To the Editor,
While I was initially excited to see a cover story about Aid to South Africa, the article was extremely disappointing. As the Director for the event, I was angered to see that not a single student committee chair or volunteer was contacted. Although it may have appeared that Dr. Dean was interviewed, this was not the case.
All of the information was taken from our website, which despite all of our attempts to update it, was not all correct as there were last minute changes. Bands and other entertainers were listed who had not performed because none of our chairs were interviewed.
Additionally, the information about South Africa was incorrect as trips are taken there with West Chester University students, every other year. While Dr. Kevin Dean is our advisor and an avid supporter of our event, it would have been nice to have a photograph that was more pertinent, such as the activities that took place that day, or the founder of one of the organizations we fund. Reverend Cecil Begbie, the founder of H.E.L.P. Ministries Soup Kitchen, was at our event, all the way from South Africa. We honored him in our opening ceremony and he was on hand to talk to individuals in attendance about the soup kitchen and how he feeds 5,000 children on a daily basis. We did not “attempt” to raise money for South Africa, as the article stated, but we raised over $7,000 on Saturday April 4th alone. We also were able to present Reverend Cecil Begbie with a check for $3,500 from all of our fundraising efforts in the past.
I know students are busy because all of our committee chairs put in hundreds of hours to plan this event as well as participate in other organizations, but I was disgusted that the only effort put into this article was to visit our website.
Ann Horner, Director, Aid to South Africa