Students raise £10,000 for charity

Then came Fscheme, an initiative designed to encourage Jewish students to raise money for a variety of good causes.

Last night, Nottingham J-Soc excelled themselves once again with their new innovative event 100 for 100.

I have never seen anything like it before. And I've seen quite a lot at UJS.

Rebecca Schapira and Dan Clyne, two students at Nottingham J-Soc, got together and said, look, Jewish students are quite nice people, and they quite like helping others. But it's hard raising money and there aren't that many Jewish students on campus (seriously).

So what if you could get a small but committed bunch of people together to do (silly) things to each raise a little bit of money at the same time? What if, say, 100 students all raised £100? That would net a cool £10,000 to be distributed across eight worthy causes.

And, as an extra, incentive, how about we let every student who raises £100 or more enter a giant game of Twister, with the last (wo)man standing getting free flights to Israel courtesy of UJS and El Al? Throw in some prizes for the students who raise the most, a 100 for 100 t-shirt and some food and drink and you have a recipe for a great night out.

And that's exactly what happened. As the 100 students twisted their way across the giant board, Rebecca and Dan enthusiastically shouted 'left hand on yellow' to the increasingly tangled body of students.

After a tense all-woman final three, Emma Schuster was crowned the winner and received her prize from UJS President Dan Grabiner.

Charlotte Marks, Dani Popeck, Max Sobell, and Ben Berelowitz each won prizes for raising the most money. Charlotte provided the student community with sushi, Dani kept her mouth shut for 24 hours (seriously, not easy), Max (insanely and heroically) chained himself to the J-Soc house with no food or drink for 24 hours and Ben, erm, well, Ben waxed some sensitive parts that you might not ordinarily care to wax.

Other students put on a 24 hour radio show, gave up chocolate and tuna (!), bounced around campus on a space hopper, dyed their hair, made prank phone calls and performed magic tricks.

But it wasn't just the event which blew me away. It wasn't the incredible atmosphere, the positivity buzzing around the room, the 'yes we can!' attitude.

It wasn't even the inspirational Rebecca and Dan who have dedicate the last few weeks to delivering something truly exceptional.

What struck me was something much bigger than even all of that. It was a celebration of Jewish students. In a world where UJS is battling hate speech on campus, where the spectre of antisemitism still raises its ugly head, this was a showcase of everything that is good about being Jewish at university.

Rebecca, Dan, and everyone at Nottingham J-Soc are shining role models to us all. Where will we see 100 for 100 happening next? Bring it on...

To read Dan Clyne's thoughts on the project, click here.