The Quad became a home away from home for many students last week as they inhabited shacks that they built themselves for the fourth annual Shack-A-Thon.

Habitat for Humanity reached its goal this year, collecting approximately $6,000 from the 12 shacks sponsored for $500 each, said Christina Fieni, coordinator of the event and sophomore graphic design and English and textual studies major.

This year’s Shack-A-Thon event brought in the same amount of money and had about the same number of participants, Fieni said. However, she felt that this year’s event was another success.

‘I think that this year we were very successful in getting what we expected,’ she said. ‘It’s pretty much our biggest fundraiser all year long, and even though we didn’t make more than we did last year, I’m just glad that we were able to raise so much money in such a short period of time and that so many people turned out this year.’

Shack-A-Thon is an annual fundraiser held by the Syracuse University and State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry chapter of Habitat for Humanity. Students from various organizations on campus build and live in shacks on the Quad for three days and two nights to raise awareness on the issue of affordable housing.

At 1:10 p.m. Friday, students began to deconstruct the shacks. The event officially came to a close at 2 p.m. when Syracuse Habitat for Humanity Resource Development Director Kristin Earle gave closing remarks and individually thanked participants of the event.

‘When you individually thank people, you’re looking them in the eye and thanking them for their commitment to what we believe in,’ Earle said.

Habitat for Humanity gains profits from sponsorship fees that each organization must pay to maintain a shack. The sponsorship fee is $500, and this money goes toward Habitat for Humanity’s annual building project. This year, the group will be building a home on the Near Westside.

‘People think ‘Oh, there’s not really a big problem in Syracuse, and there’s a big problem in Africa or India,’ but it’s right here in Syracuse,’ Earle said. ‘The Near Westside is one of the poorest per capita in the nation.’

While Habitat for Humanity members considered the event to be a success, others felt that this year’s event paled in comparison to those of past years.

Oladis Vicente, a senior finance major who participated in the event with the Lambda Upsilon Lambda fraternity, said he felt there were fewer people participating this year. Vicente participated last year as well and said he felt that it was more popular then.

On Friday, the final day of the event and when the shacks would be deconstructed, many of them still had not been decorated. But this was not the case for all organizations, like Alpha Gamma Delta.

Rachel Arndt, an undeclared sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences, said that AGD decorated and modeled its shack after its sorority house. She said the theme was chosen because the sorority just returned to campus this year.

Fieni estimated that a few hundred students participated in the event during the course of the three days. The event included performances by the Mandarins a cappella group and Raices Dance Troupe on Thursday night in Gifford Auditorium, for which Fieni estimated that 50 to 60 students were in attendance.

One of the organizations that had a significant turnout was Alpha Phi Omega, sponsoring two shacks and having approximately 150 brothers participating in the event at some point, Fieni said.

Allie Gendreau, community service chair of First Year Players and a sophomore child and family studies and psychology major, said the shack FYP built and inhabited had become a hang out for students involved in the organization.

‘It became a temporary place to call home on the Quad,’ Gendreau said. ‘It’s been a central hub for us.’

cffabris@syr.edu

— News Editor Meghin Delaney contributed reporting to this article. 

Published on October 9, 2011 at 12:00 pm

Contact Casey: cffabris@syr.edu | @caseyfabris