On Nov. 21, Baruch College’s chapter of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship hosted their annual Feed 5k event in the multipurpose room, where students and faculty gathered together to celebrate Thanksgiving early and volunteer for a common cause.
Feed 5k is one of InterVarsity’s largest events of the semester, in which they demonstrate the compassion God shares for the poor by inviting students and staff to create 5,000 care packages. These would later be sent to homeless people around the world.
“This is an opportunity for us and InterVarsity Christian Fellowship to engage the campus and let everyone know about the incredible opportunities we have through community service, like creating care packages for homeless people as well as helping Baruch students engage with their faith, god, higher power, and whatnot. We just want to be a positive influence around campus,” said Basil Harding, part of InterVarsity and a Undergraduate Student Government representative senator.
Fabian Doris, part of the marketing committee of InterVarsity and a CIS major, described the science behind advertising Feed 5k to the public and to Baruch students.
“It went really well. We planned this about a month ahead, so the flyers were ready. We just had to get the logos from the co-sponsors, print them out, put them up. We marketed about a few weeks, and we handed the flyers out as well,” he said.
Feed 5k was organized, and a lot of effort went into making the event as great as it could be.
There were tables set up outside the multipurpose room where students would line up with a bag, filling it up with items such as socks and face lotion, which were in boxes on the tables. They were collected at the end of the table.
The event itself started off with an unlimited MetroCard giveaway where winners in a game of human bingo would receive the prize.
After, there was a musical presentation where members of InterVarsity sang about God. There was then a PowerPoint presentation presented by a speaker, who spoke about the purpose of having Jesus in daily life.
Thanksgiving dinner was served, and students and faculty were free to leave after.
“Obviously, a lot of planning went into the event. A lot of people worked hard and there was a lot of organization involved. It was nice to see it come into fruition,” said Derrick Chen, a freshman studying marketing.
Feed 5k attracted the attention of several important CUNY representatives, such as Baruch’s interim provost James McCarthy and CUNY Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez.
When asked what brings you out here today, Matos Rodríguez stated “We wanted to extenuate all the many things the CUNY community does for Thanksgiving.” He went on to say, “We have similar kinds of events in different campuses,” stating that across CUNY there were potluck dinners and other events, which included this event to help the homeless, and other campuses are organizing dinners for the homeless.
