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Volume 51, Issue 126 | thursday, april 27, 2017 | ndsmcobserver.com
Five students fast for fair food Notre Dame undergraduates protest Wendy’s refusal to sign agreement By COURTNEY BECKER News Editor
Lent may be over, but a group of five University students are embarking upon another fast, giving up food for one to two days beginning Wednesday afternoon. The students are fasting as part of a movement to put pressure on Wendy’s to sign onto a fair food program that ensures participating fast food restaurants and grocery stores pay an extra penny per pound of tomatoes to contribute to fairer wages for farm workers, according to junior Tommy Clarke. “They have not signed on to this fair food program that a whole bunch of other incredibly big fast food chains have bought on to ... that ensures
MICHAEL YU | The Observer
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Junior Tommy Clarke leads a prayer service at the Grotto to kick off the students’ two-day hunger strike, which protests Wendy’s refusal to sign a fair food agreement that leads to fairer wages for farmworkers.
Observer Staff Report
Make a Wish Notre Dame set to host Variety Show By ALEXANDRA MUCK News Writer
Notre Dame community members have the opportunity to make a Michiana-area child’s wish come true by attending Make a Wish Notre Dame’s first annual Variety Show on Friday at 7 p.m. in the Carey Auditorium. All proceeds from the event’s $10 admission charge will go to fulfilling the patient’s wish. Editor’s note: Sophomore
Megan Crowley, one of the organizers of the event, spoke to The Observer with the assistance of her nurse, KC Buder, who is quoted below. “The event is specifically to raise money for Make a Wish, so every dollar they raise goes directly to Make a Wish, not to the club,” Buder said. “All of the money that they’re raising at this event and all the events they’ve had … will go to a wish for a kid.” The inspiration for the Variety
Show came from a desire to engage students across Notre Dame’s campus, Buder said. “They originally wanted to do a gala, but it was a lot of work,” Buder said. “A variety show could include more students. They wanted to make the club a lot more wellknown on campus, so by including a lot of acts from different students around campus, that could help them spread the word about Make see WISH PAGE 3
Therapy dogs visit campus to help students unwind In addition to the warm weather, students were drawn to North Quad on Wednesday by eight therapy dogs from Therapy Dogs International as part of the McDonald Center for Student
Well-Being’s (McWell) “Paws to Relax” event. Assistant director for student well-being at McWell Katrina Conrad said the dogs at these regular events help students to relax and discharge stress, particularly at times such as the middle and end of a semester.
“Knowing that finals are approaching, we wanted to provide an opportunity for student stress relief, and spending time with dogs is a great way to do so,” Conrad said. “Therapy dogs are natural vehicles for providing support and
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By ARTHUR ZHAO News Writer
Rape reported at Notre Dame
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A rape was reported Tuesday to a University administrator, according to the Notre Dame Security Police (NDSP) crime log for Wednesday. The alleged rape occurred March 26 in a North Quad women’s residence hall, according to the entry. Information about sexual assault prevention and resources for survivors of sexual assault are available online from NDSP and from the Committee for Sexual Assault Prevention.
Saint Mary’s to perform ‘Lucky, Liar, Loser’ By STEPHANIE SNYDER News Writer
This weekend, an original dramedy called “Lucky, Liar, Loser” will premiere at Saint Mary’s in Moreau’s Little Theatre beginning Thursday night at 7:30 p.m. The show, which centers on the theme of violence against women, was written and is directed by Casey Whitaker, a member of The Second City — a comedy theatre in Chicago — who is this year’s annual Saint Mary’s Margaret M. Hill visiting artist in residence. After previously coming to teach some workshops at Saint Mary’s in 2015, Whitaker said she fell in love with the Saint Mary’s community. “When I started writing this play, I reached out and we started figuring out a game plan,” she said. “The topic of the play was already established before Saint Mary’s was interested — I think it is the
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perfect place to display it.” Whitaker defines a dramedy as a serious and dramatic play with elements of comedy. She added that originally, she did not mean for the comedy aspect to be such a major part of the show. “Violence against women is not a laughing matter — it just crept in,” Whitaker said. “Then you think about what humor is actually used for — a lot of time it’s just a cover for what’s on the inside. That’s why we are able to find the truth so quickly, it’s because we’re broken.” Whitaker had originally written the show as a short-film for the Goodman Theatre in Chicago when they requested entries for a screenplay to produce. However, the Theatre never produced any of the screenplays. Last December, Whitaker rewrote the screenplay into the current dramedy in only 48 hours. “I had carried around every see LUCKY PAGE 4
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