Engineering students know how to give and have fun. In the process of collecting donations to the Campus Food Bank, they held a wild round of Can-struction. Here, a team stacks up a Trump Tower of Campbell's Soup.
(Edmonton) The tradition that began 75 years ago as a one-night celebration for undergraduate engineering students has morphed into a week-long interdisciplinary rivalry with a philanthropic twist.
GEER Week, the biggest event run by the U of A Engineering Students' Society (ESS), has raised a whopping $4,000 in donations to Stollery Children's Hospital as the event's motto, "Helping the community at large," received a warm welcome from the Faculty of Engineering students and alumni.
"It's the first time we've raised a significant amount of money," said Brandan Prochnau, a fifth-year civil and environmental engineering student and one of the GEER Week organizers. "During the GEER Week, you can have fun and be able to give back."
To top it all off, throughout the week, students gave 25 liters of blood to the Canadian Blood Services, collected over 1,000 items for the Food Bank, and put in more than 70 hours of volunteer work-on top of their busy academic schedules.
"It's the image I want to have. There's more to GEER Week than toboggan races and cheering," said Andrew Overholt, a fifth-year mining engineering student and president of the Mining Engineering Club, this year's GEER Week winner.
Overholt's team collected $275 to help fund a project-building a home with Habitat for Humanity for a low-income family in south-east Edmonton-a housing project they've been involved with since last fall.
"My donation will go into buying a bathtub in the house we started to build," added Overholt.
The GEER Week spirit of giving is here to stay, says Overholt, and he'd like to see students commit to one Habitat for Humanity build per year.
Like Overholt, Daniel Fujinagu, a fourth-year materials engineering student, was keen on lending a hand: despite a paralyzing fear of needles, Fujinagu made a trip to the Canadian Blood Services to donate blood. His act of service (and bravery) encouraged seven other materials engineering student to give blood.
"We're a small discipline, so seven people is a lot," said Fujinagu. "GEER Week has an advantage to draw students' attention. It's great that we can then direct that attention to charity events."
Next year, the Engineering Students' Society is planning on kicking off charitable events a few months prior to GEER Week to raise even more money.
"The ESS mission is to unify all engineering students. GEER Week allows us to do that," said Josh Goselwitz, the ESS president.