The brothers of Zeta Beta Tau fraternity will host a Tufts Gives Back event this Friday which will consist of a bone marrow registration drive and a used book sale and donation drive.
According to ZBT President Jason Brillon, the fraternity intends for the event to be different than other kinds of Greek charitable giving.
We wanted to do something a little ... different in the idea of service because the things ... weve done in the past and things that frequently occur are more philanthropic. We wanted to do something where people can give ... regardless of whether or not they have monetary contributions, Brillon, a sophomore, said. Money is one thing, but there [are] obviously a lot of different ways to give back to the community.
One of the methods in which people can contribute non-monetarily is the bone marrow drive, which Brillon said also occurred last year, except under different organizers.
The psychology department and [Tufts Association of South Asians] held a bone marrow drive in honor of one of the members of the [Department of Psychology], and that was held last April, he said. It didnt look like it was going to happen this April, so we tried integrating it and reaching out to them about if they wanted to do it again.
According to ZBT Recruitment Chair Bryan Dumond, the bone marrow drive, which will benefit non-profit organization Be The Match, is quick and simple.
Be The Match is working to help those inflicted with deadly cancerous diseases such as leukemia and lymphoma, and basically they have the largest bone marrow registry in the world, Dumond, a junior, said. Were trying to help them strengthen that registry by having Tufts students sign up [through] a really simple process. They swab the inside of the cheek with a cotton swab and, just by doing that, [students] could help someone with one of those diseases survive, if they choose to donate.
According to David Mason, the community engagement representative for Be The Match - Northeast District, donations from college students are particularly helpful.
Be The Match encourages students to join the Be The Match Registry due to the great need for more young donors, he told the Daily in an email. People between the ages of 18-44 are the most urgently needed group, since they are requested by transplant doctors more than 90 percent of the time, and research shows that these donors provide the greatest chance for transplant success.
Mason added that Tufts is currently not in the organizations campus network, but that they are interested in working with ZBT and motivated students to create a Tufts chapter.
ZBT will also host a book drive in conjunction with a nonprofit enterprise that focuses on selling books.
The book drive will benefit the organization More than Words, Dumond said. More than Words is a local organization thats spent the past 10 years helping impoverished children ... by first giving them employment and teaching them leadership and management skills that are going to help them later on in life.
Brillon explained that ZBTs affiliation with More than Words is personal, as he interned with the organization several summers ago.
A lot of people who work there came to speak with us and we took a site visit to the actual bookstore itself in Waltham, he said. I was personally really moved by it and wanted the opportunity to give back to them.
Students will have the opportunity to both buy books and donate their used textbooks at the book sale, which will be held from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. on the Upper Campus Center Patio, according to Dumond. Donations can include school textbooks, cookbooks, DVDs and even VHSs, he added.
In addition to the book sale and bone marrow registry which will take place in the Carmichael Hall lounge from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. students will be invited to sign a massive chalk board near lower campus center, Brillon said.
Another way you can show how you give back to the community ... is the advocacy component, because the way I see service is advocacy, philanthropy, and service itself, he said. The advocacy component is going to have a roughly 8-foot by 4-foot chalk board that were making and thats going to be mounted and drilled into the brick wall by Jumbo Express.
Brillon explained that students will be asked to write reasons for why they give on the chalk board.
[The chalk board] is going to say Tufts gives back and then it will have prompts that say I give because and then people ... can kind of just write on those lines what motivates them to give back to the community.
Dumond expressed excitement for the event and hopes it is representative of Tufts giving spirit.
We would just love to have as many Tufts students involved, he said. ...We really want it to be a powerful symbol for Tufts passion [for] giving back to the community.
