Student Groups Unite Against Poverty

Representatives from a range of student groups met for the first time Wednesday to mount a Harvard-wide campaign against poverty.

The Students Taking on Poverty (STOP) Campaign hopes to raise funds for two charities and for victims of Hurricane Katrina, through efforts including a Kuumba benefit concert in mid-October and the sale of three-dollar wristbands embedded with the words “Make Poverty History.”

“People don’t like to address [poverty issues] because they are momentous and they’re not going to go away overnight—but this is something we can work on,” Initiative Coordinator Chaz M. Beasley ’08 said to the 25 students gathered Wednesday evening in an Institute of Politics conference room.

According to Beasley, who is also the political action chair of the Black Students Association, 24 student groups had already agreed to participate in STOP. Representatives from organizations including Fuerza Latina, the Undergraduate Council, and the Harvard-Radcliffe Asian American Christian Fellowship attended the meeting.

The groups’ campaign aims to publicize STOP events—including a “town hall” meeting on poverty issues and an IOP study group on impoverished communities—and provide a base of volunteers.

“Our strength is in numbers,” said Nicole M. Brown ’08, who is leading the publicity efforts. “The administration will listen to us the more people we have involved in the campaign.”

Beasley said the campaign was in discussions with administrators to have the College match funds that STOP raises for charities.

In an interview prior to the meeting, he said that the original motivation for the campaign was to unite campus organizations with a common goal. The organizers decided to incorporate hurricane relief into the alliance’s wider anti-poverty efforts after Hurricane Katrina struck, he explained.

“A lot of these people [in the Gulf Coast] didn’t have money to get out of town, and that, in itself, is an issue related to poverty,” Beasley said. “The charities we plan on donating to are helping hurricane victims, although they have track records of helping other people [too].”

In addition to wristband sales and the Kuumba concert, STOP also plans to raise money through a dollar-a-day campaign, which will encourage students to donate one dollar every day to STOP during the month of October. Organizers also hope to add a link to the Harvard University Dining Services website, through which students will be able to donate Crimson Cash.

STOP will give the proceeds from wristband sales and the dollar-a-day campaign to two anti-poverty charities—they presently favor Rebuilding Together and Brother’s Brother Foundation.

Kwame Owusu-Kesse ’06, the group’s inter-campus coordination officer, said he hoped that the money raised would be on par with the amount gathered by the University after the East Asian tsunami last year.

STOP’s ultimate goal is to get every undergraduate to participate in one STOP event this year, according to Brown. A general interest meeting will be held on Sunday at 7:30 p.m. in the Leverett House Junior Common Room.

—Staff writer Joseph M. Tartakoff can be reached at tartakof@fas.harvard.edu.