Algonquin College PR students continue fundraising efforts by hosting a casual board game night
Players broke plastic ice and drew humorous cards on March 31 during a board game fundraiser run by Algonquin College PR students at Level One Game Pub in downtown Ottawa.
This event was an opportunity for the ACPR students to raise money for the Ottawa Community Immigrant Services Organization (OCISO) by providing a space for people to unwind and socialize.
“OCISO supports Ottawa’s newcomers with essential programs like financial support and job searching,” said Cinquasha Smith, the team leader for the Games & Glass event.
OCISO was founded in 1978 and has helped over 10,000 immigrants since in the organization’s time.
Attendees at Games & Glass could choose to play any of the wide variety of board games that Level One has to offer and order any food or beverage from the menu. Guests were also given a bingo card that, if fully completed, was entered for a chance to win a bag of OCISO merch.
Games & Glass is one of the seven events that the ACPR students are putting on this year for their Culture2Culture campaign supporting OCISO. Culture2Culture is the 41st campaign put on by ACPR students in the program’s history.
ACPR has supported many different organizations in the past, including Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre and Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO). Since 1985, ACPR campaigns have raised about $590,000, and if students raise their goal of $10,000 this year, the $600,000 milestone will be crossed.
Smith oversaw everyone’s work and made sure it followed the Culture2Culture campaign’s missions.
“The campaign’s missions are to make sure all newcomers for our campaign feel safe, welcoming and supported. Some of our values come from inclusiveness,” said Smith.
For ACPR student Sarah Siu, Games & Glass was worth the lengthy planning in order to raise money for a great cause.
“We’re talking about how to pick a venue, what date we need to plan on putting it on and the time,” said Siu. “We also have to take to consider the fact of what could be interesting to our demographic and people who may be interested in learning more about OCISO.”
Siu applied what she learned in her classes at Algonquin, such as how to think critically and strategically, in order to help plan this event.
“If a vendor drops out, or if a venue last minute has a change, we are able to adopt quickly to that,” said Siu.
Many attendees heard about the event through social media, but for Jack Sioui it was through word of mouth.
“I heard about this through a friend who is helping organize this, and I thought it would be a good chance to help out and have some fun,” said Sioui, who played multiple rounds of Battleship during the event. “I think it’s a good cause because Ottawa and Canada in general has lots of immigrants coming in, and it’s good to have the supports to get them set up.”
This is not the first time that Lara Mills, a PR program coordinator, has assessed students running a board game night. The genre turns out to be a popular event choice for ACPR students looking to fundraise.
“This is actually the third or fourth time we have had a board game event at this venue,” said Mills. “This one is particularly special because this is not an issue that we’ve tackled (before).”
Mills said that she is especially a fan of this campaign’s charity choice due to the negative rhetoric surrounding immigrants coming to Canada.
“This one is particularly special, because this is not an issue that we’ve tackled (before),” said Mills. “We also have a graduate of our program who works in communications at OCISO now.”
Future Culture2Culture events include the Speakeasy Night that will be hosted at YukYuk’s Comedy Club Ottawa on April 10 from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., and B2B (Bridge2Belonging) Fest at Club SAW on April 12 from 4 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. More information about the campaign can be found at acprcampaign.com.
