Zombies are among us. And they are here to donate to charity.
On Friday, the Strategists and Role Players Association (SARPA), held its fifth annual Zombie Walk event in the academic spine, to raise awareness for brain cancer. The zombies started from the Academic Spine and headed toward the Ellicott Complex.
The walk is usually held around Halloween so “we can do a good deed while having a little fun,” said Melissa Cirina, a junior psychology major and SARPA’s assistant convention director.
The club raised $124.57 and will be donated to Upstate New York Transplant Services (UNYTS).
The Zombie Walk is a way for SARPA to complete its charity requirement and have fun doing so, Cirina said. She said the walk is different from just a blood drive or food donations.
For six hours before the walk, members of SARPA and other students painted their faces with fake blood and applied bullet wounds to their bodies to transform into the living dead. The makeup is provided at no cost to students and participants, according to Cirina.
Throughout the day, nearly 50 students participated in the Zombie Walk by either getting their face painted or staying for the walk held in the afternoon. After a day of creating zombies, the students gather in the Student Union and begin their walk. About 20 people this year, members and non-members alike, went on the walk after getting their new zombie face.
This was the first year the event was done without the founder, Mark ‘Spike’ Okrasinski, but the challenge of doing the walk without his guidance and all of his resources gave the walk a lot of attention, Cirina said.
Jonathan Jones, a senior media studies major, said to get into character, he only had one word on his mind – brains.
Jones, who has been a member of SARPA for two years, said he and other members impersonate zombies by stumbling around during the walk.
The club tries to focus the donations toward brain cancer research institutes to keep the zombie theme relevant. Some research institutes, however, do not accept small donations, which is why SARPA occasionally donates to UNYTS.
“This is one of the times we can do our stuff,” Cirina said. “We’re a bunch of nerds and we embrace it.”
For students who didn’t want to wear makeup to class, they could still participate in the walk by transforming their fellow students into zombies. Some students like to create extensive zombie stories for themselves, according to Cirina.
“There were people [who] had backstories of being shot in the head and asked us to try a recreate that,” she said.
Beth Yasuna, a junior economics major, has friends who participated in Friday’s walk. She said the club embraces all of its members, which allows friendships within the club to grow.
Yasuna and Cirina were in the Union Friday before the event to apply makeup to those who wished to be a zombie.
“You can get makeup and not donate,” Cirina said “[But] donate if you can, and be a little weird on campus.”
The majority of the clubs events are convention based and “by the community for the community,” Cirina said.
SARPA will be holding a mini Comic-Con in November.
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