By Katie Doyle, Features Staff Writer
Until May 1, colleges across the country will compete for contraceptives.
Conscious Contraceptives, a company that sells contraceptives and donates a portion of the proceeds to communities in need, is hosting a competition across college campuses nationwide. With Boston University as one of its top competitors, BU students will be competing with schools such as Harvard University and University of Washington.
To participate, BU students can log onto ConsciousContraceptives.org and use the code “SICBU” to participate in the competition. With this code, students will receive a 10% discount off their first purchase.
Conscious Contraceptives, with the motto of “Do Good While Feeling God, “is a new organization, inspired by the “one for one” charity model of the TOMS Shoes brand. The online store sells condoms, lubricants and sex toys in a discrete and convenient manner. All orders are shipped in plain packaging, and credit card bills contain no references to the products, so shoppers can avoid embarrassment and do not have to worry about the hassle of buying condoms in stores.
The winning university will receive a $3,100 sponsorship for students to go on a Support for International Change (SIC) volunteer trip.
ConCon.org’s founder, Cory Capoccia, said in a press release how Conscious Contraceptives’ partnership with SIC is beneficial for both.
“SIC is a collaboration of motivated students and alumni from several colleges across the country driven to advance global sexual health,” he said. “As their partner, we created this competition to provide the student volunteers with a fundraising tool which easily empowers them to exceed their fundraising goals,” he said.
Each purchase yields a $5 donation to the student’s university, and Conscious Contraceptives has not established a cap to the number of orders, so the amount of money that could be donated to each university is unlimited, the press release also said.
According to Conscious Contraceptives’ website, the charity model transforms “customers into benefactors.” In addition to the one-to-one donations, Conscious Contraceptives also works with both national and international organizations to reduce unplanned pregnancies and prevent the spread of sexually transmitted infections. The website also said that about 41 percent of the 208 million pregnancies worldwide are accidental.
For more information about Conscious Contraceptives’ competition and the Support for International Change volunteer trips, students can contact SIC coordinator for Boston University, Chloe Auletta-Young, at bu@sichange.org.
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Hadn’t considered Hip-Hop with a political soul, but then art has always covered social dimensions. And a lot of artists have backed important causes and now Obama. Massive social restructuring from the top down and from an always more or less conservative Washington, isn’t likely to happen fast enough. And never mind all the resistance from big business and big government bureaucracy whose recent agenda is nothing short of Neo-feudalism. Optimism isn’t going to cut it.
Students and the student press should take a bigger critical role in safeguarding our freedoms and culture. Big media is more or less part of the establishment. They weren’t watching closely enough as the U.S. spiraled into outsourcing, wars and economic meltdown. Where were the blazing headlines? Apart from Lou Dobbs on CNN.
I’ve started my own online newsmagazines to that end. You’ll find this important article on Chavis excerpted on NewsHammer and soon on NewsHammerOnCampus, where some of the best university journalism is featured.
–Alan Gillis