Block Party Charities Could Miss Revenues

By Molly Longstreth

While some students may be disappointed that their social plans for the day have been changed, the many charities that benefit from the Georgetown Semi-Annual Charity Block Party have more of a reason for concern.

Last Wednesday the Alcohol Beverage Commission denied a one-day liquor license for the Charity Block Party, originally scheduled for today, calling on the event’s organizers to consider Vice President for Student Affairs Juan C. Gonzalez’s offer to hold the event on campus. Such a move, which organizers Matt Cosgrave (MSB ’01), Dan Kelley (MSB ’01) and Liam Betterman (SFS ’01) say is probably their best option right now if they want to hold the party at all, would spell several key changes for the event.

According to Cosgrave, Gonzalez’s stipulations for having the party on campus include hiring Department of Public Safety officers, reduced hours for the event and a third-party vendor to check identification, collect admission money and serve beer. These extra expenses, Cosgrave said, could potentially double the base cost of the party.

While it usually costs around $15,000 to hold, each party still manages to donate $15,000 to $18,000 to various local charities. Last year, the Charity Party raised $33,000 for charities including Sursum Corda, Holy Trinity Elementary PTA, National Coalition for the Homeless, Habitat for Humanity, Campaign Georgetown, Jesuit Volunteers International, It’s For the Kids and Christ House, a local soup kitchen.

Sarah Tebbe (COL ’01), the co-director of Sursum Corda, said that they use the approximately $700 they get regularly from 1227 Gatsby Foundation, the organizers of the event, to publish a literary magazine of students’ works every semester. “It’s the only tangible product that the kids have to show their progress,” Tebbe said. “It’s a pretty big part of our program because the kids get really excited to see their work and their names in print and it builds confidence.”

According to Tebbe, Sursum Corda does not receive any money from Volunteer Public Services for the publication and in recent years they have relied on the funds they receive from the Charity Block Party to print a more professional looking magazine.

“Our budget gets cut every year so it’s also a cushion for us if we want to do something else that we didn’t plan to do for this year,” Tebbe said.

Although Tebbe said Sursum Corda will find a way to print the magazine again this semester, she said they will have to work a lot harder at fundraising and that it will be a difficult task.

“If they’re going to take away an event on which we rely every year to get money, they could at least replace it with some kind of program or event that would raise the same amount of money for charity,” she said.

Judy Taylor, a member of the Hyde Elementary PTA, said the school used the $3,051 given to them by 1227 Gatsby Foundation to purchase library books and to help pay the gym teacher’s salary.

“This year we have even more need than last year,” Taylor said, citing that this year they also need to pay the librarian and that Hyde never receives enough money from the school system to cover all of their costs.

Taylor, who has a son at the elementary school, said that while they will surely find a way to pay the salaries of the gym teacher and the librarian, the school might not be able to purchase as many new books or support as many programs for the students.

“We’ll have to try to make the money in other ways to do things for the kids,” she said, “but there are definitely things we want that we won’t be able to get” without the extra funding.

The National Coalition for the Homeless, which received $1,000 from last Spring’s Block Party, used the money to help fund the Faces Panel, a program where people who have or are experiencing homelessness are paid to tell students, congregations and other civic groups about “the causes of homelessness and the personal impact of homelessness on their lives,” according to Sue Watlov Phillips, NCH’s acting executive director.

Phillips said the money donated from 1227 Gatsby Foundation “provided us flexible funding for projects that aren’t specified under specific grants. I’m sorry to hear [that the Block Party was cancelled],” Phillips said, adding that they would have to raise the money in another way. “Funding is always difficult, so we appreciate any and all resources that we can maintain.”

Not every organization that received donations from 1227 Gatsby Foundation was a supporter of the Block Party. Ann Marie Crowley of the Holy Trinity Elementary School said, “we did receive some money last year . but it was not because we supported the Block Party, because we didn’t.” Though $1,525.94 was donated to Holy Trinity, all of that money came from non-drinking students who attended the party, food and other profits unrelated to drinking.

“I refuse to take money that has been earned through the sale of beer to college students,” Crowley said in a phone message. The elementary school, located on 36th Street between N and O Streets, is usually still in session when the party begins at noon just a block and a half away.

Crowley was unavailable for further comment.

However, Brian McCabe (SFS ’02), a co-chair of Campaign Georgetown, said the money was very useful to his group, who used its $250 to work on registering students to vote and to “get out the vote” on election day and get people to actually go to the polls.

“It was definitely really helpful in getting students involved in local politics,” McCabe said, adding that it is difficult to predetermine how this year’s potential lack of funds will affect Campaign Georgetown this year. “We’ll still be able to manage, but definitely in the future it would be really helpful” to have the money donated again.

McCabe said that though this year’s lack of extra funds from 1227 Gatsby Foundation is not going to make or break Campaign Georgetown, he was still frustrated that other groups might be more dependent on those funds.

“There are other great organizations that use that money and while we will not be tragically affected, I think there will be clubs that will be hurt by it,” he said.

Cosgrave agreed, saying he is doubtful about the relative success of any Block Party that took place on campus.

“Looking at it right now, with the 14 provisions that Gonzalez requires for moving it on campus, I would say we’d make very little, if anything, for charity,” Cosgrave said.

The idea of holding the Charity Block Party on campus is still in the very early stages, with no firm possibilities for a location and no known solutions for the parking crunch if the Party were held in one of Georgetown’s parking lots. However, if the organizers are correct, it appears as if this is 1227 Gatsby Foundation’s only choice if they want to continue the Block Party tradition at Georgetown.