The annual Hot Chocolate Run for Safe Passage raised over $632,000 this year, with many UMass Amherst faculty, staff and students participating.
The department of sociology organized a team of 11 participants for the Dec. 8 event and raised $4,400 for Safe Passage, a Hampshire County organization addressing domestic violence. Faculty, grad students and undergraduates all took part in the event. The money was raised by selling hot chocolate in the Campus Center.
Jonathan Wynn, associate professor, undergraduate program director and associate chair of the department says he and a group of peer advisors started raising money and participating in the race in 2012 “as a way to raise awareness on campus and fundraise for an organization that addresses a social problem that we learn and teach about in our classes.”
He also notes that the cause was important to Meghan K. Beebe, a sociology major and peer advisor who died tragically in 2014.