UPUA will vote at its meeting at 8 tonight in 302 HUB-Robeson Center whether or not to allocate $909.77 to supply 123 pizzas throughout the Penn State-Michigan State Blood Donor Challenge.
Also at the meeting, representatives were also scheduled to vote on a motion to censure — a motion that will likely be revoked.
The blood donor challenge, hosted by the Penn State Student Red Cross Club, will take place from Oct. 29 to Nov. 8. At last year’s challenge, University Park Undergraduate Association supported the PSU-MSU Blood Donor Challenge with $915.84.
So they’re not simply writing out a check to the club, UPUA would provide pizza at the various blood drive locations on campus, Chairman of the Assembly Spencer Malloy said.
“It’s a physical thing that’s helping [the PSU-MSU Blood Donor Challenge], and it’s also helping us spend it as co-sponsorship money rather than just writing a check,” Malloy (senior-philosophy and agroecology) said.
UPUA Chair of Student Life Justin Laskowski has been in contact with Red Cross to make sure that UPUA was involved with the event from the beginning.
“There was a lot of criticism last year because UPUA wasn’t involved in the gecko planning stages of this [event],” Laskowski said.
He also said that there was criticism that the money being used wasn’t directly helping students, so he made sure that this year it would.
By providing pizzas for the challenge, the $909.77 won’t strictly be a donation, but rather a way to help the club.
“We have to stick to the Student Activities Fee Board guidelines,” Malloy said. “One of the big things is that we can’t do donations and everything that we do should be for the benefit of the students.”
The money will be taken from UPUA’s Diversity Committee co-sponsorship budget.
With past blood drives, the food provided hasn’t been the best and the hope is to improve that by providing pizza instead, Chair of Diversity Dutch Markward said.
UPUA’s name and logo would also appear on challenge T-shirts, posters, mailbox inserts, press releases and in challenge email updates.
More than just the name, however, it would help show students what a great event it is, Markward said.
“It shows it’s not just students in one club, but student government and all these organizations on campus can come together,” Malloy said.
The PSU-MSU Blood Donor Challenge has been around for 18 years and UPUA first became involved three years ago, Laskowski said.
“It further solidifies that we’re involved with the organization,” Laskowski said.
