Update on the campaign

For future notice, unless there's a pressing issue, updates will be coming on Wednesdays, following our weekly meetings, and before and after major events and fundraisers.

On to the belated update for last week:

The MassPIRG Kickoff last Tuesday night was a big success! We had roughly 30 people attend our breakout session, which means that the Save Darfur Campaign has about 30 members, most of them new this semester. That means fresh ideas, new goals and new enthusiasm, all of which are very positive things.

The big news coming out of the kickoff is that we've decided on a weekly meeting time, so from now on we will be meeting at 6 pm on Tuesday nights. The first meeting, tomorrow night, will be in the Bluewall in the Campus Center, although in the future we may try to move to a classroom. There will be an announcement if that happens.

The other big news is that we are now officially planning for our first major event; we will be hosting a display on the Library Lawn and a Day of Silence/Remembrance, both in October and probably connected. More on that as the details get cemented.

Throughout the semester we will be petitioning presidential and vice presidential candidates, and media outlets/personalities hosting debates, asking them to address a plan for Darfur. We've already collected 50 signatures on the presidential/vice presidential petitions!

And finally last week we held our first Challah for a Dollah sale. Working with Hillel House we sell challah bread (a Jewish bread that we often help to bake, although we didn't last week), usually in Bartlett Hall. All the proceeds go to the Genocide Intervention Network, which in turn sends the money to refugee camps in Darfur and in neighboring Chad. The money goes to fund AU troops, purchase necessities for the refugees, and to launch self-sustaining businesses in the camps, which helps give the refugees a sense of purpose and control. We will be doing this four more times this semester. Last week we raised over $60, which is a great start. So look out for us in the future (I'll probably post to the blog when we know the dates we'll be selling).

More Wednesday! (Also, beginning Wednesday, each weekly post will have a news update)