The Earthquake Relief Coalition kicked off a campaign Tuesday night to raise funds for the victims of the earthquake that rocked South and Central Asia on Saturday.
The Georgetown relief effort, which Saad Omar (CAS ‘07) and Salik Ishtiaq (SFS ‘07) are leading, draws support from 25 student organizations. At the meeting Tuesday, group members came together to discuss a plan for their efforts and to organize a benefit concert to be held tonight in Gaston Hall.
Omar and Ishtiaq said the Muslim Student Association has already collected $420 through donations during their Ramadan services. They hope tonight’s show will help raise enough money to meet their $10,000 goal, which the ERC will donate to charities including Oxfam and the Red Crescent.
The benefit concert will be one of several events sponsored by the ERC in the coming weeks. It also hopes to sponsor a bake sale and host a fast where people can donate money they would normally spend on food to the fund.
Omar said he is concerned about the success of this relief effort so soon after the attention given on campus to Hurricane Katrina. “The biggest danger when we have a lot of natural disasters is that we can become desensitized to the human loss,” he said.