Juggling early finals and the approaching end of the semester, student leaders at A&M continue to launch a six-day campaign to raise money for relief efforts of the community of West, Texas.
The citywide profit share “A Night Out in B-CS” begins Monday and all money raised will benefit victims affected by the fertilizer plant explosion.
The event was created last year to aid the families of constable Brian Bachman and Christopher Northcliffe after their deaths in an August shooting in College Station.
Junior finance major Hudson Hoyle is one of the founding members of Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity, PIKE, which created the event.
With 22 businesses registered to participate compared to last year’s 40, Hoyle said because this event is being organized over the course of six days, efforts might not reach their maximum potential.
“The only thing hindering us from having more people sign up is just the short notice and not having enough time to go to the businesses and get in touch with them,” Hoyle said. “We haven’t had the privilege of a month’s worth of planning so we couldn’t go through the process of recruiting businesses then figuring out the operations and then marketing the event.”
Hoyle said although he is losing sleep and time that would be spent studying for finals, it is well worth the struggle.
“I could give up nights of sleep to make this event as big as possible, but at the end of the day we’re going to have a bed to go home to,” Hoyle said. “These families in West – a lot of these people instantly lost their entire homes and apartments – their lives were just completely changed, so really the least we could do is give a week of our time.”
Although the members of PIKE organized the event in the past, they were not the first to inspire this year’s event.
Senior accounting major and former president of Old Army, Addison Porter, said he and two other students felt called to action to help alleviate turmoil in West.
“It was just such a devastating deal,” Porter said. “So when something like this happens, I think we have the duty to stand up and do something about it.”
In search of a method, they came across Mark Holubec, a business owner who participated in the event last year and who suggested they reach out to members of PIKE.
Hoyle said he and the other founders of PIKE readily offered their trademark event.
“We came up with this idea of doing a citywide profit share and just getting as many people involved as possible, that way we could mobilize the community and enable everybody to give back to these businesses as they’re giving back to a good cause,” Hoyle said.
Porter said an event like this, to a college student, is a more appealing way for students to get involved and help those in need.
“I think people want to give back but college students have a difficult time forking over cash,” Porter said. “Having these businesses come together makes it so much easier because going out to get a meal is a lot easier than just forking up a $20 bill.”
Hoyle said student leaders from about 20 organizations on campus are involved in bringing this event to life once more.
“Some people are helping market the event to students and community members, some are helping recruit businesses and others are donating actual monetary contributions,” Hoyle said.
Hoyle said because profit shares are common practice among student organizations, finding students with an applicable skill-set is relieving in this rushed effort in meeting the Wednesday deadline.
“There are a lot of different people doing a lot of different things to make it come together and it’s nice to know that I can trust other Aggies,” Hoyle said.
Dallas Schipp, director of marketing for Aggieland Outfitters and Class of 2003, said Aggieland Outfitters was commissioned to make special T-shirts for the event. All of the money from shirt sales will be donated to the West relief efforts.
Alice Schneider, president of the Collegiate Panhellenic Council, said they have a unique opportunity to help the community of West.
“Our 2,400 members are also involved in other organizations so word of mouth is really powerful when you have that many people,” Schneider said.
Hoyle said leaders hope this event is able to help West even beyond Wednesday.
“Right now West needs money to aid them – that’s what their need is,” Hoyle said. “Probably next semester they’re going to need hands and feet to actually go there and rebuild and help the community. So all of our hopes are that students will be made aware that there is a need and the next time something arises where we can give back – they’re willing to donate their time.”