Music and dancing filled the Tuohy Hall auditorium Thursday afternoon, as SJC Brooklyn’s Poder Latino club worked to raise money for students in Nicaragua who can’t afford college tuition.
Santiago Marin Araque, president of Poder Latino, said club members sold cupcakes and raffle tickets for a few days leading up to the “Fiesta for a Cause” fundraiser to boost the amount of money raised during the event.
“It’s a really good cause,” said Araque, a sophomore computer science major. “I’d like to see the fundraiser grow more and more each year.”
The fundraiser is Poder Latino’s largest event of the year. SJC Brooklyn’s Academic Center for English Language Studies (ACES) program helped organize the event and Evodio’s supplied lunch.
The fundraiser featured a traditional Herencia Latina (Latin heritage) performance by seven dancers dressed in all white — including alumni from Pan American International and Aviation High Schools in Queens. Among the dancers was St. Joseph’s own Amarfi Collado, a junior criminal justice major.
Katie Oliver, who has taught the dancers for more than five years, said it’s great to see her students continuing to dance together after high school. She noted that her dancers were excited to perform for such a good cause.
The performance brought intense energy into the auditorium, with attendees enthusiastically clapping to the music and cheering the performers on during solos.
