Students at Northern Kentucky University are participating in a nationwide philanthropy project to help benefit St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Up ’til Dawn is a student-led project hoping to raise money for children battling different forms of cancer.

“The program is starting from the ground up; it’s new at NKU this year,” said Stephanie McGoldrick, faculty adviser. “Students from all over the country are raising money to help with cancer research.”

Up ’til Dawn is currently in the organizational stages of development but is already scheduled to be an annual event at NKU.

Participants will be organized into groups of up to six people, and required to raise at least $750 per group.

“This seems like a lot of money, but when $750 is divided up between six people it’s really not that difficult,” McGoldrick said.

The main source of fundraising for the project is primarily through letter writing. “St. Jude makes it easy for us to fundraise,” McGoldrick said. “They provide the stationary for the letters to be written on and tell us what to say, so really the student is just responsible for signing off on 30 letters.”

All fundraising efforts lead up to a finale event to celebrate the earnings and stay “up ’til dawn.”

The date has not yet been set for the finale because it is not going to take place until some time next year, according to McGoldrick.

The project is hoping to attract students from student organizations, fraternities and sororities, as well as any students who just want to sign up.

NKU student Tiffani Jones was recently selected to serve as the Executive Director of the Up ’til Dawn project.

One of the responsibilities of the Executive Director is to help choose the students that will assist her on the Executive Board.

The positions on the Executive Board range from assistant directors to fundraising to public relations, and applications for these positions are being accepted until April 9, 2004.

“The board will be organizing everything,” said McGoldrick.

“This will be an excellent resume builder for anyone on the board, and anyone who participates in the project as well.”

The minimum goal for the first year of the project is $30,000. McGoldrick was adamant about not putting a maximum goal on how much money she thought students at NKU could raise.

“We are a school with over 14,000 students – other schools of that size have raised close to $70,000. I don’t want to put a cap on how much we’d like to raise.”