Seventy Boston University students came together for a variety performance showcasing a selection of Boston University talent groups and Boston-area pop rock band chauncey last night in the College of General Studies.
The show concluded a first-ever week-long Community Service Center fundraiser called ‘Thanksgiving in April,’ a series of events designed to increase awareness about the problem of hunger in Boston.
Students said last night’s event was the highlight of the week.
Fans cheered as the band came onstage in a cardboard boat named ‘Mayflower’ and wearing Indian headdresses to go along with the event’s Thanksgiving theme. By the time the band strummed their last tune, enthusiastic audience members, including event participants, were dancing in the aisles and singing along with the lead vocalist.
BU a cappella group the ‘Allegrettos’ also performed at the show, along with three student dance teams and the Boston University Juggling Association.
‘BU on Tap,’ the only tap group on campus, began the evening with several lively dance pieces. BU’s newest dance group, ‘Encore!’ debuted with a lyrical jazz performance, and student hip-hop group ‘Fusion’ added some flavor and funk to the evening.
BUJA entertained the audience with tricks that included juggling balls, boxes, and scarves. CSC students introduced each act with a comedic Thanksgiving-themed skit.
Though students said the variety show was the highlight of the week, student volunteers worked throughout the week to help the Allston Brighton Food Pantry, which also received $535 raised through ticket sales to last night’s event.
CAS freshman Amisha Parikh, who helped with a ‘Canning at Shaw’s’ event earlier in the week, said the week was a success.
‘I really enjoyed helping with the cannings,’ Parikh said. ‘I’m not usually very outgoing so this helped me get involved and I had a lot of fun in the process.’
Volunteers gathered 1,162 cans by the end of the week, Parikh said.
The ‘Food for Food’ week-long event, in which students donated two meals from their campus meal plan to feed the homeless, was also a success, according to CAS freshman and event participant Samantha Limner.
‘Most students wanted to donate more than two meals, even though BU doesn’t allow that,’ she said. ‘They were very supportive.’
Dining Services also showed their support of the event by serving Thanksgiving-themed fare on Thursday night, event planners said.
Event planners said the week’s original purpose was to make BU community members aware that hunger is a constant problem within the city of Boston and push them to make efforts to prevent it year-round, not just during the holidays.
‘The holidays are a time in which people are more likely to care about the homeless, the hungry and the less fortunate,’ said College of Communication senior Jesse Horner, CSC Public Relations program manager. ‘Unfortunately, these problems don’t end after the holidays.’
CSC Student Food Rescue program manager Nicole Rimar, a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences, dubbed the whole week a ‘success.’
‘It completely exceeded our expectations,’ she said.
Rimar and fellow SFR program manager Brooke Ives organized the variety show, as well as the other events held throughout the week.
Rimar and Ives said they may make the event a yearly tradition.
‘We hope that it will become an annual event.’ Ives said. ‘That’s the plan, at least.’
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
