Reverse 'Undie 500' charity run to assist quake victims

Otago University Students Association (OUSA) will use its van to make a mercy dash to Christchurch later this week, carrying water and tinned food to help students in the quake-affected city.

OUSA president Harriet Geoghegan said many student flats had been destroyed in last Saturday's magnitude 7.1 earthquake, and numerous Christchurch tertiary students had pitched in to help with the quake clean-up.

OUSA would be staging a "Reverse Undie 500" this weekend, to provide support for Canterbury students and students at the University of Otago's Christchurch campus.

Some Christchurch tertiary students and other citizens had been "having a terrible time", and the Canterbury University Students Association (CUSA) was prepared to support students at the Otago campus.

CUSA had advised that Christchurch students were "quite desperate to get some more water", given disruption to supplies and potential contamination.

Wests NZ Ltd, a Dunedin-based drink manufacturer, had donated 30 20-litre bottles and some cartons of bottled water, and Speight's was also providing water to fill the 20-litre bottles, organisers said.

Ms Geoghegan also wanted to take as much tinned food as she could to give to a CUSA food bank for students and to donate more widely to Christchurch welfare centres.

People who wanted to donate tinned food could drop it off at OUSA's main office at 640 Cumberland St (open 9am to 4.30pm) or to the Clubs and Societies Centre at 84 Albany St (open until 10pm) until tomorrow evening, organisers said.