The Slippery Rock University Student Union of Multicultural Affairs (SUMA) hosted their second annual powder-puff football game Friday night to raise money for the “Susan G. Komen foundation,” a nonprofit organization founded and based in Dallas, Texas. The foundation, which was founded and based in Dallas, Texas, raises money and awareness for breast cancer.
The game featured teams from a variety of clubs and organizations on campus, such as the “Jump Start” organization on campus, said Harshani Ranasinghe, a graduate student at SRU and adviser to SUMA.
“The teams themselves used different colors as their team names,” Ranasinghe said. “There was a black, gray, white, and blue team.”
The black team ended up winning with a final score of 18-6. Ranasinghe said that to take part in the game itself, individual teams didn’t have to pay to play. How SUMA ended up collecting money was through the selling of items such as breast cancer awareness bracelets and donations from people who attended the event, she said. Although the cost of an individual bracelet was not mentioned, Ranasinghe said that SUMA raised a total of $40 to donate to the Komen foundation. The game was planned all semester, Ranasinghe said.
“This was SUMA’s first big event of the year,” Ranasinghe explained. “We had more members join this year, so that allowed us to make this event even bigger than it was last year.”
Ranasinghe stressed the importance of people becoming aware of what SUMA is and what they are all about.
“We basically have this mission statement that says we bring people of all different cultures together,” Ranasinghe said. “It is mainly about bringing out diversity across campus, which we have a lot of programs for.”
Ranasinghe said the student body at SRU can expect a lot more from SUMA within the next month. With November being AIDS Awareness month SUMA will be hosting their annual “Red Ribbon Monologues” sometime later this month, Ranasinghe said.
