By Channah Barkhordari

Saturday evening, February 12, kicked off Tufts’ week-long Save a Child’s Heart (SACH) campaign with a bang.

Tufts Friends of Israel (FOI) President Daniel Bleiberg and Hasbara fellow as well as FOI VP Natalie Milstein took on the campaign as a way of uniting the campus towards a worthy cause, and the board lost no time getting to work.

Hasbara fellow and FOI board member Noam Yaffe partnered with his fraternity, Zeta Psi, to launch a kick-off party alongside sororities Chi Omega and on campus. The event had a fantastic turnout of over 400 students, with lines out the door for most of the evening. Each of the attendees donated $2 at the door, with all proceeds going to SACH.

On Sunday and Monday, FOI tabled and sold hundreds of Valentine’s Day candy bags which were delivered across campus. Throughout the rest of the week, they held a cookie decorating table at the Mayer Campus Center that brought further awareness to the student body alongside the tasty treats. Five Hasbara fellows, FOI Communications Committee Chair Erica Feldman, FOI secretary May Igawa, FOI Outreach Committee board members Shira Shamir, Becky Allen and Liat Litwin took turns tabling and selling campaign display materials, as well as handing out brochures with informational material about SACH.

Overall, FOI raised $1,400 for Save a Child’s Heart, far exceeding their initial goal of $1,000.

The Tufts Daily covered the event in a front-page article highlighting the success of the fundraising campaign and noting that Bleiberg is looking to make this an annual tradition.

Boston University Students for Israel (BUSI) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Students for Israel (MITSI) also hosted successful Save a Child’s Heart campaigns, tabling and selling candy bags during the week in their student centers. Hasbara fellows and BUSI board members Gaby Salpeter and Sarah Schrag ran the campaign at BU, while MIT Hillel and MITSI President Rachel Bandler brought it to their campus, where Diana Liskovich and Sharone Small sold goodie bags and handed out informational material.