Shine on, you crazy first‑years

They came to shine.

As is custom, the final day of this year's Dalhousie Student Union Orientation Week was set aside for Shinerama, a community-wide fundraiser supporting Cystic Fibrosis research. It's an opportunity for students to bring their enthusiasm into the community, supporting the strugglest against a disease that disproportionately affects young people.

The morning kicked off with a rally in the McInnes Room, which included Halifax councillor Waye Mason and David Gilmer from Cystic Fibrosis Canada. From there, the students spread out to locations across Halifax with colourful signs and painted faces. They busked, performed and leveraged their O-Week spirit to raise money for a great cause.

To keep spirits high, the DSU Shinerama Twitter account (@dsushine) was sharing challenges throughout the day, with awards for the groups that built the best human period, that spelled "S-H-I-N-E" with their team or which came up with the most innovative shine. (The winner of the last one was the Off-Campus student "Vikings" team, whose techniques involved an inflatable rowboat on the sidewalk.)

While the funds have not been officially tallied yet, DSU Shinerama was expected to raise tens of thousands of dollars for Cystic Fibrosis Canada. One immediately tangible sign of the students' shining success: after having been entirely absent for O-Week, the sun decided to show itself for the day's final hours.

Photography Danny Abriel travelled through Halifax to capture some of the energy of the day.