Red Nose Day to raise money for Oxford food pantry

By: Megan Brooks

Posted: 3/7/08

If all goes according to some students' plans, everyone will be walking around campus with a red nose by April 18.

In mid-April, Miami University students will have the chance buy and wear a red nose as part of Red Nose Day, a community service project put on by Clawson Hall's Community Council.

According to Isaac Reynolds, Associated Student Government (ASG) student senator for Clawson Hall, members of the council will be selling red noses for $2 during the week of April 14-18. The noses will go on sale at various locations, including Haines Food Court and Alexander Hall.

The idea was inspired by the event Comic Relief, which takes place every two years in the United Kingdom to fight poverty.

Reynolds said he thought there could be a way to bring Red Nose day from the United Kingdom to Oxford, so he brought it up to Clawson's Hall Council, and the idea took off.

Money from the sales will go toward the Oxford Community Choice pantry, which provides foods for families in need, according to sophomore Supal Desai, president of Clawson's Hall Council.

"The pantry is really a small storage room on (Route) 27," Desai said. "It feeds 450 in the Talawanda area and the number is growing. They want to expand to not only being a pantry but having a social services office."

According to Desai, the Oxford Community Choice Pantry is set up like a Wal-Mart, where people take a cart and are able to pick out the foods they want.

"It takes $25,000 just to run the pantry every year," Desai said. "We want to help them with helping people. It's not just the average food bank. It's really trying to help people with nutritional food."

Mike Johnson, food manager of the Oxford Community Choice Pantry, said the donation from Red Nose Day will help the pantry in two ways.

"The funds that they're able to raise will be used for the purchase of food items that we don't necessarily get from food drives and for operating expenses," Johnson said.

Johnson added that this will include utility costs, upkeep of the facility and equipment. He added that the pantry is attempting to hire a pantry manager and said that this donation could go toward that person's salary.

Desai explained that she hopes to get enough people involved to really make an impact.

"We are trying to get into the thousands of dollars," Reynolds said. "The Residence Hall Association (RHA) has donated a lot. We're trying to publicize the event through local news media."

Reynolds explained that there are multiple reasons to buy and wear a red nose. At the end of the week, there will be a prize in the form of a concert for everyone who has donated and bought a red nose.

The concert will be at 6 p.m April 18 in the Ernst Nature Theater on Western campus. It will feature the bands Look Afraid and Rexy. The admission ticket will be a red nose.

According to Reynolds, the concert will also have local community vendors that will sell food and drinks. There will be a bouncy castle and face painting. The event not only funds a great cause, but Clawson's Hall Council hopes that it will help the campus and community come together.

"It's such a different idea, just like Clawson," Desai said. "It's a great way to bring the community together, (and) open peoples' eyes to poverty and hunger everywhere, even in our own backyard."

Reynolds hopes the idea catches on so well throughout campus that a red nose becomes en vogue for a week.

"My hope is by the end of the week everyone will be wearing red noses-it will just look like the normal thing to be doing," Reynolds said.

Red noses will be sold from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. April 14 at Haines Food Court; they will be sold from 5-7 p.m. from April 15-17 at Alexander dining hall; and they will also be sold from 1-4 p.m. April 18 at the Shriver Center West Patio.