Dartmouth Students Surpass $100,000 Haiti Fundraising Goal; Increase To $125,000

HANOVER, N.H., Jan. 21 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Less than nine days after Haiti was devastated by an earthquake, Students at Dartmouth for Haiti Relief (SDHR) surpassed their aim of raising $100,000 for Partners in Health (PIH) and have now increased their goal to $125,000. Dartmouth leads a national collegiate PIH fundraising challenge by a substantial margin, with donations totaling $107,858 as of Thursday at 4 p.m., as reported on PIH's Personal Fundraising website ( http://act.pih.org/page/outreach/splash/haitiearthquake).

Additionally, nearly $6,800 has been collected on the Dartmouth College campus to help support the two Dartmouth medical teams currently providing care at PIH clinics in Haiti.

"We raised the goal because we want to continue to encourage people to donate to PIH," says student body president Frances Vernon '10, who formed SDHR with Maura Cass '10 and Alexandra Schindler '10. "We are also working to establish a national goal for universities and colleges across the country. But we want Dartmouth to continue to be one of the largest contributors to PIH."

Dartmouth President Jim Yong Kim, who co-founded PIH, has helped lay the groundwork for a productive alliance between the Boston-based nonprofit and Dartmouth College, Dartmouth Medical School, and Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. Two Dartmouth teams, comprised of 19 doctors and nurses, are currently treating earthquake victims at PIH clinics in Hinche and Port-au-Prince.

"I cannot tell you how proud I am of our community for all they are doing on behalf of the Haitian people," says Kim. "As I said at a campus event on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I have a dream that Dartmouth College will rise up and lead all educational institutions in aggressively tackling the world's troubles and making them our own. Clearly, we are well on our way."

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~news/releases/2010/01/21.html

SOURCE Dartmouth College

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