By Mac Weekly Staff

An oft-cited difficulty of our current student activity fee budgeting system is the hurdles students who aren’t members of organizations face getting funding for their ideas. The Community Chest Act only applies to the end of this semester, but we think it is a step in the right direction toward a more inclusive campus. This is not to say that there aren’t relevant concerns related to this new program. The funding criteria for the Community Chest are open-ended and flexible for a reason–to allow students to come up with creative ideas–but it remains to be seen how the “gray areas” of the bill will be ironed out during the work of making real decisions about real money. In addition, with the end of the semester fast approaching and students already heavily scheduled, it’s certainly relevant to consider whether or not the events and/or fun activities the fund is used for in the next month will be well attended. Nonetheless, we think the new fund will be an overall success. The checks put in place on the funding by ammendments–requiring broad approval for large allocations and creating an avenue for appeal–should alleviate many of the potential problems that could arise. In addition, the types of events the chest is set out to support, like “renting inflatable architecture,” may actually help solve a problem we explored last issue: poorly attended events. Outside the structure of supporting orgs, events might have more of an avenue for whimsy and frivolity. Macalester is a campus full of big ideas, that’s for sure, but after reading about injustice in class and working against it in the community, sometimes we just don’t want to see a depressing documentary detailing said injustice. Sometimes we just want to jump in a bouncy castle.