Last Saturday, team M.C. Hammer (Merritt Donoghue, and Caleb Pasquale) executed a fundraiser for a non-profit: the Village Theater Company. Both Donoghue and Pasquale are students of RMU and are currently taking Communications Seminar. They were tasked with planning, developing, and executing a fundraiser for the benefit of a non-profit of their choosing. Their goal for the event was to raise over $1,000 which would allow RMU to purchase naming rights for a seat plate in the Vanguard Theater.

The fundraiser consisted of having two short films shown to the attendees created by director Thad Ciechanowski, and executive producer Joe Serkoch. Both of the short films shown at the event were based off of American writer Edger Allen Poe and his work. The first short film shown was an adaptation of “The Cask of Amontillado” which focuses on Montresor leading Fortunato to his doom under the city where Fortunato is sealed alive within a wall. An intermission was held between the two shorts where Donoghue and Pasquale hosted a Q&A session. The second short film that was shown was Poe’s iconic masterpiece “The Raven.” This followed a man who is distraught over his lover, when he is visited by a raven that provokes him into madness. After the the conclusion of the second short film, Donoghue and Pasquale revealed that they had succeeded in raising over $1,000 for their event.