Hurricane Relief Project at Fresno State to Sell NY Times Newspapers as Fundraiser for Victims

Fresno State students will hit the corners around the campus this week beginning Tuesday morning (Sept. 27) selling copies of The New York Times to raise funds for the Fresno State Hurricane Relief Project.

The Associated Students, Inc. -- the university's student government arm -- is working with the Times, which is donating a total of 1,000 copies of three editions: 333 each on Sept. 27, 28, and 334 on Sept. 29 that will be sold for $1 on and around the campus by participating student organizations and individuals.

The papers will be sold at vehicle entrances to campus, intersections near campus, in classes, and other locations. Volunteers are still being accepted to help sell the newspapers.

The Fresno State Hurricane Relief Project - launched Sept. 7 by University President John D. Welty in response to the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf Coast Aug. 29 - is being coordinated by the Office of Civic Engagement and Service-Learning and the Division of Student Affairs. All funds collected through the project will be disbursed to various agencies involved in the relief efforts agencies, Welty said.

More than 15 individual projects have been or will be under way as the Fresno State community strives to meet Welty's call for at least $1 each from the 23,000 students and employees at the university, as well as from the community. Relief projects have ranged from student club concessions sales at the Save Mart Center, to collections in the Free Speech Area and individual offices on campus, to a raffle for Bulldog souvenir items in the Kennel Bookstore. Concerts have also been held or will be held in the near future.

The largest single endeavor so far has been by student-athletes and the Athletics Department at the Sept. 10 Bulldogs football game.

Other upcoming relief events include a concert with Inner Visions on Oct. 6 presented by the University Student Union and a "Leap for Relief" event at the Fresno State Ropes Course tentatively scheduled for early October. (Full press releases with details of these events will be forthcoming with updates posted at wwwFresnoStateNews.com).

Chris Fiorentino, director of the Civic Engagement office on campus who convened the initial project meeting of more than 85 students representing 65 organizations on Sept. 13, said he is currently compiling totals of collections to date for the Fresno State Hurricane Relief Project and expects to provide the first report this week. But he said preliminary indications are that the project has reached two-thirds of its goal.

For now, the energy is being put into the newspaper sales project beginning tomorrow.

The Associated Students recruited student groups and individual volunteers the past few days to sell the papers which they will pick up starting at 8 a.m. at the Civic Engagement Office in Science Building I, Room 136 before heading for a destination to hawk their papers for the hurricane relief cause.

Volunteers interested in helping sell may contact Fiorentino at (559) 278-7079 or email chrisf@csufresno.edu.