The Student Finance Board met on Wednesday, Jan. 30 to discuss the funding of several upcoming events, including the Japanese Culture Club’s annual Banzai cultural festival.
SFB motioned to fully fund the Japanese Culture Club for $2,136 to go toward the event, which will take place on Saturday, Feb. 16 at 7 p.m. in the Brower Student Center. This is the biggest event that the club holds and will be free to all students at the College. Each guest that is not a student will be charged $2, estimating a revenue of about $60.
“It has a lot of name recognition from the past — there are usually no problems getting attendance,” said Lindsay Klein, SFB executive director. The members motioned by a unanimous vote to fund the event.
Food served at Banzai will include varied trays of sushi. The club also plans to highlight the College’s Taiko drummers and introduce crafts such as origami and calligraphy.
The Art Student Association was also fully funded by SFB for $365.22 to be used toward their first ASA Street Art Workshop. The event will take place on Wednesday, Feb. 13 from noon to 2 p.m. in the Art and Interactive Multimedia Building.
The workshop will include a lecture from New York street artist Robyn Hasty, also known as “Imminent Disaster,” who will provide insight about street artists and their culture.
It will be open to all students on campus regardless of their artistic skill, so that non-ASA members and non-art students can also enjoy the event.
“I love this event,” said Milana Lazareva, SFB operations director. “I love all their events, and I love that it’s geared toward the students that don’t have a lot of art events on campus.”
In addition, SFB tabled the Black Student Union’s request of $1,500 to go toward an event during their Black History Month Celebrations. The proposed event would include a performance of drummers and dancers from The Garvey School for the closing ceremony.
Members of SFB expressed that having this event will be beneficial to the campus and that it fits the standard of multicultural requests. However, after going through files from previous funds while in discussion, SFB discovered that the $1,500 that The Garvey School is charging for this event is about five times the $300 amount that has been paid for them to perform in the past. Therefore, by tabling BSU’s request, SFB will be able to do more research into the price.
*Even though SFB agrees to finance certain events, there is no guarantee that these events will take place. The approval only makes the funds available.
