This weekend, Quinnipiac University will be home to 6,000 students, 2,000 faculty and staff members and three cows. E-I E-I-O.

The graduate chapter of the Physician’s Assistant (PA) Club will be holding its 5th annual Cow Chip Bingo and 5K road race to raise money for the American Academy of Physician’s Assistants (AAPA). The event will be held on Saturday April 9 at 11 a.m. on the intramural fields near Hogan Road.

The intramural field will be mapped out in a grid containing 1,000 boxes. Each box will have a number inside. The three cows will be let loose to relieve themselves in the spot that they find most desirable and make some lucky winner up to $1,500 richer.

For the last three weeks, the graduate and undergraduate members of the PA club sold tickets for $10 at a table in the student center. Some members also sold the tickets at local businesses such as Wal-Mart and Stop and Shop in hopes of getting the whole community involved in the event. As of right now, all of the event’s 1,000 tickets have been sold.

The person holding the number of the square where the first cow “chips” will win $500. Guessing the second cow’s spot will reward the contestant $1,000 and the third, $1,500.

Each year the money from the event goes to benefit a different cause through the AAPA, PA Foundation, The Association of PA Programs and the Student Academy of AAPA. This year the money will be used to support healthcare literacy.

One third of the money will go to ManaTEEN in Manatee County, Fla., which is the largest locally-based, youth-led volunteer program in the nation. The program will use the grant to establish a health literacy program to teach students about obesity, teen pregnancy, HIV/STDs and drug and alcohol abuse. It will educate teens on how to obtain health information and help them to understand it.

Johanna Chelcun, president of the undergraduate PA club, hopes the event will have a good turnout

“We just hope that with all the tickets sold, that we will raise enough money for the AAPA,” Chelcun said.

The club has been sponsoring the event since April 2000.

“It began with just a 5K road race called ‘Run for your Life’ and the following year we added the cow chip bingo event,” William Kohlhepp, the director of physician assistant education, said.

Patrick Creedon (’02), now a graduate of the PA program, came up with idea while he was an undergraduate athletic training student. He was inspired by a similar event he had run at his college.

Kohlhepp says that the event has been successful year after year and hopes that this one will be no exception.

“The event has been very successful each year we have done it,” Kohlhepp said.

“As a result, we have consistently given over $6,000 each year to the campaign. Of the 134 PA programs nationally, we are the largest donor to the campaign. I trust that, once again, we will be one of the largest, if not the largest donors this year.”