The latest effort in fundraising will have students shining shoes across Calgary.
Shinerama, the national fund-raising campaign for the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, will return to University of Calgary this September courtesy of the Students’ Union.
"We’re actually really looking forward to it," said SU Vice-President Events Chris Kerr. "It’s a new thing for us, it’s a major undertaking and things are starting to pick up really well now. We really hope people get involved."
Though originally scheduled to debut on Sept. 14, Shinerama was delayed due to logistical diffi-culties.
"Some of the commissioners [that were also directors of the campaign] resigned and subsequently resigned from the campaign as well," said Kerr. "It was just too much work for the rest of us to pick up the slack so we decided rather than doing a bad campaign, we’ll postpone it for two weeks and then we’ll do a better campaign."
Shinerama takes place from Wed., Sept. 26 to Oct. 6 and involves a wide range of events that students may participate in. The debut event, the Mile of Loonies, features a single long piece of tape wrapped around the pillars in the food court of Mac Hall to which students can stick a dollar. The actual Shinerama day takes place Fri., Sept. 28, and consists of widespread shoeshining in exchange for donations to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. In addition, Shinerama day features a Shinerama car wash at Northland Mall and volunteers performing household tasks in the community at large in exchange for donations. On the same Friday there will be a Sleeping Bag Drive-In on campus. The campaign wraps up on Sat., Oct. 6 with a cabaret in the Den and Black Lounge. Throughout the campaign, volunteers will also sell one-dollar suckers at the Den as part of the "Buck-A-Suck" fundraiser.
Kerr encouraged students to get involved.
"We’re recruiting volunteers right now all the way up till and including Friday," he said. "They get involved with their campus community, it’s fun, you get to meet new people, and of course, you’re working for a good cause."
Kerr added that there are plenty of opportunities to get involved other than by volunteering.
"[You] can still walk by, pitch in, get [your] car washed or help out The Mile of Loonies," he pointed out. "We’ll have music going, we’ll have games, probably some face painting and I’ll be doing a barbeque, so there’s all sorts of ways for students just walking between their classes to get involved and check it out."
Although Shinerama hasn’t been held at the U of C in four years, Kerr is confident that the university will be able to reach its goal of raising $15,000.
"We don’t think that goal is too unreasonable," he said. "We think that with the proper volunteer power, the right awareness and the right advertising, we will be able to make that goal."
For more information on Shinerama, students can contact the SU at 220-6551.