Funding helps out students

By Amy Saunders

saun0081@algonquincollege.com

In the wake of a fire that destroyed most of five Algonquin students’ home, the Pembroke campus has pulled together to create a community fund to help reimburse the students.

The fund was set up very quickly in the form of a bank account to collect the money raised.

“It was the managing team’s idea,” said Jamie Bramburger, the manager of community and student affairs at the Pembroke campus. “We talked about it and said we need to do something. We acted very quickly and the bank account was set up the same day as the incident.”

So far, the community has been very involved. As of Nov. 21, the account already had $1,000 in it and one of the local churches had donated blankets and quilts to the students that have already been dispersed.

Since the numbers vary from student to student depending on how much they’ve lost, there are no real numbers for the fundraisers’ to go by. Therefore, Bramburger said they’re simply raising as much as they can in the allotted time of the charity.

“We haven’t set any goals,” said Bramburger. “We said to the community, this has happened, these students have been displaced, we have to help.”

The students meanwhile have been able to settle themselves until the reconstruction of their building is complete, which Bramburger said will hopefully be shortly after Christmas. The Salvation Army put a couple of the students into a hotel for a night and afterwards they all found places to live through their peers.