Git Sum Sponsors!

Hope all of your classes are going well and that you all filled up on the pizza from last night (good call Liz!). As you all know this is the season for finding our sponsors for the SLIM 5K/10K in the spring, so those of you that have already contacted the businesses you signed up for, please post a comment on the blog under the big posting so I know what's been done. I will assign you more businesses in your borough, so keep your eyes on that blog post. Next week I will bring that list for everyone to sign up for more.

Since many of you haven't done much soliciting we split up into small groups and practiced talking to potential sponsors. For those of you that couldn't come to the meeting, a sheet of suggestions is attached to the email. The biggest thing is to get to the point, "I'm (your name) and I'm a student at Pitt representing an organization that runs a 5K/10K each year in South Park to raise money for a large project in southeastern Africa. Last year we had around 600 runners and we expect to have upwards of 1000 runners this year. I think your business would really benefit from the publicity you will get from sponsoring this race." Something like that. We also have constructed teams of people for each borough and these teams will compete to get the most sponsors. The team with the most gets a sweet prize:

TEAM SHADYSIDE: Meredith Kemgan, Jessa Koch, Cathy House, Danielle Sorrells, Chelsea D'Angelo, Christina Rak

GROUP AWESOME: Miranda Velikoff, Alexis Hoyt, Bethany Ground, Vivian Liang, Suzanne Cake

NICK'S GROUP: Bethany Ground, Nick Brink, Fatima Muhammed-Ighile

CLIF'S GROUP: Valerie Michael, Zoe Cesarz, Carly Sedlock, Clif McKee

TEAM A: Charles Pratt, Cory Malagise, Bill Grubb

If you weren't here and need a group or are in a group and need email addresses for your group, send SLIM an email (slim.pitt@gmail.com) with your name and email and what you need. If you signed up for businesses in a certain borough, I'll put you with a group with other people from that borough.

If a business wants to sponsor:

1. Send an email to the SLIM email account telling who, what, how much, etc.
2. Make checks payable to "Student Leaders in International Medicine"
3. Get logos ASAP (.jpg or .gif format, please) and send them to SLIM
4. Tell them terms of sponsorship are negotiable i.e., if they cannot pay everything to be on the banner but make an additional donation of food, they could still get on the banner

I encourage the groups to try and go out this week or this weekend and work together to get all of your sponsors. Things are easier in a group and you'll have moral support. Speak with the manager face-to-face because that's the best way to be personable and to ensure that he/she remembers you. There is a group going to the Pitt homecoming game this Sunday to get donations for the race at the tailgating parties. We hope this will be really lucrative and if you want to go, send SLIM an email and we'll let you know all the details.

Phew! Ok and some other upcoming things:

Peace Corps Info Session
Wednesday Oct. 21
4130 Posvar Hall, 2-3pm
Anne Naggy
Peace Corps Representative at Pitt:
pcorps@pitt.edu
412-648-7424

Also, the Center for Strategic and International Studies is having a Global Health Essay Contest for $500-$1000:
http://www.smartglobalhealth.org/pages/essay-signup

African Student Organization African Food Festival

Nov. 3, 8-11 pm, WPU Ballroom

This is going to be a lot of fun. Mujidat is currently working with ASO so that SLIM can do a lot of promoting and share in the profits. Mark your calendar, more details later.