This Monday, the best things in life don’t just come from the heart — but for it.
Alpha Epsilon Delta (AED), UNC’s pre-health honor society, is hosting “Arts for Hearts,” a charity event in the Great Hall in the Student Union that features performances from eight campus groups, including UNC Bhangra Elite, EROT Poetry and the UNC Achordants. Fifty percent of the money raised will be donated to UNC Cardiology.
“All our members are pre-health, cardiology is another branch of UNC Hospital where we all volunteer,” said senior Kelsey Pan, AED’s president. “A lot of students want to become doctors — philanthropy is a huge component of the career of a doctor. Most student organizations have a bigger meaning to it other than making friends or having fun, it’s all to benefit someone else.”
Many of the performance groups at “Arts for Hearts” share the same mentality, including the UNC Achordants, which was founded in philanthropy, said business manager and junior Coby Isley.
“The group was originally founded as a service a cappella group, and we’re very excited to serve our community,” he said. “When we have the opportunity to perform in ‘Arts for Hearts‘ where we can actually give money or help raise money first-hand for something in the community like this does, we just jumped on the chance.”
UNC Achordants, sponsored by the Campus Y, has a mission to promote service. “Arts for Hearts,” however, gives other groups a chance to get involved in service — the other 50 percent of the event’s profit will go towards the winning performance’s charity of choice, as decided by audience votes.
The newly-formed nuevo flamenco guitar duo, Guitar Heels, were eager to get involved and promote their charity of choice: the Carolina Women’s Center.
“All this semester (Carolina Women’s Center) has been trying to get students, not even to know they exist, but get students into their actual office,” said Guitar Heels member and junior Zach Bijesse. “We can use this as a platform to let people know, ‘Hey, this exists and this is why it exists, and hopefully you’ll get involved with them in some capacity.”
Though Guitar Heels hopes that “Arts for Hearts” will help the group promote themselves enough to reach their ultimate goals of expanding and performing their own concerts, Bijesse said they jumped on the opportunity to help an organization in need.
