Last week, members of the Brown Cultural Association of Turkey fundraised for earthquake relief in Turkey and Syria, efforts that included donation stands in the Blue Room and a fundraising event on Saturday, according to Serdar Sungun ’23, president of CAT.
“We were united under one cause,” said Mira Sezer ’24, a CAT board member who helped lead the fundraising efforts. “I think this was probably the first time” that the Turkish community members all worked together.
“It was truly a product of teamwork,” she added. “Everybody was just trying to help.”
According to CAT Secretary Alara Kalfazade ’24, Saturday’s fundraiser featured a food station, a dessert station with baklavas, Turkish tea and coffee, henna, Turkish fortune-telling, Turkish marble painting and more. Located in the Stephen Robert ’62 Campus Center’s Leung Family Gallery, the event was sponsored by members of the local Turkish community, both at Brown and beyond.
Participants had to purchase two “stamps” — $5 each — upon entry. Each stamp could be exchanged for two meals of choice or an activity, Sezer said. Attendees could purchase more stamps whenever they wished to.
“At least 200, maybe even 300 people came throughout the five hours” of the event, said Nader Maarouf ’23, an e-board member of the Brown-RISD Arab Society, which provided support for the fundraiser.
“There weren‘t only Turkish people” at the event, said Omer Chaudhry ’25, a member of the Pakistani Students Association at Brown, which also supported the event. “It seemed as if it was a global community.”
‘Our first priority’: The urgency of the situation
The severity of the earthquake’s impacts added urgency to CAT’s organizing efforts, Sungun said. “You’re kind of in a time crunch — it’s not like we can wait and then do something next month … we’re just trying to maximize whatever we can do.”
According to Sezer, CAT advertised the event through social media and word of mouth. “We announced that we were gonna have a stand at 8 a.m., (and the next day) we already had people waiting with bags” of supplies to donate, she said.
Sezer added that the group initially “had a whole system in place” to ensure that there would always be at least two organizers present at the fundraising tables, but there were always seven or more people at the stand, all excited to help. Fundraising efforts that were just intended for Wednesday continued late into the end of the week.
The events became “our first … and only priority,” Sezer said.
Kalfazade told The Herald that the fundraising stands in the Blue Room garnered even more attention after CAT sent out a Feb. 9 Today@Brown announcement fielding donations of clothing items.
University community members are continuing their efforts to fundraise for earthquake relief. The Brown-RISD Arab Society will host a dinner screening of the Syrian documentary “The White Helmets” — named after the volunteer humanitarian organization saving people in turmoil in Turkey and Syria — on Wednesday night, with a $7 entry fee that will go to the White Helmets themselves, Maarouf said.
He added in a message to The Herald that the $7 fee is optional and that attendees are welcome to contribute more.
“This is an ongoing process,” Sungun said. CAT’s fundraising efforts “will continue (through) next month, probably next year to actually reconstruct all the things that got wrecked.”
Matching money, donating clothes
According to Sungun, CAT raised a total of $14,000 — $10,000 from the Blue Room stands and $4,000 from Saturday’s fundraiser. One-third of the money raised on Saturday was donated to Syria through the Brown-RISD Arab Society.
Out of the nearly $13,000 left, CAT donated $9,000 to the AHBAP Foundation through Netflix — which matches $2 to $1, tripling the $9,000 into $27,000 — and $2,000 to Turkish Philanthropy Funds through Apple, which matches $1 to $1, doubling the $2,000 to $4,000, Sungun said. CAT is still working to match the remaining $2,000.
Sezer emphasized that the group chose which organizations to donate to after doing research and communicating with family members in Turkey. “We’ve definitely done our best to ensure that … all these contributions collected” reach the people in need who are affected by the earthquake, she said.
Maarouf told The Herald that the money the Brown-RISD Arab Society received from Saturday’s fundraiser was split and donated to the Karam Foundation and Syria Relief and Development.
“Although (the CAT) were doing all of the logistical management, one-third of the money from the donations that they gathered is going to victims in Syria,” Chaudhry said. “That was such a good gesture.”
People also donated clothing, including sweatshirts, sweaters, scarfs, beanies, blankets and comforters, shoes including boots and baby shoes, hygiene products such as sanitary pads and baby diapers and medicine, Kalfazade said, adding that CAT ended up bringing “three cars of clothes” to the Turkish Consulate General in Boston.
‘Our source of strength to keep going’
Sezer expressed gratitude for the community support CAT received during the fundraising efforts.
“I told my professor that I was gonna miss class this week (for fundraising, and) he said: ‘I'm happy to see that you have your priorities right,’ ” Sezer said. She added that Blue Room staff members gave them the contents of their tip boxes as donations, and one staff member donated boxes full of clothes and baby shoes.
This kindness “was our source of strength to keep going, because watching the news, talking to our friends whose families were directly affected, it’s not easy,” Sezer said. “Holding on to those sincere moments where you feel the love and support of your community and your friends was what really kept us going.”
Kathy Wang is the senior editor of community of The Brown Daily Herald's 134th Editorial Board. She previously covered student government and international student life as a University News editor. When she's not at The Herald, you can find her watching cooking videos or writing creative nonfiction.
