On Oct. 18, Sweet Briar’s business management lab hosted a benefit concert to raise money and awareness for the Make-A-Wish Foundation, an organization that grants wishes to seriously ill children.

Dubbed “Dress Wild, Save a Child,” the Halloween-themed event was held at the Boathouse and featured music by Michelle Raymond ’08 and a DJ. More than 100 costume-clad people attended and a $5 admission fee was charged. All of the food and beverages were donated, so the group raised about $500 for Make-A-Wish.

Tom Loftus, assistant profession of business, praised the event’s organizers, saying, “Laura McKenna and her team did a fabulous job, as did Micaela Weiss, the lab’s CEO, and Jenny Walkiewicz, the student manager for the project.”

The event was the first of several Make-A-Wish events planned for this fall by the business management lab. On Oct. 31 and Nov. 1, the lab will hold a jail-a-thon fund-raiser, and a fashion show and dining hall fast are planned for Nov. 13 and 14, respectively.

“Every semester, the students in the management lab are able to draw on the lessons we’ve learned from doing these kinds of educational and fund-raising events in the past,” Loftus said. “This is a very competitive group of women, so every semester the current class is determined to do their events better than the classes that went before.

“This concert is just the most recent example. I am simply amazed that they were able to draw one hundred seven students out to the boathouse on a Thursday night — more than twice as many as last year’s fall Oxfam Dance.”

– By Suzanne Ramsey, SBC staff writer