Students shed clothes for charity drive

Culminating Poverty Awareness Week, a strip poker game collected a pile of clothing for local homeless people. Several students bared it all Saturday night -- donating used clothing to charity in a strip poker clothes drive. The drive, aimed at providing clothes for local homeless people, was the final event of Poverty Awareness Week. Clothes discarded in the game went to the Philadelphia and Delaware Valley Unit of the Homeless. About 20 students attended the strip poker game. Students came dressed in clothes they wanted to give away. The rules made sure no one was fully undressed. Although the event was advertised throughout the University and announced on KYW-AM radio, the crowd barely made a dent in the eight two-foot subs provided for participants' enjoyment. But the strippers refused to get discouraged, instead enjoying the nostalgia of trying on -- and taking off -- old clothes. "That was my frat party wear my freshman year -- back when Alpha Chi Rho had parties and Kriss Kross was popular," 1996 College graduate Linda Cherry recalled, as College freshman Jason Ackerman modeled a fitted red T-shirt. As the poker game progressed, College junior Yoneco Evans, who directed the event as Kite and Key's Community Projects coordinator, suggestively removed a few layers of her clothing and added them to the pile of donations. Despite the high spirits of the coordinators, some participants expressed concern that the poker game's poor turnout indicated students' indifference about poverty. "If the Penn community was concerned enough, there would be a lot more people here," Ackerman said, squeezing himself into a striped dress before the game. "This event has been highly publicized." Cherry attributed student apathy to the widespread poverty that surrounds the Penn campus. "The more poor people you see, the less you care," she said. But most of the coordinators said they had expected a relatively small turnout. "Granted, I had a feeling we were going to have problems getting people to come to this event," said College junior Liz Theoharis, adding that she preferred to focus instead on the larger success of Poverty Awareness Week as a whole program. Beginning November 15, the week was sponsored by 30 different student groups. "[We've seen] different people from different communities at Penn," Theoharis noted. "We've raised a good fifteen to sixteen hundred dollars to help local organizations." The Kite and Key Society and Community House organized Saturday night's stripping.