Sigma Nu buttons aid alumni advisor

Thousands of little black buttons bearing one word -- "Robert" -- are helping bring Sigma Nu Alumni Advisor Robert Drake home to Philadelphia after a brutal gay-bashing assault in Ireland. Drake, 36, was researching and writing a novel in Ireland when the two men currently charged with beating and robbery allegedly left him lying unconscious in a pool of blood on his apartment floor January 31. He remains in critical but stable condition and on a ventilator. The alleged assailants were released from Irish police custody on $14,000 bail. Presently, because Drake is on a ventilator and financially strapped, he cannot fly back to Philadelphia -- his home for the past three years -- for treatment. Members of the Sigma Nu fraternity raised over $3,100 on Locust Walk last week, selling approximately 1,000 buttons for the Robert Drake Fund to transport the writer, editor and literary agent from Dublin's Beaumont Hospital to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, according to Sigma Nu brother and InterFraternity Council Executive Vice President Andrew Exum. "We are very pleased with our results thus far and thank the University community for their support," Exum, a Daily Pennsylvanian columnist, said of the donations -- which exceeded the fraternity's $3,000 goal and brought the Robert Drake Fund closer to its $10,000 target. Though the Sigma Nu brothers will not be selling buttons on the Walk this week, they are distributing buttons to other organizations to sell, including the the gay publication Baltimore Alternative, the Philadelphia gay and lesbian bookstore Giovanni's Room and the University of Rochester Sigma Nu chapter. The donations from the button sales will help cover flight and treatment expenses for the philanthropist who himself donated hundreds of hours to get the Sigma Nu fraternity "more involved in the community" before moving to Ireland last spring, according to Sigma Nu brother and Wharton senior Scott Goldchain. Goldchain said the fundraiser has "over-stepped factions," drawing support from the Greek system, the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Alliance and the University community as a whole. "They understand that this is a human being," he noted, adding that a lot of the supporters gave beyond the suggested $3 button price, often upwards of $20. Giovanni's Room bought 100 buttons last week to sell at its 345 S. 12th Street location and at the March 5 "A Reading to Benefit the Robert Drake Fund" in the William Way Community Center at 1315 Spruce Street. Ed Hermance, owner of Giovanni's Room, said "we will be happy to try to sell [the buttons]" also through an upcoming Robert Drake fundraiser in New York and possibly through mail order. Two weeks ago, Scott Pretorius -- Drake's partner of six years and the chief radiology resident at HUP -- e-mailed the Office of Fraternity and Sorority that Drake -- author of The Gay Canon: Great Books Every Gay Man Should Read and free-lance book reviewer for The Philadelphia Inquirer -- had sustained "significant head injury." Sigma Nu mobilized within hours of being notified to organize the button fundraiser. "I am particularly grateful to the brothers of Sigma Nu and their willingness to take such an active role in fundraising for Robert," said Pretorius, who had the opportunity to personally thank several brothers last week when he bought a button on his walk from Presbyterian Hospital to HUP.

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