On Friday, ASWSU held the 17th annual Multicultural Fundraiser, which helped raise money for three student-led multicultural conferences. It will learn how much money has been raised on Friday.

Children of Aztlan Sharing Higher Education, Shaping High School Asian Pacific Islanders for the Next Generation and The Visionaries Inspiring Black Empowered Students are three conferences that take place every school year to help bring in the next generation of minority students to higher education.

Vianey Granados, a junior business major, said the sole purpose of the conferences is to encourage high school students to pursue higher education.

“The importance of [the conferences] is trying to raise the number of how many people of color are trying to go to college and actually graduate,” she said.

Granados is one of the co-chairs of CASHE and said she attended the banquet and gave a speech about her story of being undocumented, and her life before coming to WSU.

“It was because of CASHE I attended it my senior year. It basically showed me people who looked like me and were here doing amazing things,” she said. “It really opened my eyes and I was like ‘I have to come to WSU, I want to come to college now, and there are many other students who have this similar story.”

Some of those in attendance were Elizabeth Chilton, the Provost and Executive Vice President, officers from the WSU Police Department, Jordan Frost, WSU alumni and former ASWSU president and many leaders and faculty part of the WSU community, said Gisselle Salazar, the director of diversity, equity and veteran affairs.

“We also had performers. We reached out to different organizations like multicultural organizations to perform during the banquet,” she said.

Salazar said two organizations that performed were Ballet Folklorico and Hawai’i Club. She said Frost gave the keynote address and the chairs of the three conferences also made speeches.

Granados said the main purpose of the speeches was to try to share what the conference does and how it can have life-changing impacts on students.

“We are having a bit more difficulties with prices of everything going up, so the conference is going to be more expensive than in the past,” she said. “We are just trying to fundraise as much money as we can to be able to bring students without having to raise the cost of attendance.”

Granados said for the CASHE conference, they offer transportation for high school students to come to Pullman, housing and food. In the past the cost has been between $10,000-$15,000 with this years expected cost at $22,000.

Those who attended the event and wanted to donate could do so through the QR code at the tables. Envelopes were provided for those who wrote checks and there was a link on the website if anyone who could not attend the banquet wanted to donate through there.

Alvin Azana, the vice chair of the Asian Pacific American Student Coalition, said there is no deadline for the link and believes it may stay open because it is the main link for donating to the conferences.

Granados said the CASHE conference would be Nov. 4-6.

The SHAPING conference is Oct. 21-23, and the VIBES conference will be Feb. 24-26, according to the websites.