Andrew Mendez/Nevada Sagebrush
ASUN staff collect clothing donations from students at Undie Run on Tuesday Aug. 28. The Undie Run is a yearly event but has previously taken place during Homecoming Week.
More than 200 students stripped down and participated in the University of Nevada, Reno’s yearly Undie Run — an event dedicated to helping clothe the Reno homeless community.
The ASUN-hosted event lasted a total of two hours and participants ran approximately one mile. All donations were donated to Shepherd’s Clothes Closet, a nonprofit organization dedicated to clothing the homeless community in Reno.
The undie run became a yearly tradition at UNR in the early 2000’ and was usually hosted as a competition where teams competed to see who could donate the most clothing. Points were allocated based on the amount of clothing collected and donated by that team. The team with the highest amount of points was named the winner.
Despite the competition aspect being removed, freshman Meya Cohn explained it was all about the college experience.
“I came here to have a new experience with my friends, donate clothes and to have fun in my first year of college,” said Cohn. “Everyone seems okay with themselves and everyone is accepting .”
Students who participated in prior years were used to the event being held as a homecoming week tradition, but due to unknown reasons the event was moved to welcome week.
With this year’s Undie Run not being competitive, upperclassmen felt the event was out of place and didn’t let students look forward to anything throughout the year.
“It’s the first week of school,” said university student Rebekah Wright. “Everyone is just getting settled and used to the school and making friends. Also, there’s a lot of activities that happen during the first week of school already. I feel during Homecoming week everyone has some more friends and are more comfortable with it [the undie run]. If everything is pushed to Welcome week, there’s nothing to look forward to for Homecoming.”
Andrew Mendez can be reached at oali@sagebrush.unr.edu and on Twitter @NevadaSagebrush