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"FLY AWAY" TO THE BEST FUNDRAISER YET

By Kim Saavedra (RPTA '13), Staff Writer and Courtney Winters (RPTA '11), Guest Writer

On the evening of Saturday, February 26, the Cal Poly Recreation, Parks, and Tourism Administration (RPTA) Department hosted its annual dinner and auction fundraiser, “Fly Away with RPTA,” which raised over $27,000 to help support the RPTA Department.

This annual fundraiser is a student-run event, overseen by RPTA faculty member Kendi Root, who specializes in special event planning. This year’s benefit was held at San Luis Obispo’s very own jet center. Unlike past years, the 2011 planning committee transformed the traditional, formal dinner reception into a more welcoming and social environment. This allowed students, alumni, faculty, and families to mingle and reconnect while enjoying the food and wine graciously donated by several of the county’s finest restaurants and wineries. Guests were also able to bid on a number of exciting auction items, such as trips to the Cayman Islands, Alaska, and Las Vegas, tickets to Sea World and Disneyland, wine tasting packages, skydiving excursions, and much more.

The money raised through this annual event has helped to fund student and faculty professional development. At a time when many departments on campus and many universities nationwide are struggling to fund important co-curricular activities for students, RPTA has thrived thanks to the efforts by Root and her students to hold this annual event. In addition to drastically offsetting the cost of sending students to conferences, such as the California and Pacific Southwest Recreation & Park Training Conference and the annual conference for The International Ecotourism Society, funds have also been used to provide other opportunities. For example, funds were used in 2010 to help send four students to compete in the national park and recreation Academic Quiz Bowl competition, one in which Cal Poly’s RPTA students placed first in 2010 and will defend their title in 2011 at the National Recreation and Park Association Annual Congress in Atlanta, GA.

With opportunities such as this, the Cal Poly RPTA department and students have been able to gain national recognition and a prestigious reputation among other universities and within the industry.

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