Dr. Comerford to be Duct Taped
College president Dr. John Comerford recently agreed to be taped to a wall for a fundraiser for the Macoupin Center for the Developmentally Disabled (MCDD).
The Leadership Skills Workshop class taught by professor of political science Dr. Laura Wiedlocher is hosting the fundraiser for the 20th anniversary of the MCDD Mini Olympics on Sept. 30. The idea for the fundraiser came from one of the students during an in-class brainstorming session.
This event will feature a bake sale, donation centers to sponsor athletes and students will be able to purchase lengths of duct tape ($1 per foot) to adhere Comerford to the wall. Students may also bring rolls of toilet paper to donate instead of money with one roll being equal to one foot. The event will start at 11 a.m. on the Friday of Homecoming, and Comerford will “hang out” in the Demuzio Campus Center until 1:30 p.m. The sponsor-an-athlete opportunity will have multiple locations around town leading up to the event for both community and college goers to donate money for an athlete’s expenses.
The MCDD Mini Olympics is similar to the Special Olympics event and is just for Macoupin County and the six surrounding counties. The Olympics will occur Oct. 7 and will take place at Beaver Dam State Park. According to Wiedlocher, there will be around 130-150 athletes and 100 volunteers at the games as well as the entire Leadership class. The Blackburn fundraiser helps to cover the cost of food, t-shirts and other items for the Mini Olympics.
The Leadership Skills Workshop class has previous experience with both fundraising and the MCDD with the 2015-2016 class hosting two separate fundraisers to help provide equipment for MCDD. These fundraisers, a dodgeball tournament and a pajama day on campus, were both successful in raising more than their goal for both the class and MCDD, leading to high expectations for this year’s event.
According to Wiedlocher one of the greatest ways to learn by doing is to “find a need of the community and sort of rally around that need and see if you can meet it.” Student project manager Logan Early is tasked with making sure the fundraiser is successful. With only a month to complete the fundraiser, Early describes the class as “determined to get everything done as soon as possible, so it’s super intense.”