As the temperature creeps up in Moscow and the sun begins to make more frequent appearances, students tend to celebrate by walking to class instead of driving, playing ultimate on the Administration Building lawn and lounging on the patio at Patty’s Mexican Kitchen.
Katy Kithcart | Argonaut
Hunter Howell, left, and Hailey Lewis represent Nourish International at the funding board meeting Wednesday. Nourish is hosting the Color Over Poverty Run at 11 a.m. April 19 to raise funds for the club.
In India, however, the celebration is a little different. Spring is welcomed by citywide color fights with water guns, water balloons and colored powder in the traditional Hindu love festival Holi.
The Color Over Poverty color run hosted by Nourish International isn’t Holi — just loosely based on it. It’s appropriate, UI sophomore Hunter Howell said, since the funds raised by the event will go toward sending a group of seven students to Southeast Asia, where the festival is widely practiced.
“It’s a cultural experience, sort of,” Howell said. “But it’s more than just a run, it’s supporting a good cause.”
This year, Howell founded the UI chapter of Nourish International with UI sophomore Hailey Lewis. The UI chapter is one of 45 chapters across the United States that have partnered with international nonprofits, to make an effort to stamp out extreme poverty.
This June, seven UI students, including Lewis, will spend six weeks teaching English, business and computer classes to underprivileged children at the Slukat Learning Center in Bali, Indonesia.
These students hope to donate $4,000 to Slukat for things like books and chairs, and the Color Over Poverty 5k color run is their last big fundraising event before they leave in June.
“They’ve done similar 5k runs … I’ve always wanted to do one,” Howell said. “There’s one that’ll be in Lewiston called Run or Dye, but our registration is only $20, so we’ve been telling people from Lewiston that you can come up here and run for a really good cause. We’re hoping it’ll be a really good time.”
Color Over Poverty will kick off at 11 a.m. April 19 at the Hamilton-Lowe Aquatic Center. Participants can run or walk, and for their $20 registration fee, they get a T-shirt, a bag of goodies and, most importantly, colored powder.
Every half-mile, volunteers will throw different colored biodegradable powder at participants, splashing them in bright, festive hues, Howell said.
Howell said they hope to see about 300 people turn out for the event, but they haven’t reached that number yet. Registration is still open, and can either be completed online through the Color Over Poverty 5k Run/Walk Facebook page or in person in the Idaho Commons, where Nourish will be tabling this week.
“We’re definitely in a very good place,” Lewis said. “It’s really cool that people finally recognize Nourish for what we do. It keeps you motivated, but the cause is motivation in itself.”
Hannah Shirley can be reached at [email protected]