Shine gets year-end boost

Though this Friday marks the end of Shinerama’s 2013-14 campaign, the organization recently received a $1,500 donation. The money was raised from a residence charity event that took place on Oct. 25.

Olivia Montgomery, this year’s Shinerama coordinator, said that she officially found out about the donation this month. The money has been deposited into the Shinerama account and will be sent off to Cystic Fibrosis Canada this week.

The event was an all-ages Halloween themed Turret Night that was planned by first-year students on House Council and community advisors from Willison, Spring, Lodge-Marshall and Waterloo College Hall residences.

“I’m so thrilled and thankful that first-year students care so much about Shinerama that they are willing to put that much work into the event to help Shinerama out and to help people with Cystic Fibrosis. It just means a lot,” said Montgomery.

According to Cory Coletta, community advisor at Lodge-Marshall residence, this hasn’t been the first Halloween Turret event held by first-years.

“There have been multiple events like this every year. They [first-year Leadership Council] don’t really seem to use any traditions. But it seems like it’s very popular to place a Turret event at this time [around Halloween] and we always have a successful turnout,” said Coletta.

Along with the Turret event, haunted houses were also held on campus, which provided marketing for the event.

The decision-making process was controlled by first-year students; therefore, they had the final say in picking the charity.

Lindsay Tayler, community advisor at for the Kings Court apartments and Spruce Street apartments, and Jan Boomhouwer, community advisor at Willison Hall, said that the overall awareness first-year students had about Shinerama influenced their decision to select it as their cause.

“The entire first-year population would be aware of the cause and would know the background of where the money was going … Laurier as a whole supports Shinerama so it was a well-known cause that they felt like people would connect with,” said Tayler.

“Having been introduced to Shine Day during O-Week, they know that Shinerama’s a great organization that they would like to contribute funds to and all sorts of a good cause,” said Boomhouwer.

The community advisors involved felt that the event went well. It allowed first-year students to plan their own event, get to know others and achieve specific goals.

“I think it went fantastically… The first-year students really committed to planning the entire thing and we gave them full autonomy for it … and executed it with no flaws whatsoever,” said Coletta.

“The goals set out, were definitely achieved. They wanted to create an event where people actually came out and where they had fun,” continued Tayler.