The Interfraternity Council at the UA donated a $13,000 check to Emerge! Center Against Domestic Abuse in front of Old Main, marking its largest contribution to date.
UA’s IFC makes a contribution to the women’s shelter and domestic abuse support charity every year.
Dean Avrahami, executive vice president of the IFC at the UA, works directly with the charity and was excited by the attendance at the check donation ceremony.
“Currently, we have the CEO of Emerge! present, we have IFC council members present and we have chapter presidents here as well,” Avrahami said.
Brian Kewin, vice president of communications for the IFC and member of Sigma Chi, said that the contribution to Emerge! comes in part from recruitment fees.
“The issue is becoming more prevalent, so we decided that our contribution should be larger,” Kewin said. “This is up to our largest contribution of all time purely because we wanted it to be.”
According to Ed Mercurio-Sakwa, chief executive officer of Emerge!, the IFC has typically donated about $10,000 per year the past few years, and that any amount donated is a substantional help.
Mercurio-Sakwa was presented the check on the steps of Old Main and explained what made him happiest about the donation.“What’s really meaningful to us is that a bunch of guys who have all this money available that they could put to any use possible … chose to donate to charity,” Mercurio-Sakwa said.
Mercurio-Sakwa congratulated the men of the IFC for taking a leadership role around ending domestic violence, which is typically seen as a women’s issue.
The money will be allocated within Emerge! to support victims’ services.
“We get about 4,600 victims that come to us a year asking for services,” Mercurio-Sakwa said. “So, this will help us to be able to make sure that when those calls come to our hotline or people are needing indoor shelter that we’ve got the resources available for them.”
After receiving the donation check, Mercurio-Sakwa invited the members of the IFC to an event on Thursday, called The Men’s Event. This event is to promote Emerge! and educate men on how they can be involved in ending this issue.
Mercurio-Sakwa encouraged the men of the IFC to wear purple on Oct. 17 to demonstrate their support of ending domestic violence.
Mercurio-Sakwa told the fraternity men that staying silent in a situation of domestic violence can be just as damaging as the violence itself. He also said that domestic violence is not just a women’s issue. It is a men’s issue as well.
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