On Wednesday, January 26th the 2nd Annual Colour Me Educated Campaign was officially kicked off in the SLC. Our current Engineering Society President, Scott Rankin, sat in a dumpster for three hours with one representative from each society and the FedS current VP Education. Why would he do something so strange and unusual? The truth of the matter is that everyone in the dumpster that day was in there to raise money for a very deserving cause, Pathways to Education.
Pathways is a community based program that targets students grades 9-12 in economically disadvantaged communities ultimately to reduce poverty and its effects on the high school student dropout rate. The local Pathways branch, which was started in 2007, targets two communities within the Kitchener community. The Pathways program provides four different kinds of support to high school students: Academic Support (tutoring 4 nights a week), Financial Support (bus ticket distribution, food vouchers and scholarships), Social Support (mentoring program to help develop social skills) and Advocacy Support (Student Parent Support Workers). All the money raised during this year’s campaign will go towards the purchase of computers, workbooks and resources, and/or larger projects like specialty tutoring and mentoring opportunities.
So how do you raise money in a dumpster? Well let me give you the low down… each of the representatives set a goal for the minimum amount of money they wanted to raise before they could get out of the dumpster. Then they had the option to opt into the second portion of the fundraising. Once they had met their minimum goal, students could donate additional funds to keep the representative from their society in the bin, at a rate of $2 per minute, for an extended period of time.
I am ecstatic to report that not only did the Engineering Society more than double their goal of $100, but we blew our competition out of the water and raised $316.01 in three hours. All the other societies did a fantastic job as well and we were able to collectively raise $1223.75!!! But it doesn’t stop here engineers! There is still a lot of time left to donate. The kick off of the event was on the 26th of January, but the Colour Me Educated Campaign is actually 9 WEEKS LONG and will end on March 30th with a paint drop. The society that raises the most money during the 9 weeks of the fundraising campaign will get to dump their faculties colour on the School’s President and the current FedS Executive.
Last year, Waterloo successfully raised $6000 for Pathways Kitchener and so in an attempt to surpass our results from 2010, the Colour Me Educated Planning Committee has set a goal of $7000 for this year’s campaign. So it’s time for everyone at Waterloo to dig into our pockets and show our love for our local community. It’s time to give to those less fortunate then ourselves and support a cause that truly impacts the life of youth around us! Stay tuned for more details on Colour Me Educated events to come.
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