The UW-Madison chapter of the National Society of Collegiate Scholars will host a jump-rope-a-thon Friday on Library Mall from 4 to 5 p.m. to benefit children with heart conditions.
During the Pump Your Heart to Save a Child's Heart"" event, sponsored by the UW-Madison nutritional sciences department, jumpers will pledge to raise money for Save a Child's Heart, a non-profit organization that provides pediatric heart surgery and follow-up care for children around the world.
Dani Bachar, UW-Madison NSCS vice president of community service, learned about the organization when she visited its base in Israel last winter break.
""We met with the kids who were receiving the heart surgeries and saw the impact it had on them,"" she said.
She said she saw an opportunity to help the cause via the community service endeavors of NSCS as well as bring a diversity of students and organizations together to support something much more global than the campus community.
""I wanted to do an event that would bring different organizations together for a cause that wouldn't benefit any of the organizations,"" Bachar said.
Although NSCS is the only organization officially affiliated with the event, the Asian Sisterhood Alliance, UW-Madison's chapter of the Society for Human Resource Management and the Aspiring Nurses Association plan to attend.
UW-Madison NSCS chapter president Kate Buretta said she was thrilled when Bachar pitched the idea.
""You're [benefiting] kids who are the most innocent in the population,"" Buretta said. ""It makes you look beyond the United States and recognize that we're all interrelated and this is a global problem.""
In addition to jump ropes, the event will feature food from Einstein Bros. Bagels, T-shirts and possibly UW-Madison athletes.
""It's a very worthy cause and we're going to be having fun doing something that is good for other people,"" Bachar said. ""So it's a win-win situation the way I see it.""
UW-Madison senior Sami Stein agreed and said she hopes the event will help ""create awareness"" for an organization that people might not know about.
