The Architecture and Planning Student Government hosted a fundraiser last night for the Safehouse Progressive Alliance for Nonviolence.
The group held a food drive and collected non-perishable foods, coats, cleaning products, baby diapers and other items.
The main event of the night was a gingerbread house-making contest, in which students designed and constructed gingerbread mansions, cabins, towers and huts with a wealth of candy, frosting and cookies donated by King Soopers and Safeway.
The gingerbread houses will be donated to children living at the Safehouse.
Students submitted their houses, along with other donations, to win prizes including two cases of Rockstar Energy Drinks, $50 gift certificates to Art Hardware, McGuckin Hardware and Espresso Roma, and various Starbucks merchandise. All of the prizes were donated.
The architecture students had an advantage over everyone else. Whereas most people designed simple structures that ended up collapsing, the Environmental Design students built frames for the gingerbread to rest on.
The overall turnout of students from both spectrums was good, though.
Magdalena Celinska, a senior architecture major and UCSU senator, said she hopes to make this contest an annual event.
“It gets architecture students involved with the community,” Celinska said. “Because the architecture school is so intense, the links between the community are lost, and we are trying to reestablish those for the holidays. What better way to do it than have our students build gingerbread houses for misplaced children?”
The Safehouse is a human rights organization committed to ending violence against women and children through support and community organization. It provides safety and support for victims of domestic violence.
“I’m happy with the outcome of tonight,” said senior architecture major Mary Calvani. “It got the school involved with a really great service, and it was a good outreach from the architecture school to the community.”
