in person. See page 13.

Like the Arlington Street Fair, the goal of the tour is to draw Vassar and the Poughkeepsie community face to face. Along these lines, with the help of Leonard, Assistant Director of Reunion and class giving Susan Sheehan and Professor of Hispanic Studies and Community Works campaign director Andy Bush had the chance to speak about the campaign on a radio show that Leonard hosts.

According to an e-mail from Bush, this was “a great chance to alert the local community of the work that we're doing.”

Individual Dorm Fundraisers

Different dormitories have had a history of contributing to the annual fund, usually through an auction. Raymond and Strong House’s combined auction last year, for example, raised $803.

Last year’s Senior Class put on a show, “Community Rowks,” which earned $368. This event was an attempt to engage the Terrace Apartments, Town Houses, and South Commons in the fundraising activities, as the senior class has in past years been left out of dorm-based fundraising efforts.

Davison House president Ben Van de Graaf ’07, Josselyn House president Jane Pakenham ’07 and Cushing House president Sophie Feintuch ’08 confirmed that their dorms will hold some type of auction for Community Works within the next few weeks. These auctions traditionally request donations from students, ranging from homemade food to massages or car rides to the train station or the mall.

Josselyn House also plans to have a pie throwing booth at the Arlington Street Fair this Saturday, which will be manned by the entire house team.