By
Hillary Davis
Arizona Daily Wildcat
UA greeks to participate in charity penny drive with encouragement of beauty queen,
Former Miss America and "Cabaret" star Kate Shindle has joined with UA greeks to help fight pediatric AIDS - one penny at a time.
Shindle, who stars as Sally Bowles in the Broadway musical that opens tonight at Centennial Hall, spoke with members of the University of Arizona greek community last night to officially launch a penny drive that will benefit the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation.
Shindle, 1998 Miss America and a 1999 graduate of Northwestern University, is also a national spokeswoman for the organization.
UA fraternities and sororities will compete against each other in the fundraiser, which will continue through the end of Greek Week in October, said Kathy Adams-Reister, UA Greek Life coordinator.
UA, along with the greek organizations at five other universities from the southwestern United States - to include Arizona State University, Northern Arizona University, University of Nevada-Las Vegas, University of New Mexico and New Mexico State University - will vie to collect the greatest amount of money.
The school that raises the most money will receive a visit from Scott Wolf, star of the defunct Fox series "Party of Five," and another Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation spokesman.
Adams-Reister said she is not yet sure what kind of outcome to expect, but chapters need to raise hundreds of thousands of pennies in order to claim victory.
"To be competitive, we need to be in the $5,000 to $10,000 range," Adams-Reister said.
As Miss America, Shindle toured the country on an AIDS education and advocacy platform. She said that 16,000 people are infected with the AIDS virus everyday worldwide, with 1,800 of them being children.
Researching and battling AIDS is "special," Shindle said, because the disease is preventable - and researching treatments for children is especially urgent because of the special medical needs their young bodies require.
"You can't treat kids like little adults," she said.
Adam Hirsch, a media arts freshman and Sigma Alpha Mu pledge, said that though he has not been personally affected by AIDS, people should still be educated about the disease's effects.
Hirsch said he and his fraternity brothers plan on pitching in plenty of their spare change for the cause.
"We plan on playing an active role," he said. "It's still such a powerful issue in our society."
