Marshall University senior public relations students are organizing fundraisers and awareness campaigns this semester as part of their capstone project, with proceeds going to the Ronald McDonald House Charities.

“Last semester my fellow PR peers and I planned a campaign and are implementing it this semester,” LeAnna Owens, senior public relations major, said. “It is a win-win situation because we get great experience working with a nonprofit organization and a local Huntington charity reaps the benefits.”

“These fundraisers are for our campaign class,” Bri Murphy, senior public relations major, said. “It is our project throughout the semester to work with the organization and raise funds to help them out by creating fundraising events.”

The students had a Valentine’s Day raffle this week at the Memorial Student Center.

“We are raffling off a Valentine’s basket this week. It is a date night basket that comes with dinner from the Peddler, ice-cream from Austin’s Homemade Ice Cream at the Market, candy and a teddy bear for a lucky couple,” Emily Phipps, senior public relations major, said. “All proceeds will go toward the Ronald McDonald House Charities in Huntington. Our capstone project is to raise $15,000 for the RMHC. Hopefully, this first fundraiser will get us a good push towards our goal.

“We chose those restaurants because they are downtown and in walking distance for students to get out and walk around,” said Phipps. “The movie theater is also close if they wanted to catch a movie.”

Besides the Valentine’s Day raffle, there are other opportunities to help the senior capstone public relation students with their fundraisers as the semester goes on. The students are working on organizing a fundraiser for a basketball game this season but said they are still waiting on confirmation for it. There will also be a silent auction online toward the end of the semester.

The seniors will be visiting elementary and middle schools in Huntington to have penny wars. For this fundraiser, they will put buckets around schools to collect change for a competition between other grades and schools. The winner will get a pizza party.

“It’s a really worthy cause and anyone wanting to donate their time or money can contact any of us on this campaign or call the house directly,” Owens said. “We’re very blessed to have a place like the Ronald McDonald house in our area and too often people don’t realize how lucky we are or how much work it takes to keep a house with 20 plus rooms clean and to feed the families living there.”

Anna Marsh can be contacted at [email protected].