 "Photo: Courtesy of Emma Fleischer")
The St. Louis chapter of the Linus Foundation, a national non-profit philanthropic organization founded by Washington University students in 2005, hopes to draw more people than ever before to a benefit tonight called “All Aboard the Linus Express” at Union Station.
The event aims to raise money for children’s charities.
“We’re looking to get record attendance,” senior Emma Fleischer, president of the St. Louis chapter of the Linus Foundation, said. “Everyone always has a good time.”
As of Wednesday evening, more than 520 tickets to the 21-and-over benefit had been sold in advance of the event, mostly to University students and alumni.
“Our last event had well over 500 attendees and we are hoping to far exceed that number this time around,” senior Dan Horan, head of public relations for the organization’s St. Louis chapter, said.
Ticket prices for the event have ranged from $40 to $50, and 80 percent of proceeds from the benefit will be donated to Our Little Haven, a shelter that provides residential care for abused, neglected, drug exposed and special needs children.
According to senior Michael Haft, vice president of finance for the Linus Foundation’s St. Louis chapter, the benefit is expected to raise around $8,000 for Our Little Haven, a reported increase in funds from previous years.
“I’m glad to be donating more money than last year,” Haft said. “We cut costs this year and so are able to donate a more significant amount of money.”
Fleischer said that Our Little Haven was selected by students via a process of investigation involving the organization’s mission of empowering children.
“Each member researches charities. We come together and look at them, see which one fits our philosophies and then contact them,” Fleischer said. The remaining 20 percent will be given to Night Night Linus, a project of the national division of the Linus Foundation in conjunction with Project Night Night.
Project Night Night is a separate charitable organization that delivers care packages that include stuffed animals, books and blankets to homeless children in shelters nationwide.
Tonight’s event is the first of two St. Louis benefits to be hosted this year by the Linus Foundation, which was founded in 2005 by five University seniors. Although the foundation has since expanded into several other cities—including New York, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia and London—the St. Louis chapter continues to be the only chapter of the foundation run by University students.
Today, nine University students help manage the St. Louis chapter of the organization, and all of them have been working since the beginning of this year to coordinate tonight’s highly-attended event. “Of all the branches, we bring in the most people for our benefits,” Fleischer said. She attributed this fact to the high number of student and alumni in attendance at the benefits.
Although events in St. Louis draw more students than the others, Fleischer said they do not raise as much money as those in other cities. In the past, their chapter has donated money to finance school supplies and after-school programming in under-funded St. Louis school districts.
“We try to do different charities each semester to try to spread the love,” Fleischer said.
This year, the chapter has decided to expand the scope of its service to non-profit organizations like Our Little Haven by seeking to keep up the partnerships it forms with them.
“We are going to start a volunteer program with the charities that we donate the money to so it’s not just donating money like it has been in the past,” Fleischer said. “It’s donating time and money.”
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