Student Centers President Diana Douglas decided to do something to help the Hokies at Virginia Tech after a shooting there that left 33 dead.
After talking to her adviser Evelyn Reiman, associate vice-chancellor of student affairs, Bobby Mills, student body president, and her twin sister, Kelly, Douglas began planning fundraising events with their help.
“We are collecting donations for the Hokie Memorial Fund,” Douglas said.
According to Douglas, after talking to University Dining officials, they agreed to donate 100 percent of ice cream proceeds sold all day Friday at the Talley Student Center to the fund.
Douglas said volunteers are also collecting donations from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Friday at Talley, at the baseball games Friday night and Saturday night, and at the Brickyard from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m Thursday and Friday.
Also, at Centennial Campus Friday, an N.C. State vendor will be selling ice cream and decided to collaborate with the student leaders’ event.
“I came up with this right after the tragic event, and I brought it to Evelyn Reiman,” Douglas said. “She was very supportive of the idea, gave me the contact number [for University Dining] and connected me with the right people.”
Mills said he is excited about helping scoop out ice cream to students Friday and “seeing the joy on people’s faces” while they eat something they enjoy and knowing it is for a good cause.
According to Mills, to advertise for the events, he and Douglas and other volunteers, advertised by creating Facebook groups, campaigning by word of mouth and fliers.
Student volunteers, along with Mills and Douglas, went out on Hillsborough Street, Western Boulevard and Cameron Village to collect donations from businesses, Mills said.
“I felt it was necessary for our University to help out fellow brother institution, and in order to do so, it was by fundraising,” he said.
Douglas said although they went to businesses to ask for money, many of them are corporations and have to contact their corporations before agreeing to donated.
“As of now, we have close to $300 in just small business and community member donations,” she said.
Mills said he does not have a monetary goal for fundraising, but hopes that Talley runs out of ice cream. Douglas said she hopes thousands of dollars are raised.
“We really want to just raise as much money as we can,” she said. “Every person that buys ice cream, every single cent of that will go to the memorial fund.”
