One student organization on the University’s campus isn’t dedicated to social activities or playing sports. Instead, it helps the 4,300 patients who are seen at St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital each year.
This organization, Up ’til Dawn, was founded on campus four years ago and is now one of the top college contributors to St. Jude in the nation.
St. Jude’s has treated more than 19,000 children from across the nation and 60 foreign countries for diseases such as cancer and leukemia.
Up ’til Dawn Director Brad Golson, an advertising junior, said a group of Greek students founded the organization.
“This is a program strictly for college students,” Golson said. “It’s an organization where you can affect your community by putting in the least amount of work, and the payback is tenfold.”
The basis of Up ’til Dawn’s fund raising is its letter-writing campaigns, where teams of six address letters to their friends and family asking for money for St. Jude.
“Once they turn in their team registration, we provide letters, stamps and take care of sending out everything,” Golson said. “After our letter-writing party, we wait.”
The letter writing “party” is Oct. 21 in the Union. The party ran out of letters last year because of an overwhelming amount of participants.
“Last year we had around 1,400 letters, and we ran out early,” said Lori King, the team’s co-chair for Up ’til Dawn and an English and political science senior. “The response was wonderful; we had to go run off another 800 and address them later.”
King said the program has affected her life greatly.
St. Jude treated King her senior year of high school for acute myeloid leukemia. Her mother also works there.
“It’s a very personal thing for me,” King said. “There’s no other place that I would want my kid or my brother or sister to be treated.”
Last year, Up ’til Dawn had around 60 teams. King said only around 40 attended the actual night of Up ’til Dawn last spring. This year, King is looking for 60 active teams to raise more money for St. Jude’s.
Up ’til Dawn’s yearlong fund-raising program begins this week with the team captains’ meeting Tuesday at 6:30 and 7:30 p.m. in the Vieux Carre Room of the Union.
Last year, Up ’til Dawn raised $93,000, almost triple the previous year’s total of $35,000.
“Last year it really caught on around campus,” King said. “We would send out e-mails, and they would get forwarded to almost everyone. We doubled our size.”
The actual night of Up ’til Dawn is March 19, 2004, where participants stay up all night until a check is presented at 7 a.m.
Students are offered games and many other activities to keep them awake through the night.
“We stay up all night with a concert, games and spend time with patients and their families,” Golson said. “It’s just a fun night to celebrate all the work that we’ve done.”
Emily Meyer, a biological sciences senior and the public relations chair for the organization, said she joined the organization last year during Up ’til Dawn’s large expansion.
“I think the appeal is that people do it and think it’s something easy; they don’t expect much,” Meyer said. “When they go to the actual night and see the patients they get back so much for their effort. It’s worth it.”
Students interested in joining Up ’til Dawn can attend the captains’ meeting Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. or 7:30 p.m. in the Union Vieux Carre Room or look for the organization’s table in Free Speech Alley Tuesday and Wednesday.