The 25th anniversary of Kids Day will draw 60 Fresno State student organizations to take part in Fresno’s largest volunteer event of the year on Tuesday.
Starting at 5 a.m., Fresno residents will come out by the hundreds to sell a special edition of the Fresno Bee on street corners around campus and all around Fresno. The papers, which come with an outside page of special stories about Children’s Hospital, sell for $1, and all proceeds go to Valley Children’s Hospital.
The event is coordinated by Fresno State’s Jan and Bud Richter Center for Community Engagement and Service Learning.
Out of the 5,000 volunteers that fan out through a 10-county area, more than 1,350 are Fresno State students.
“It is the largest group of organized volunteers we have for the whole event and they are always the top. They have raised the most amount of money of any group, too,” said Wagner. “They’re very important to us.”
“We get started early in the morning to claim the best spots and the papers sell themselves,” said Michael Eberhard, president of the Fresno State Interfraternity Council. “We’re looking forward to even bigger numbers this year. For some of the fraternities this is an annual competition of who can raise the most for Valley Children’s Hospital.”
Last year, some of the fraternities spent Monday night staking out a specific corner. For example, across the street from the Kids Day media corner at Cedar and Nees, a fraternity laid out a mattress and spent the night. Other fraternities went as far as Blackstone and Shaw with some sororities at Blackstone and Nees.
“The Greek community is very dedicated to giving back and the annual Kids Day event is no exception,” said Eberhard via email. “About 15 Greek organizations are participating this year and we plan to have just as big of a presence as last year.”
However, a student doesn’t have to belong to a student organization to participate.
“Most of the volunteers are members of clubs and organizations, but individuals are more than welcome,” said Renee Delport, special events and projects coordinator for the Richter Center. “In fact, when they volunteer we always encourage them to go out to the corners that are reserved for Fresno State and join up with other Fresno State students because that always makes it more fun.”
(Source:http://collegian.csufresno.edu)
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