Frank,
Thanks for trying to gather this info in a central location.
Here is an e-mail sent from Student Gov't to our club presidents. It sums up the student response pretty well. (sorry for formatting).
Here's the university response in case you are curious: http://haitidisaster.nd.edu/
********************************
Club and Organization Presidents-
I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and a great start to the new year.
I write to you in a time of sincere need. As you all know, the
earthquake in Haiti has caused severe suffering and pain throughout
the population of Haiti. We are one of the most united student bodies
in the country. As leaders of Notre Dame, I feel that it is our
responsibility to step up and provide as much assistance and support
as possible. It is our job to lead by example and our job to inspire
hope during times of distress.
There are many questions circulating campus asking what we can do to
help, who needs our help, and where we can donate money and goods.
On behalf of the student body, Student Government has decided to
initiate a broad collaboration and coalition of student clubs,
organizations, dorms, academic departments, and individual students so
that we can centralize our efforts in the most efficient way possible.
This is only the beginning of our efforts. Many students have come to
me with some remarkable ideas which we will continue to implement. I
wanted to make sure, however, that we at least created a foundation
for the student body's support.
I would like to outline our collaborative plan below. I have already
run this by several of you, but I ask that you please read through the
details and please relay the information to your specific club or
organization.
Today, we created an account through the University that all funds
will be placed into. Instead of creating a situation where students
would feel obligated to choose among a variety of groups or agencies,
we decided to choose a group of agencies that all of our centralized
funding will go towards. With much consultation, the groups that we
chose are: American Red Cross, Catholic Relief Services, the
fundraising efforts of Friends of the Orphans, Congregation of the
Holy Cross, and the Notre Dame Haiti Program. We are hopeful that
these groups are as inclusive and reliable as possible and that you
will be willing to support these efforts. Each of these groups will
receive at minimum 10% of the funds. On Friday, with the assistance of
student leaders, we will decide the overall designated percentages
given the specific need at the time.
There are many ways in which we hope to centralize this money drive.
There will be boxes with a unique label explaining this initiative in
each dorm starting this weekend; there will be boxes at each cash
register within LaFortune, and within most food services locations;
there will be a collection at each dorm mass on Sunday; there will be
opportunities for students to donate at the dining halls and in other
locations throughout LaFortune. However, the most important method of
gathering support is through you, as club and organization presidents.
Your group can donate money directly to you and we will have someone
in the Student Government Office (203 LaFortune) each night next week
(through Thursday) collecting the funds from 10pm-12am and then
submitting them into our account.
There are a few things that I would like to ask of you. First, please
send me or Cynthia Weber (student body vice president) any suggestions that you have. In these endeavors, we are trying to
help centralize the efforts and create an easy system for students to
help in our efforts.
1) I would like to send out an email to the student body explaining
the details tomorrow night. If you could, please respond to this email
with your support so that I can add you and your organization to the
signature of the email.
2) We have attached a Google spreadsheet. If you can, please sign up
or have members of your clubs sign up to fulfill some of the time
slots for the dining hall and LaFortune locations. Also, please sign
up to be in charge of a specific box at particular locations. More
details will come regarding these volunteer positions. Here is the
spreadsheet:
3) Please feel free to drop the donations each night (starting Monday
night) in the student government office. (There will be a volunteer in
the office from 10pm-12am)
4) Finally, PLEASE feel free to give us as many suggestions as
possible. I definitely do not want to appear overbearing throughout
this; we just wanted to help get the ball rolling.
CONCLUSION:
We are creating a campus wide money drive. The money will go to Red
Cross, Catholic Relief Services, Friends of the Orphans, Congregation
of the Holy Cross, and the Notre Dame Haiti Program. Students will be
able to donate money through you (club and organization presidents),
their dorms, food locations throughout campus, and LaFortune.
If you have any questions at all, please feel free to contact me via
email or Cynthia Weber (student body vice president).
I cannot thank you enough for all of your support on this
collaboration. This is a team effort and I feel proud to be a part of
the Notre Dame community as we come together with confidence to help
those in sincere need.
In Notre Dame,
Grant Schmidt
Student Body President