Jan. 22, 2010

Haiti Relief Effort

The University of Notre Dame will donate the full gate receipts, as well as the net concession revenue, from both the men's and women's home basketball games this weekend to benefit relief and rebuilding efforts in Haiti.

The men play DePaul Saturday (Jan. 23) at 2 p.m. (ET), and the women take on West Virginia Sunday (Jan. 24) at 1 p.m. (ET) inside Purcell Pavilion at the Joyce Center. Both games are expected to sell out.

In addition, the Notre Dame Student-Athlete Advisory Council (SAAC) is organizing a fund drive to be held in conjunction with both games to encourage fans and alumni to make their own personal contributions to aid the relief efforts.

During the first half of both games, more than 100 Notre Dame student-athletes wearing monogram jackets will pass buckets through the crowd. The council's hope is that spectators will each donate at least $1, which would raise $11,000 for the relief effort.

Money raised will be directed toward the Notre Dame Haiti Program, the Congregation of Holy Cross and Catholic Relief Services.

Consisting of leaders from all 26 Irish athletic teams, cheerleaders and managers, SAAC discusses critical issues that affect the experiences of student-athletes, initiates new programming ideas, participates in community service projects and acts as the student-athlete group liaison to athletic administration.

Information about Notre Dame's response to the Haiti earthquake is available on the Web at http://haitidisaster.nd.edu.

-- ND --