The Saint Louis University Haiti Task Force’s Campout for Haiti, originally scheduled to take place this Friday, April 23, has been canceled due to thunderstorm warnings.

Junior Lauren Hashiguchi, co-chair of the Task Force, said the decision was a judgment call based on concerns for students’ safety, as the event would have included the use of sound systems.

“I was very disappointed to have to cancel [the campout], but it just would have been too dangerous for everyone,” Hashiguchi said.

Though the campout will be postponed until this fall, Hashiguchi said an advocacy event for students will instead take place this weekend. Tents will be set up in the Quad, featuring advocacy information about Haiti and a T-shirt sale.

The event was scheduled to feature public health speakers discussing disaster relief, as well as activities to learn about water transport and food rationing. Hashiguchi said she hoped the campout would be “a mixture of learning, fun and community.”

“I don’t want it to be comfortable,” she said. “We’re going to really learn together about disaster relief to try to draw a stronger connection with the victims.”

Hashiguchi said that the group’s goal is to help people network with each other, and to be “a centralizing body for SLU’s efforts to raise money for Haiti.”

The Task Force has already staged other successful events this past year. Operation Haiti collection boxes, which students were encouraged to keep throughout Lent, are being collected this week.

Hashiguchi said the collections have raised $600 so far. The Task Force also raised about $1,200 at its Hoops for Haiti basketball tournament. Most recently, the group worked with the Atlas Week committee to bring Haitian Ambassador Raymond Joseph to speak at SLU.

Hashiguchi said the campout will be, by far, the largest event the Task Force will engineer, and, if successful, she hopes to export it to other campuses.