It’s that time a year again. You know, the time where, amongst the stress of finals, holiday shopping, and thinking about your impending New Year’s resolutions you decide to strip down to your undies and run around a little. Chapman’s Undie Run is the highlight of many student’s finals week, and for good reason. On what other occasion is it perfectly acceptable to show up half naked to campus? But this year, Eli Sabah decided that he wanted to bring the point back to Undie Run. “What point?” you ask. Here’s a little background: originally Undie Run was created as a charity event to donate clothes to the underprivledged. You showed up with the clothes you wanted to donate, and as you ran you stripped (for lack of a better word) your clothes off. Eventually you ended up in your undies, and whatever you took off was donated. Her Campus caught up with Eli and asked him about this year’s Undie Run.
Art originally by Jerrod Maruyama
GS: What exactly inspired you to bring back the charitable aspect to Undie Run?
ES: A few years back, someone explained to me how undie run started as a pseudo charity event. It just made more sense to me at the time. But I got really busy, so the idea kind of fell to the wayside. Now that I’m in my fifth year (and last semester) at Chapman, I figured it had to be now or never. Honestly, with most of my friends having graduated already, I wasn’t sure this would catch on. I figured I’d post a Facebook event and no one would see it because I now know so few people on campus. Obviously that wasn’t the case though. [You can find the link to the Facebook event here]
GS: Undie Run has developed a certain “reputation” over the years. Are you trying to change that?
ES: I love Undie Run. I know some people feel it’s detrimental to our school’s academic credibility, but it’s something people look forward to all semester and I think that’s great. I don’t know if I’m trying to change its reputation; I still expect some people to over do it, I still think the police will consider us a nuisance, and I’m sure all the creepy old men around town will show up to take pictures of the beautiful people prancing around in the streets half-naked. All I wanted to do was give Undie Run a bit of a purpose. Something that the adults in our community can look at and say, “well at least something good for the community is coming out of it.”
GS: Okay, so what should we wear? What are acceptable donations?
ES: Acceptable donations would be clothes that are used, but not “worn.” That basically just means no stains or rips. Also, there probably shouldn’t be any profanity. Other than that, anything is really fair game.
GS: Are there going to be certain areas to leave the clothes, or is it a drop em and run type thing?
ES: Yes, we’ll be at the Piazza where students always start the run. Right now I’m looking to secure drop off bins and a tent.
GS: Where will the clothes actually be donated?
ES: Since this idea just sort of sprung into existence over night, the plan of where the clothes are going after donation is still being hammered out. So far I’ve been contacted by a few different organizations that are interested in partnering with us. Regardless of where the clothes end up, you can be sure they’ll be helping someone in need.
GS: How has social media helped you get the word out about what you’re trying to do with Undie Run this year?
ES: This really wouldn’t be happening without social media. I posted on Yik Yak the day before creating the event about how Undie Run used to have a charitable aspect to it way back when. The post quickly became the top trending post of the day, and I knew I had to follow through. The next morning, I made the Facebook event, messaged 15 friends and invited 30 people. Before the end of the day we had over 600 responses with another thousand invites. All the posts I’ve seen on the page so far seem to be in favor of the change. It’s really people’s excitment at the idea of being able to make Undie Run a force of good that’s my main encouragement.