Student Government funded the Puerto Rican Cultural Night and the Project Jamaica service trip at their Wednesday meeting.

The Puerto Rican Student Association requested $4,230 from Student Government to help fund their Cultural Night, on Saturday.

The event is intended to celebrate Puerto Rican culture for the Ames and Iowa State communities. The funding will assist in the purchase of food, live music, decorations and renting the venue.

“Part of the purpose of the Puerto Rican Student Association is to spread the Puerto Rican culture to everyone in the university,” a representative of the Puerto Rican Student Association said.

The request passed with a vote of 29-0-2.

The Senate also voted to fund Project Jamaica. Project Jamaica was granted $3,300 to fund the annual service trip that sends 22 students to Jamaica over spring break. The funding will help to pay for the students’ food, lodging, supplies and airfare to and from Jamacia.

“We are bringing back a lot of perspective to the campus, and I think it really helps with the social aspect of inclusivity,” said Katelyn Noah, Student Government senator and vice chair of Project Jamacia.

The request was approved with a vote of 28-0-3.

Angela Richard from the Writing and Media Center served as the program for the evening, speaking to the Senate about the function and mission at the Writing and Media Center.

The center is a peer tutoring resource on Iowa State’s campus focused on undergraduate and graduate success in oral, visual, written and visual communication. Students are encouraged to come to the media center at any stage of the process, from brainstorming all the way to revising.

“Our repeat business is ridiculously high. Once you do show up, usually people keep coming back,” Richard said.

During open forum, Vice President Juan Bibiloni spoke about news subscriptions that are funded for students.

Parks Library has, this year, funded the New York Times as well as gotten a free trial to the Wall Street Journal for students to access. In the future, the library will only be able to fund one of the subscriptions, and Bibiloni spoke about a potential initiative to find alternative funding for subscriptions to the Wall Street Journal.

Bibiloni also spoke about Cyclone to Cyclone, a future initiative to reach out and provide additional resources to sophomore students.

Senior Director of Student Services Zahra Barkley spoke to remind the Senate about the Campus Safety Walk that will take place Thursday, and encouraged the senators to volunteer their time to help identify areas on campus that may need improvements.

Prashant Gargh, a graduate student in mechanical engineering, was approved to sit on the Finance Committee and with his approval, the bylaw that restricts Finance Committee to only four senators was waived.

“This allows Senator Gargh to a) hop on the committee but b) offer a graduate perspective, which we think is really interesting,” said Speaker Cody Woodruff.

Gargh was approved by unanimous consent.

Two new bills were read in at the meeting.

The GENRE Music Club is requesting $4,048.16 to help complete a sound reinforcement system, new instruments and new amplifiers. The club performs four or five times a year for the Iowa State and Ames communities.

Senator Sandeep Stanley introduced a bill asking that Student Government change the bylaws to change all “he/his/him” and “she/her/hers” pronouns to “they/them/theirs” pronouns in order to be more inclusive to future members of Student Government and the student body.

For more information or to contact your senator, visit their website. The senate meetings are open to the public at 7 p.m. Wednesdays in the Campanile Room of the Memorial Union.