The clubs of the Student Association Special Interest Service and Hobby Council were at war on Friday. Twenty-three clubs squared off against one another, but there were no dueling pistols or swords.
The weapon of choice was the penny.
SISH held its annual "Penny Wars" on Friday, a daylong fundraiser to turn pocket change into cold, hard cash.
Lorenzo Guzman, the SISH clubs coordinator, said SA held the event partially to raise awareness about the various SA clubs.
"This is for the clubs, to do a fundraiser, get them more active and try to get the people who come through SA to see different club names," Guzman said. "This is an attempt for the actual organizations to come to SA and try to make them more active instead of just letting some people start to recede from it."
Twenty-three multi-colored containers decorated the Student Association office, each labeled with a club name. Members of various clubs strolled up to the bins, occasionally dropping change into the bins.
A club received one point for each penny in its container. However, other teams could toss other types into rival clubs' containers in order to reduce their total number of points.
For example, a nickel would deduct five points from the group while a dollar bill would deduct 100 points. Participants were also allowed to use foreign currency, with any coin deducting one point.
Seth Orsborn, a senior mechanical engineering major and president of UB for Christ, took part in the event, but he had a different approach to the competition.
"We're doing this for SISH, SA and counsel awareness," said Orsborn, who came with 100 pennies to dole out to the other organizations. "We give all of our money to other clubs."
The clubs involved get to keep the money in each of their buckets, but the club with the most points at the conclusion of the event will receive an extra $100 in funding.
Due to the mass amount of pennies collected during the event, Guzman said SA plans to announce the winner at some point today. The counting process was expected to be time-consuming because no students from any of the clubs could assist in the tallying process.
Last year's event varied in club earnings, with the Student Strategists and Role Players Association raising $72, mostly in pennies. However, Guzman said none of the participating clubs left the event with less than $20.
In addition, Guzman said the Penny Wars help generate student interest in SISH clubs.
"If a random student was coming through SA, the event can give them a look, whether it is through the club names or the height of pennies," said Guzman.
Last year, the Penny Wars competition ran for a week, although organizers this year decided to cut it down to one day in order to deter unfair practices, such as boosting scores through turning in rolls of pennies purchased from banks, said Guzman.
"It's a way to help out smaller clubs," he said. "Larger clubs have larger budgets. They really don't need the money as much as a club with 15 members."
Guzman said many of the larger clubs that are not strapped for cash will donate the money generated to local charities.
