More than 500 Georgetown students rallied together to raise over $5,000 to purchase Fr. Richard Curry, S.J., a golf cart at a fundraiser dubbed “Golf Cart Throw Down” on Jan. 15 at Malmaison.

Three students in Curry’s “Theater and the Catholic Imagination” class planned the event and aim to raise $10,000 in order to buy the golf cart. They will continue fundraising and propositioning alumni for donations until they reach this goal.

Curry founded the Dog Tag Bakery, located off of Wisconsin, with the intent of giving veterans suffering from disabilities and unemployment a job and opportunity. Having developed an ailment over winter break for which he is currently hospitalized, a street-legal golf cart would allow Curry to commute to the bakery. The cart will be used not only to transport Curry when he is released from the hospital, but will also deliver goods from the bakery to the Georgetown area to bolster the bakery’s current delivery service.

The university will not provide a golf cart for Curry, but it currently owns a fleet of 40 E-Z-Go brand golf carts for local travel only, which cost from $3,000 to $5,000, less than half of the cost of a street-legal golf cart.

The fundraiser featured drinks, dancing and DJ-ing from Jamie Sharp (COL ’15) and Sim Allan (MSB ’15). The event organizers used Palander, an event calendar for Georgetown students, to reach more than 1,000 students.

“$10,000 is a lot of cash for Georgetown to part with, even if it is for a worthwhile cause, so I, along with some other guys in the class thought why not try to get together and see if we could raise the money ourselves to help him pay for this?” Sharp said. “Why not just put on a party and see if we can get people to chip in and donate?”

Martha Strautman (COL ’18) said she appreciated the creative method of fundraising.

“I think that the event went really well and it’s great that Georgetown students can find such unique and fun way to support a good cause,” Strautman said. “I think that the event was representative of the larger balance Georgetown has between community service and helping others, while knowing how to have fun.”

The $5,000 was raised through both donations and drinks. Malmaison kept a portion of the bar earnings, but gave the student organizers discounted rates on the staff and security members. Sharp said he plans to sit down with Curry to plan ways to raise the final $5,000.

“We’ve had people who didn’t even come to the event donating $20, $50 each,” Sharp said. “You can really see the loyalty he has from his students. He really is one of those guys who has a lot of personal connections with people. He cares a lot about students even if they haven’t taken his class.”

Matthew Fried (COL ’16) attended the event and said that the party was an effective way of raising money.

“As people enjoying that kind of fundraising method, it was definitely successful,” Fried said. “People went primarily for the party of course, but I think people were excited that they could do that while also supporting someone who is so fundamental to the Georgetown community.”

However, Fried said that he was unsure as to why the university was unable to purchase a golf cart for Curry.

“Each of us pays $60,000 a semester and the university can’t afford to take care of Father Curry’s $10,000 golf cart,” Fried said. “This man embodies the spirit of Georgetown and for them to ignore him is simply ungrateful. I’m glad the students could come together here.”

Curry said he was thrilled with the student engagement. However, he hopes that this event raises more awareness about the Dog Tag Bakery.

“[The publicity from the event] was my dream come true because I really want the undergraduate students at Georgetown to bond with Dog Tag Bakery, as it is really an amazing Georgetown-sponsored enterprise,” Curry said.

Curry said that his true desire is to connect Georgetown students with disabled veterans.

“My real desire was for undergraduates to meet the disabled veterans because first, they are their own age,” Curry said. “And second, it is important to realize that war has a cost. To see so many students respond to this call is so amazing and really shows that the undergraduates are becoming men and women for others — which warms the Jesuit heart, let me tell you.”