Students button down for Haiti relief
Fourth year GDMA students put their design skills to the test to collect donations for the Red Cross.
By Matt Law [Contributor]
Kwantlen design students are selling hand crafted buttons in an effort to raise funds for Haiti.
In response to the Jan. 12, 7.0 earthquake that rocked Haiti, fourth-year students in the GDMA program have been working hard to produce 300 buttons which they will be selling by donation.
Since the quakes, the media has been saturated with images and stories of the tragedy in Haiti which has prompted many Canadians to get involved and make donations.
“Because of the media coverage a lot of us got really emotional about it because it is quite tragic,” said Romina Puno, a fourth year design student.
“The number one concern that most of our class had was, how can designers make a difference when there’s tragedies like this happening in Haiti?”
The fourth year GDMA students had been raising money for their own graduation show but chose to put their fundraising on hold while making the buttons.
“Within the span of a week everyone designed something for the buttons and then we rented the equipment and we started assembling everything on campus,” said Puno.
Students took the time to print the buttons on their home computers and rented equipment to make the buttons themselves.
While this effort has been largely student-driven, teachers have also been very supportive of the button project.
“Some of our instructors are really happy about it, one even bought the entire set of every single button we designed,” said Puno.
The buttons are being sold for a minimum $5 donation and there is a variety to choose from. The fourth-year class has plans to produce another batch of buttons once the first 300 sell out.
“Some people when they buy buttons they donate more than $5 so that’s always a great thing,” added Puno.
The buttons will go on sale Feb. 4 and can be bought online or from any of the fourth year GDMA students at the Richmond Campus.
The class will also be holding a bake sale Feb. 10-11 in the rotunda on the Richmond campus to raise money for the GDMA grad show and sell more buttons.
100 per cent of the funds raised by the button sales will be donated to the Red Cross.
More information can be found at the GDMA’s class blog www.blog.gdma2010.com
