Shinerama hosts pie in the face event

Photo by Britt Kovacs

Laurier’s Shinerama team held their annual pie in the face event in the concourse on Oct. 2 from 10am to 4pm to raise money for cystic fibrosis, their first event of the fall semester other than their change drive during orientation week.

The campaign sold one pie for $2 or three pies for $5 to raise money for the organization and buyers could choose to pie a member of their orientation week team or coordinator, with the students’ union president Zemar Hakim and vice president of programming and services Twan Dieker also eligible to be pied by participants.

“This event has been happening for years, the Shinerama team invites the coordinator team, the orientation team as well as the students’ union president and some of the vice presidents, so that’s why Zemar and I were there for an hour,” said Twan Dieker, vice president of programming and services for the students’ union.

Laurier raises over $100,000 ever year for Shinerama, raising the most money per capita as well as being the highest fundraisers out of all post-secondary institutions in 2016.

“I think it’s incredible to be part of a national movement, it’s the largest post-secondary fundraiser in Canada, it’s cool to be a part of that while it’s also deeply rooted in the Laurier community as it started in the Laurier community over 55 years ago, it’s cool that we get to be part of something big but know that it’s such a big part because it started here,” Dieker said.

When the Shinerama campaign first started at Laurier, the life expectancy of somebody living with cystic fibrosis was just four years, but thanks to fundraising campaigns and advances in research it is now well over 50 years.

“I definitely think there was a lot of excitement from our volunteers who got to pie their coordinators or some of their orientation leaders, I think it was kind of fun for them to come back and connect over that, I saw a lot of smiles and laughs through getting to pie their leaders of committees so that was definitely a big win for us,” Dieker said.

The Shinerama team also held another event on Sunday, Oct. 6 to continue their fundraising, partnering with A-Team at Laurier as well as the students’ union once again to present a country concert at Wilf’s where all proceeds went to Shinerama among other fundraisers.

“Our Moonshine Country Night is turning Wilf’s into a country bar where country artist Manny Blu, he’s putting out his first album so we’ll be having him play a set as well as alternating that with a country DJ, we’re working with Murphy’s Law distillery who will be giving out some samples as well as signature drinks with their moonshine products,” Dieker said.

“It’s a very fun night, but otherwise, we’re doing a bingo on Oct. 22, there’s going to be fun ways to get involved there as well as popcorn fundraisers and Krispy Kreme fundraisers, all that kind of fun stuff.”

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