Sacramento State’s first ever One Week event will combine a selected book, film and philanthropic cause to unite students campus-wide next week. The event will focus on the One Book for this year, “One Amazing Thing,” the biannual blood drive in the University Union and for the first time ever, a One Film selection, “The Curse of Quon Gwon.”

Raymon Christie Pierce, a senior communications major, is the co-director of the campaign for One Week, which ties into his campaign class.

“Three events are essentially all happening in one week, which has never happened before,” Pierce said. “That’s why we call it ‘One Week’ because it encompasses three events: the One Film, the blood drive and the One Book campaign.”

Pierce said he thinks One Week is important because it really represents the depth of events Sac State has and shows the diversity of culture.

“The Curse of Quon Gwon” was the first Asian-American film produced in the United States almost 100 years ago in 1916. In 2006, the Library of Congress placed it on the National Film Registry, a list that preserves film and only adds 25 films per year.

“That by itself is just like ‘The first ever Asian-American film,’” Pierce said. “The cool thing about it here at Sac State (is) we have a professor, Gregory Mark, who is a direct descendent of the people who were producing it. He has about five family members who were in the movie acting in it. He’ll actually be there at the event, narrating it a little bit and answering questions from the audience about the film.”

Gregory Mark said in an interview that on a personal level, the showing of “The Curse of Quon Gwon” is important to him because it is his opportunity to share the legacy of his family.

“To share it with the university community is something that’s very special to me,” Mark said.

Hailey Baker, a junior business major, said One Week is a good way to get people involved in the campus community.

“I do like that there are always things going on,” Baker said. “Unfortunately, I do think there are still not enough students getting involved. I know a lot of the students have jobs. It’s harder for them to put time and effort into getting involved and staying around for those events.”

This year’s One Book, “One Amazing Thing,” written by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, is a novel about nine people who are trapped in a basement in the aftermath of an earthquake. While they are waiting to be rescued they share with each other one amazing thing about their life they have always kept secret.

Pierce said because all of the events are happening in only one week, it is difficult to give each event equal amount of promotion and marketing. They do their best to reach out to students by attracting people to their event page on Facebook, where he said they are getting a lot of traffic.

“I don’t think this has ever happened before,” Pierce said. “This is the first campaign that encompasses more than one event in one week. I mean, it’s tough. It’s a challenge.”

Erika Wolf, a sophomore forensic biology major, said she thinks this event will save lives.

Wolf said she remembered being one of the last people to donate blood on the last day a year ago and found out of the estimated 730 people who donated blood last year, about 450 of those pints went to save lives.

Pierce said the goal behind One Week is to unify people campus wide.

“The whole idea is to spark that conversation you might not normally have about the Asian- American community or about the cultural difference between you and someone else or about an experience you had with someone who received a blood transfusion,” Pierce said.

Yoni McCarter-Rib- akoff, a junior business major, said from what he has heard about One Week, it sounds like a good idea to him, but since he is a commuter from Auburn, it will be harder for him to be on campus for the events.

McCarter-Ribakoff said that one of the things he does like about the campus is that it is very diverse.

“You can walk around campus and you hear a few different languages going on here and there and that’s really cool,” McCarter- Ribakoff said. “One of the things to happen at an event is to help get those people together get them communicating sharing ideas. I mean, that’s America.”

As for the charitable aspect of “One Week,” this year’s Causeway Classic blood drive from Blood Source acts as the third component. Pierce said giving blood is just something good for people to do to give back.

“I know a lot of people who have relatives that have blood transfusions,” Pierce said. “Of course we want to beat Davis again. Last year I think was the first year we did beat Davis, so we’re hoping to repeat and do it again.”

Pierce said since Sac State as one of the most diverse schools in the nation, One Week should really connect with students.

“There is this one week at Sac State where these events are going on that have a cultural connection, a philanthropy connection and literary with the ‘One Book’ so that way it kind of ties all these colors of Sac State and brings it to a community or campus for one week,” Pierce said.

The film will be screened on Monday. The blood drive will be held Tuesday and Wednesday, and Divakaruni will be on cam- pus on Oct. 25.

Sean Keister can be reached at [email protected]

Beth Jones can be reached at [email protected]