At the ASUA Senate meeting on Wednesday, the Student Health Advocacy Committee asked the senate to reallocate lost funds for its eighth annual Spring Break Safety Fair.
The event, which will be held March 4 on the UA Mall between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., is a collaboration between SHAC and the University of Arizona Police Department.
Stephanie Kha, director of SHAC, gave a presentation to the senate about the Safety Fair SHAC has been planning since July.
“The purpose of the event is to provide all … UA students with a very resourceful and valuable fair,” Kha said. “It’s going to have information on travel resources and personal safety practices that they can utilize during their spring break.”
Most students travel to Mexico, given Arizona’s location, so SHAC has invited travel agencies from Mexico, specifically the Department of Tourism and the Green Angels, Kha said.
“Those departments and services help with anything from issues with traveling, car troubles or emergency situations that may arise,” said Kha, who is expecting more than 400 student volunteers and participants. “… Being prepared is the most important part about traveling. Safety is our biggest issue at large for spring break. We want to make sure we can provide prevention education training awareness and resources at this fair to all UA students.”
Every year, the Safety Fair costs about $3,000, $1,000 of which is usually donated by the Parents and Families Association. Due to budget constraints this year, PFA is unable to sponsor the event, which is why SHAC is requesting $1,000 to help cover the cost of operations.
The outlined budget proportions included in Kha’s presentation showed that the most expensive items — using up over half of the budget at $1,600 — were T-shirts for the event participants and volunteers.
Associated Students of the University of Arizona Sen. Brooke Serack asked if SHAC has tried reaching out to other organizations on campus and asking for funding.
“We are working with UAPD and they’re trying to access some of their funds,” said Sona Shahbazian, SHAC member and head of the safety programming committee. “Unfortunately, it’s a little harder for them to reach any of the money they’re working at.”
While SHAC has also been trying to contact other organizations like the Residence Hall Association, Shahbazian said SHAC was “really blindsided the PFA decided to not fund any other events on campus without informing any of the people they formally have been funding. That’s where we’re kind of at a loss here in SHAC.”
“We see this event as impacting students the most. … Given that the audience is students, we wanted to ask the senate, which is a student representation organization,” Kha said.
ASUA Sen. Elena Gold voiced her approval for funding the fair.
“I think we should fund this,” Gold said. “It seems like they’ve put a lot of work into it, and it’d be really sad to see it not go through because they couldn’t give them the funding that they worked so hard for. Especially because it’s under unfortunate circumstances that they’re asking for it in the first place.”
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