Intervarsity will be holding a bean bag tournament on Friday, Oct. 12 on the Pioneer Student Center front lawn, to fundraise money for fighting AIDS in Africa.

The event will begin at 3 p.m. Friday and pre-registration will begin at 2:30 p.m. There will also be a table set up throughout the week of Oct. 8 at the PSC where teams can register, Phillip Hansen, a member of Intervarstiy, said.

A team consists of two individuals and there are two categories of teams that can sign up for this fundraiser. Non-organization teams have an entry fee of $15 that will help to provide resources like food, clothing and age-appropriate HIV prevention education in Sub-Saharan Africa. One in every 20 children in Sub-Saharan Africa is orphaned. The $55 entry free from the organization teams will be helping to provide nutritional support for more than 700,000 children in Malawi who have lost their parents to AIDS, Hansen said.

“The non-organization teams and the organization teams will not be competing against each other and will therefore be competing for different prizes,” Kyle Gonner, a member of the core leadership team in Intervarsity, said. “The idea is that organizations will be able to pool their money to sponsor a team or teams. Also all proceeds will go directly to World Vision, one of many organizations that is helping to fight the spread of AIDS in Africa and around the world.”

Prizes range from free soda to baseball cards to gift certificates and coupons from area businesses. Different prizes will be awarded to teams registered through an organization versus not being registered through an organization, Hansen said.

Students and non-students are all invited to participate in this event. Playing in the tournament is not the onlyway people can give to this fund-raiser. There will be brats, chips and soda sold at the tournament and all the profits will go to the fighting of AIDS, Hansen said.

“I think it is important to try to educate people about AIDS and this is a good way to get people thinking and give them a chance to help. It is sometimes hard to know how or where to help, but this is a way for students to donate directly to AIDS victims,” Benjamin Belton, a member of Intervarsity, said.

“I would like our campus to be more aware of the AIDS crises and care enough to raise money to help AIDS victims and prevent further spreading,” Belton said.