University of Pennsylvania Students Raise $7,000 for AIDS Research

Over the past year, the Penn World AIDS Foundation has raised, through its student discount card, over $7,000 for the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, which is involved in vaccine research and ensuring access to treatment, and for Doctors Across Borders, a group that provides medical care in developing countries. The entire $10 cost of the card goes to these world AIDS organizations while card-carrying students receive discounts to campus restaurants.

"The primary objective of our organization is to raise money for international HIV/AIDS relief and to simultaneously raise consciousness of the pandemic," said junior Leila Sadeghi, who co-founded the organization with junior Carlos Gomez. "I wanted to create some type of outlet for social responsibility, and I just think there's so much we can do at a place like Penn, where we can try to make a difference in our own way." Sadeghi stressed that it is easy to save more than $10 with the card and that the proceeds make a world of difference for the organizations her group supports.

When Gomez's childhood friend Eric Cioe came to visit Penn last year, he was inspired by the idea and decided to start a similar program at New York University. Cioe said that the discount card seemed to be a sensible way to get people on board and that colleges across the nation could adopt the project with little difficulty. "Wherever there's a college campus, you have vendors that are designed for that campus. You are always going to have people who are going to want to make a difference and you are always going to have vendors who are willing to offer a discount because their main customer base is college students."

Cioe said that his NYU-based organization, which is not officially affiliated with NYU, has raised more than $4,000 since they began their project in September and added that people have been very receptive to the group's efforts.

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