ISU student organization Hope 4 Africa will host a fundraiser at 5:30 p.m. Thursday at Collegiate United Methodist Church and Wesley Foundation.

This fundraiser will feature an authentic African meal, and will give people a chance to look at displays on African culture. A silent auction will be held after the dinner with items including crafts, artifacts, gift baskets, photographs taken in Africa by club members and a basketball autographed by ISU men’s basketball coach, Fred Hoiberg.

Throughout the night, Hope 4 Africa president, Moses Bomett and other organization members will be speaking about the situation in Africa and giving out information as to what the club is doing about it.

“The money raised will go towards sponsoring students to attend school in Kenya,” said Jonathan Upchurch, junior in world languages and cultures and vice president of Hope 4 Africa. “We recommend that people come early and stay for as long as they can in order to catch as much of the program as possible. This is a first time event, so we really don’t know what to expect, but we are definitely optimistic.”

Hope 4 Africa became an official ISU club in the fall 2009 and has been working to raise awareness and funds to go toward improving education in Kenya. The club raised $3,000 from its first fundraiser this year, Computers 4 Hope.

Upchurch said Hope 4 Africa hopes to raise at least $1,000 more during Hope 4 Africa Night.

Since its debut, Hope 4 Africa has worked to set up numerous events for fundraising and to raise awareness. “We’ve co-sponsored two Open Mic Nights at the M-Shop, at which we shared our story, collected donations, and sold shirts and artifacts,” Upchurch said. “In the spring of 2009, we ran what we called the Books 4 Hope greek campaign, which was a contest between 20 greek houses on campus to raise money for our Books 4 Hope program.”

The biggest event Hope 4 Africa is connected with is the annual Hunger-Out 4 Hope. The goal of Hunger Out 4 Hope “was to fast without eating any food or drink any drinks but water to fundraise for our Books 4 Hope program,” Upchurch said. “Participants were required to raise $30 to take part in this event. The all-night event was parked full of group activities/games, sport related games, video games, board games and movies.”

Books 4 Hope was a project Hope 4 Africa started when they realized the dire need for textbooks and supplies for partner schools in Kenya. Through this project more than $8,000 was raised.

Computers 4 Hope, another project courtesy of Hope 4 Africa was created when two club members, Kyle Upchurch and Marisa Wilson, junior in political science, went to Africa to complete a previous fundraising project Books 4 Hope. Upon their return, Hope 4 Africa began researching about potential projects for their partner schools. They came up with the idea to raise money to provide a computer lab for one of the schools. They appealed to supporters to help raise money by going to a website, www.tippingbucket.org.

The current project Hope 4 Africa is working on is Hope 4 Students, which is a student sponsorship program.

“The cost of attendance for the schools that we support tends to be in between $10 and $15 per month, and many students can’t afford this,” Upchurch said. “We pick the students that are performing admirably in school despite coming from very impoverished backgrounds. One student is named Stella. She lost her dad at a young age and her mother left her. She has consistently been near the top of her class but is recently struggling because she has to miss class to earn money to take care of her younger brother.”

Through the program, Hope 4 Africa works to provide scholarships to students who are academically talented but have no means of paying the necessary tuition fees.