On Wednesday, second-year student Mac Goulis organized a fundraiser benefiting Gaza in front of Commons building, selling second-hand clothes and art. Goulis stood in front of the bench facing Commons lawn with clothes and trinkets splayed on the sloping hill and across the wooden bench. Two cardboard signs read “YARD” and “MONEY FOR PALESTINE” graffitied on in green and faded red surrounded by decorative stars.
“Bennington can be really isolating from the rest of the world and it kinda feels like this fairytale land where nothing real ever happens,” Goulis said.
Goulis was planning on holding the fundraiser over the weekend but instead started Wednesday March 6th, “I was really anxious about it and didn’t want to wait,” they said.
Students came and went as they walked to and from classes and the Dining Hall after lunch, glancing at the eclectic fashions and ceramic arts that were on display. Goulis’s partner in the fundraiser, Vic Coronel, painted nails for one dollar each nail. Though the weather was overcast, an hour in the group was already able to raise about $100 for Islamic Relief USA, a humanitarian aid organization with a worldwide focus, but has worked specifically in Palestine for two decades, providing food aid, education, and other relief in the area.
Since October 7th when Hamas launched an attack on Israel, more than 30,000 Gazans have been killed. Israel’s alleged flouting of international law and indiscriminate murder of Gazan civilians has attracted condemnation from international organizations and even accusations of instigating a genocide. Getting aid into the Gaza Strip has been specifically contentious as Israel has blocked and stalled delivering food through the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for the closure of UNRWA at the end of the war.
College campuses in particular across the United States have become their own flash-point, as student groups face censorship and wider conversations around anti-semetism, islamophobia, and free speech play out amidst a tense environment. Bennington College has mostly been spared from large-scale protests—with a controversy last term over a Palestinian flag put up on Commons before October 7th, 2023. Bennington College President Laura Walker released a statement on its removal, which prompted backlash from professors and students, leading to students re-hanging the flag from Commons and Crossett Library.
The Palestinian Flag hung from the Commons balcony as the yard sale went on. A student picked up a rotten apple that Goulis slip casted to sell for the event, others elected to donate outright via Venmo.
Em Gutierrez, an eighth term student, came by the impromptu sale and donated some of their hand-knitted purses for the fundraiser, setting them down on the blankets. Although they don’t have a lot of resources to donate, they still hoped to contribute something that would help in fundraising.
“I haven’t been able to put any money forward and I honestly don’t want to continue not putting money forward.” Gutierrez said, hoping that more fundraising events like craft fairs could take place to support Palestine, “By selling these hand-knit purses that would be a way to do that.”
Michelle Lambe, a second term student, was also happy to see an event raising money for Gaza.
“Most of how the campus has dealt with it has been in a private manner.” Lambe said, “We aren’t really having the campus-wide conversations we should be having right now”
To Lambe and many others, Bennington can feel like a bubble, but reminders bring them back to the reality: “Everyday I see the Palestinian flag and I say “I have to do something.’”
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