Two religious groups want New Orleans trips

Student Government Board denied the Hillel Jewish University Center $6,000 Thursday that would… Student Government Board denied the Hillel Jewish University Center $6,000 Thursday that would have gone toward buying airline tickets to send students to help Katrina victims during spring break. It was the board’s second and final time reviewing the request.

At the same meeting, the Cornerstone Christian Fellowship, an interdenominational student ministry of the Bellefield Presbyterian Church, requested $8,329 for a similar trip. After considering the allocations committee’s recommendation to give the group $3,000 for ground transportation, the board decided to send the request back to allocations.

The board will make a decision this Thursday at its weekly meeting, held at 8:30 p.m. on the sixth floor of the William Pitt Union.

Board member Joe Leinbach explained why the board chose not to grant the funding to Hillel.

“It’s just not specific enough for me to approve this,” Leinbach said. “I don’t know exactly what they are doing, and although I think it is very good programming, I don’t think we can approve something that we don’t know enough about.”

Hillel President Elan Strait said in an interview Friday that Hillel still plans on traveling for spring break. According to Strait, about 20 students hope to do more fundraising in order to help cover the cost of airline tickets to New Orleans.

“I think the board acted really fairly,” Strait said. “We are still going on this trip,” he added.

When it came to Cornerstone’s request, some board members had mixed feelings about approving the money for one group but not another.

“Although this request has a lot more information than the other one did,” board member Aimee Kleer said, “I still feel it’s kind of scandalous to fund one trip to the same place and not fund the other.”

Board member Erica Lillquist, who said it would be “completely inappropriate” to send Cornerstone and not Hillel, recommended that organizations that are passionate about service register with Student Volunteer Outreach.

SVO is part of a national organization called Break Away, which offers alternative spring breaks, opportunities for students to spend their time off doing service projects.

According to Terrence Milani, a Student Life administrator of SVO, SGB has consistently given $20,000 a year (approximately $2,000 per trip) for alternative spring break trips.

But SVO is not sending students to help Katrina victims because there was no pre-existing program in New Orleans for Pitt students. SVO is sending students to previous project sites that they plan to commit to in the future, as well as where they will continue to do projects. Even more, the sites were selected by student officers during the summer.

A major point of support for Cornerstone’s request was the organization’s willingness to cut down on costs by offering to drive to New Orleans.

The original request from Cornerstone for more than $8,000 would cover the cost of things like food, which the board does not usually approve, unless it is for a cultural event.

By limiting the use of allocated money solely to transportation costs, Cornerstone’s figure was lowered to $3,000.

Board Member Will Powers said Friday that some members of the board were hesitant to grant Cornerstone the funding in light of the earlier decision to reject Hillel’s request.

“We are effectively punishing Cornerstone because of Hillel,” Powers said. “I don’t think that our precedent should be based on religion, race or creed, but by the merit of their program and its cost to the student activity fee.”