Project Iraq, a subcommittee of the student group PANGEA, will raise money at Carmichael and Dewick-MacPhie dining halls tonight for its project to put water purification systems in Iraqi schools and hospitals.
The organization will collect signatures and Tufts ID numbers from students as they enter the dining halls. For each student who gives his or her information, Dining Services will donate $2.25 of the proceeds from that student's meal to the group.
The benefit is this semester's Cause Dinner, an event that Dining Services and the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate Services Committee collaborate on every semester.
Project Iraq is a new group this semester. The water project is one of a number it has already undertaken. "We've got a variety of projects in the works," said senior Monica Camacho, the co-founder of Project Iraq. The money raised at the dinner "is going towards the Iraq water project. It's a project run by Veterans for Peace [that] installs water purification systems."
Director of Dining Services Patti Klos said that Cause Dinners typically raise between $1,500 and $2,500.
The Senate Services Committee is responsible for receiving applications from student organizations that are interested in participating in the Cause Dinner and choosing which one will have that opportunity.
Klos said that she has requested that the committee select groups that focus on active citizenship rather than purely fundraising for their own benefit. "I really asked the Senate to focus on groups that are doing this for a higher purpose," she said. "And they certainly have fulfilled that request over the last few years."
