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Christian Relief Fund which is a charitable foundation founded by a former Church of Christ minister had the perfect project for us. They were in the process of building an AIDS testing and treatment center in Kisuma, Kenya. The headquarters of Christian Relief Fund is in Amarillo, Texas. One of its board-members is Milton Jones, the preacher of the Northwest Church of Christ in Seattle. We visited with Linda Purdy, the director of CRF, and she agreed to apply 100% of everything we raised directly to the project.
But rather than attempting to raise the money on our own, we decided to enlist other campus organizations in this project. Our students went to several campus organizations and invited them to join us in building shacks and raising funds. Interestingly it wasn’t other church groups that joined us but more secular organizations that got behind the project. For example the Phi Delts, the campus radio station, the Engineering club, Collegiate FFA and others really got into the Shack-a-thon. One men’s residence hall collected $90 in coins.
Altogether about $7,000 was raised by students on campus. In addition to funds raised, several local businesses gave incentive prizes for those who built shacks.
The night of the Shack-a-thon, we had an informal awards ceremony on the steps of Old Main. We gave a special plaque to the Best Over-All Shack as well as second and third runner-up. We even gave a “Sorry try again next time” award for the worst shack. We were honored to have the president of West Texas A&M University, Dr. O’Brien, and his wife to present the awards.
Besides raising almost $7,000 for AIDS children in Africa, we also received a serendipity. KAMR, the Amarillo NBC Television affiliated, did a feature story of the Shack-a-thon on the six o’clock news. Also Buffs for Christ made the front page of the local newspaper, The Canyon News. We were featured on the campus radio stations as well as the campus newspaper. We are now known as that group that builds neat crazy looking huts on campus to help AIDS children in Africa.
We hope other campus ministries will try a Shack-a-thon on their campus. Contact Milton Jones for ideas about special efforts in Africa, or Linda Purdy (director of the Christian Relief Fund) in Amarillo, Texas. Also anyone may email or call us with questions on what we learned in planning and organizing a Shack-a-thon.
Our email address is
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Our phone number is (806) 655-2174.
The Shack-a-thon was a lot of fun. We met and worked with a lot of people that we normally would not have ever met.
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