Seniors for the Penn Fund makes a comeback

In the final hours of February, Penn seniors gathered at Smokey Joe's Saturday night to mark the end of Feb Club, as well as of a surge of success for Seniors for the Penn Fund. During the night, the Unite ONine team - the group responsible for recruiting donations to the Penn Fund - made an 11th-hour comeback.

According to Senior Class President Brett Perlmutter, a College senior, the group knew going into Feb Club that they needed to make a change. "Before Feb. 1, we realized that the state of the gift drive was not nearly what it could be," he said.

Perlmutter explained that at the beginning of the month, merely 17 percent of the class of 2009 had participated in the drive, compared to the class of 2008 who at that time last year had 30 percent of their class participating.

The Unite ONine committee elected a four-chair executive board, naming College seniors Dustin Blank, William Heyer and Jessica Staller and Wharton senior Mike Paolini to boost the participation.

"The first thing that the committee did was to make sure that we have committee members staffed at all events in February," Perlmutter said.

This strategy paid off. At Smoke's on Feb. 1, the first night of Feb Club, aided by the committee members, nearly 100 seniors made gifts to S4TPF, according to Perlmutter.

Since then, Perlmutter and the four chairs met weekly with Penn Fund Executive Director Damon Cates to generate a new plan and goal for that week.

At the close of the seniors' final February celebration, S4TPF was up to 40-percent participation - more than a 20-percent change in just under a month, according to Staller.

Perlmutter explained that the class of 2008 ended up with 68-percent participation, and the class of 2009 hopes to beat their high standard, reaching for 71 percent.

"We have done a 180 shift and have a huge amount of momentum going into March," he said. "We are still looking for more seniors to get involved, and we plan on beating not only the class of 2008's record, but our own goal, as well."

And last Saturday night, the gift chairmen, members of the class board and the last Feb Club donor raised 2009 champagne flutes to thank the senior class for allowing the Unite ONine team to have what Perlmutter called "a meaningful presence" at the Feb Club events.

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