Student festival raises thousands to help tackle homelessness

Third year events management students from RGU’s School of Creative and Cultural Business raised a grand total of £3,090.57 for Aberdeen Cyrenians as part of 2023’s Aberdeen Student Festival.

The festival included four separate fundraising events which were organised from start to finish by students in a key stage of their degree progress.

The programme included a neon night out at Prohibition; a masquerade ball at the Copthorne hotel; an arty tea party at Castlegate’s BrewDog; and a Scottish ceilidh experience at the city centre’s Park Inn Hotel.

Each event achieved its target number of attendees while also raising an impressive number for charity.

Aberdeen Cyrenians was chosen as Aberdeen Student Festival beneficiaries to support their extensive work in providing care and provision for vulnerable people and anyone experiencing crisis and social exclusion in the North East.

Donna Hutchison, Head of Corporate & Business Services, said: “It is an awesome achievement for the RGU events management students to have raised over £3,000 on our behalf, through their Live Festival module.  We want to say a big thank you to the teams and RGU staff for running the events as well as to all those who attended.  It is partnerships like these where there is a clear benefit to both parties that are key to Aberdeen Cyrenians sustaining their critical work in Aberdeen."

Lexy Graham, a third year event management student at RGU, said: "We are super proud of the experience we created. It truly was a relaxed and fun event open to all abilities and we raised a great amount for Aberdeen Cyrenians in the process. The team have really enjoyed the module and cannot thank everyone who has supported us enough!"

Katherine Goldie, events management Lecturer, added: “The stage three students did a fantastic job in organising, promoting and ultimately running each event over the course of the festival weekend.

“They were all a huge success, eclipsing targets and raising money for a brilliant charity. The practical element to our events management degree is such an important learning curve for students, providing them crucial real-life experience to carry into tourism, hospitality and events employment upon graduation.”

The students involved in the Aberdeen Student Festival met with Leah Brews, Fundraising Coordinator at Aberdeen Cyrenians, on Friday 14 April for a celebratory debrief and cheque handover.