Accelerating toward the finish line: Building Tomorrow at nearly $35,000

On any college campus the promise of a cheap meal usually works wonders to ensure the success of a charity event, but it certainly never hurts if the event raises funds for a cause that everyone can believe in. A prime example of an organization that knows this all too well is Davidson College's chapter of Building Tomorrow, who hosted their Fast Until Tomorrow dinner last week on the first floor of the Alvarez College Union.
Building Tomorrow is an organization that encourages philanthropy among young people by raising awareness and funds to build and support educational infrastructure projects for under-served children in sub-Saharan Africa.
Since its inception four years ago, the Davidson BT chapter has worked to raise the $35,000 necessary to build a school in Uganda. At the beginning of the spring 2010 semester, BT students were still $10,000 away from their goal, but they've come a long way in the past four months.
At the event, Building Tomorrow members offered a buffet-style dinner of ethnic foods solicited from local Chinese, Thai and Indian restaurants to students at prices that were far less than those of any other meal on campus.
The event intended to recognize the many children who attend Building Tomorrow schools who only eat one meal a day—a meal they receive only at school. Clearly, the Union Café simply couldn't compete with this offer; students, who paid either 5 dollars prior to the event or 7 at the door, devoured the buffet within the first twenty minutes.
"We had to offer refunds to students who paid in advance, but missed the food. It was definitely a good problem to have," noted Paige Bates '11, Building Tomorrow member and former co-president.
Earlier this semester, BT members solicited friends and family from outside the Davidson community in a letter-writing fundraising campaign. With these letters, the group successfully surpassed their goal for the endeavor and raised an astounding $6,000. In March, the members of Building Tomorrow turned back to students for support and fostered a little healthy competition among student groups to see who could dominate the largest part of the wall of red paper bricks (a $3 donation bought each brick).
Also, Bill Giduz, Director of Media Relations at the college, has become involved in Building Tomorrow. His article on Davidson's website told the story of founding member Lindsay Kallman's '10 involvement in Building Tomorrow and her hopes to complete the fundraising process before graduation. Interest from this article alone has generated over $400 in online donations. Giduz will also be involved in Building Tomorrow's Vaudeville Extravaganza already in the works for this September.
A few weeks prior to Fast Until Tomorrow, the organization was still $7,000 away from their goal, but as donations produced by the letter writing campaign began to come in along with other personal donations, Building Tomorrow began a fundraising sprint that left them only $2,500 away from a school for 325 children in Uganda. The dinner garnered upwards of $500 and Kallman couldn't be more thrilled.
"The dinner pushed us so much closer to our goal it is actually feasible to raise the remaining funds to build our school through personal donations by the end of the semester, which is incredible," she gushed.
Building Tomorrow, recently chartered by UCA, has one more fundraising campaign to go before finals finish: "41 for 41" is a day when 41 students will wear shirts designed for the event by University Tees and speak in their classes about Africa and Building Tomorrow. The number "41" signifies the 41 million African children without access to primary education.
The Davidson community will certainly be on the lookout for these students and rooting for a strong finish before May 15th for the members of Building Tomorrow!