Alpha Kappa Psi at San Diego State held a 5K fundraiser on Saturday, April 23 that raised $1,984, or 34,897.17 pesos, for the Eunime orphanage in Tijuana, Mexico.
Eunime is an orphanage for children with HIV/AIDS in Tijuana. The professional business fraternity has been partnering with the orphanage for the past three years. The members have gone down to help build roofs, spend time with the children and assist with whatever the orphanage needed. The orphanage does not get a lot of funding from the government and runs for the most part on donations and volunteers.
“We go down and visit them and whenever they need help, we see what we can do and just try and offer as much as we can,” Vanessa Boull’t, vice president of marketing said. “It is in another country but being here in San Diego, it’s so close to home at the same time. Us being so close to the border, it’s so easily accessible to San Diego residents.”
Alpha Kappa Psi said this is the largest donation they have been able to give them. They are hoping to continue to build their relationship with the orphanage.
“The whole goal was to raise awareness and put them on the map,” Michael McBride, vice president of philanthropy, said. “The kids are affected by HIV or AIDS and not many people know about that. It’s kind of a unique cause, it’s not really well known.”
Two members from the orphanage were able to come to the event. Javier Cruz, who has been the psychologist for the children for the past two years, and Elizabeth Mendez, a volunteer, drove up from Tijuana to be there for the 5K. They expressed gratitude to Alpha Kappa Psi for what they have done over the past several years for the orphanage.
Cruz, who only spoke Spanish, said if these kinds of organizations didn’t exist, the orphanage wouldn’t exist.
Although only five people ran the course this year, the organization hopes to continue to build up the event over the next several years. Relay for Life was the same day and they only had a few weeks to inform other organizations on campus after Student Life and Leadership approved the event.
“For the future we definitely want to find a better time and way to market it,” Alpha Kappa Psi’s President David Lin-Cesena said. “It is kind of amazing to think we put this whole event together in a month.”
Guadalupe Feria and Warsan Artan were two runners who participated for extra credit in one of their classes and felt it was a great way to help out people in need.
“They don’t have a lot of financial resources so this is a great way to support both our Aztec family and the orphanage in Tijuana,” Feria said.
Marissa Walsh, Vice President of Public Relations, said they hope to make this an annual event. She wanted to get the word out as much as possible this year so future years can make even more of an impact on the orphanage.
