Philanthropists at Colgate (PAC), located at 110 Broad, is the newest special interest house joining the Broad Street com-munity. The house acts as a hub for community service groups; representatives from various groups at Colgate live in the house and can host events at the house through their own indi-vidual group. In addition to its supporting role, the PAC house itself has several events planned for this school year.

On Tuesday, PAC hosted a 9/11 memorial event, the first of their many planned events, fea-turing a concert from each of the four a capella groups on campus and an ice cream social.

The inception of this house came from the mind of junior Alex Djaha, who is also the co-President of PAC.

“Originally, I came up with the idea of the interest house last October. A main goal was to have an awesome non-Greek living experience on Broad Street. Before this house, 12 percent of juniors had singles and 80 percent of those singles were owned by Greek life,” Djaha said.

Djaha teamed up with fellow junior and co-President Annie Gaburo in January to get the house up and running for this fall semes-ter. The house has representatives from over 25 student groups and has an open door policy, meaning any group can host an event at the house.

“We talked to Center for Leadership and Student Involvement (CLSI) and Budget Al-locations Committee (BAC); we said anyone who doesn’t want to pay for the Palace The-ater or have to use a location up-campus, talk to us and we will schedule a time for them to use our house,” Djaha said.

Regardless of the positive impact their events have on the Colgate community, the members of the PAC house have all found positivity with each other; 44 members live in the house and all participate in group events.

“Everyone chose to live here. We’re all a community and we all really get along; every-one wants to live together and work together. This house is everything Colgate represents, a bunch diverse people with a lot of diverse interests, working together philanthropically and learning from each other,” Gaburo said.

The house has an administrative board con-sisting of two presidents, two vice-presidents, a treasurer, a secretary, a lifestyle chair, a publicity chair and five event coordinators. The lifestyle chair is responsible for the house itself as well as the house’s community aspect, such as buying the communal food for the kitchen.

Colgate plans to use the house for non- Greek social events. With the plan in place, the PAC house will host two to four catered parties this year.

“We want the whole [first] floor to be one big party,” Djaha said.

The first party is tentatively scheduled for September 27. Future events include a 5K run and a fall festival on the Village Green during Family Weekend, a sponsored “cat-walk for cancer” with a concert and afterparty to follow and a Thanksgiving cook-off.

“Everyone here has been part of a philan-thropy event. Everything is centered around philanthropy. At least three-quarters of this school has been involved in the planning of an event or been a part of a group that planned an event and to harness this in a house where we have a kitchen, where we have a real community and have a common goal of philanthropy, it’s a really cool thing,” Djaha said.

After this year, new students will take over the reins of the administrative board and lead the house to host their own events while con-tinually giving student groups a chance to hold theirs as well.

“I just hope to pass this house down. I hope some upcoming juniors say ‘Hey, I’m really interested in this,'” Gaburo said.

Who takes over next year is uncertain, but for now, the house will continue to be a posi-tive space on Broad Street for numerous events at Colgate this year.