Helping out the community by using laughter to relieve the stress of finals while helping animals at the same time is what “Stand Up for Animals” is doing. Lee Clark College hosted this standup comedy event in The Curris Center Stables on April 22.
For admission to the event, attendees were asked to bring with them either a can of dog or cat food or $2. All proceeds went to The Murray- Calloway County Animal Shelter to provide food for the animals.
Clark College raised $30 and thirty cans of dog and cat food for the shelter.
Frank Bozelka, junior from Chicago, Ill., hosted Stand Up for Animals and also performed in the event. Bozelka was in charge of finding the talent for the show and supervising. Unfortunately, he was the only student with prior experience in the field of comedy.
Bozelka has been involved in standup comedy in Chicago and knew Salty Peters a comedian from Chicago, Ill., was a good comedian. This gave them both a chance to have fun and help out.
Having done some stand up comedy at home, Bozelka figured that this would be a good opportunity to try the same thing on campus.
“I do standup comedy back home in Chicago, and Salty was one of the first comedians I saw live on a stage, and I’ve thought he was hilarious every since.” Bozelka said.
“I think making a room full of people forget about their problems and laugh at yours for a bit is the greatest drug this world has to offer.“ Bozelka said. “So my most enjoyable part was making people laugh while hosting the show, and giving something back to the animal shelter.”
Knowing the importance in stand up comedy of getting your name out there, Bozelka saw this as a chance to help a fellow comedian.
Peters was the headliner of the event.
This event was made possible by the resident advisers of Lee Clark College. The idea was to have fun while raising money and giving back to the community.
The RAs have been a large part of making this event come together. Emily Budd junior from Naples, Fla., is an RA in Lee Clark and has been helping to plan the event.
It has been important to the RAs to plan
together as a way to help out the local animal shelter, the community and the residential college, Budd said.
“It is part of Clark’s mission to give back to our community.“ Budd said. “So we decided that giving to the Murray-Calloway County Animal Shelter would be important. We support their efforts, and would like to encourage not only our Clark residents, but other students on campus to support them as well.”