Last year VHL organized an event of their own and contributed a significant sum to the cause. This year they are thinking even bigger. For Serious Request three of 3FM’s DJs lock themselves in a glass house for five days. Van Hall Larenstein is organizing a glass house too. On Wednesday 19 December, five students from student society Arboricultura and five from Quercus will let themselves be locked up in the ‘aquarium’, a glassed-in section of the aula. For twenty-four hours they will only drink water and will not eat anything. Mobile phones must be handed in. ‘They will get a few board games and that’s it’, says Inge Bosma, a co-organizer. ‘The other students and teachers can enjoy the spectacle all day.’
Crazy tasks
To make things more challenging the students from the two different societies have to compete with each other. ‘Arboricultura and Quercus always enjoy a healthy rivalry’, according to Bosma. ‘So we are going to make it a kind of competition which will involve other students completing crazy tasks to earn points for the people locked in the house. They can use these points to earn things such as sleeping bags and mats.’ Besides the fasting there will, like last year, also be a DJ-space where VHL teachers will, for a sum, play requests for students and colleagues. There will be another auction too. Bosma: ‘The services auction was particularly popular last year. Of course it’s amazing if the school cleaners come round to give your house a once-over.’ Other events include a ghost trail for local children, a flea market, a table tennis tournament, and a drinks party. Local companies will also be sponsoring the event. ‘This year we also want to get external funding, because if we have to pay everything out of our own pocket we’ll never top that huge sum of 10,000 euros.’ There will also be charity events held in Leeuwarden and Wageningen, where people will be able to follow the events in Velp through a live-stream connection.