What better way to spend a Thursday afternoon than watching your friends and professors be pied in the face? On Thursday, March 23rd, Professors Donovan, MacKalski, Douek, and Madan along with numerous students, participated in an event to raise money #forthekids. Anyone at 4 à 7 on Thursday can attest that it was a performance filled with laughs, competition, and many, many pies.
For the past few years, the club “McGill Students for Right to Play” has been putting on this circus-like spectacle to raise money for children in need. According to the co-president Natalia Malinowski, “it started 3 years ago in Bronfman and there was a lot of inter-prof competition which actually raised a lot of money and then it kind of just snowballed into this big event. ” This year they greatly surpassed their goal and raised over a $2000, due to a generous last-minute $1000 donation from Bob MacKalski. For $50 anyone could come and pie their friends, or simply watch a professor to support the club.
Not only was this event wildly funny to watch, all funds went to an excellent cause. As explained by Malinowski, “we donate [all money raised] to the larger Right to Play organization and they use it for their programming. $50 enrolls one child in a year of Right to Pay programming which uses sport and play to help kids overcome adversity.” With donations totaling more than double the anticipated goal, they were able to register more than 40 children in these activities.
The desired takeaway was more than just raising money. The club hopes to gain more members and raise awareness, so events like this can continue to grow. As put by one of the presidents, “Right to Play is super unique in the way that they approach these events…there are so many organizations that focus on health and education, but none of them really use sport as a means of teaching, so it’s super important to realize that every kid has the right to play and all of these things that come with it, and they learn so much through that.” They help kids in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Latin America and North America develop life skills to build toward a brighter future, while working toward lasting social change.
No matter the reason for attending the event, everyone there enjoyed the experience and raised money that will be put to good use. Here is a video from the event last year.