Hungry college students swarmed a burger joint in an effort to satisfy their hunger as well as fill up the coffers of the Union Programming Council scholarship fund, raising only $75 dollars.

UPC teamed up with the Tonyburgers off of 400 South and 700 East in Salt Lake City on Wednesday as part of a fundraiser for the Union Student Leader scholarship. Tonyburgers frequently participates in a program that helps sets up fundraisers similar to this one for other student groups.

“We’re involved with a rewards program, UPC signed up, and we did it. We are donating 20 percent of our profits from five to seven tonight. The program takes another 20 percent as well,” said Chris Carver, owner of Tonyburgers. “We do this with a lot of student groups at the U — this is our tenth time. We’ve helped raise about $500 for student groups.”

The goal was to raise about $100 for the Union Student Leader Scholarship, which comes in two $1,000 scholarships delivered in Spring Semester, said Nikhi Jamili, a senior in communication and UPC director of development.

“We did a fundraiser like this at California Pizza Kitchen a while ago, and we were shooting for about $100 but only made $40, but then we also only got 15 percent,” Jamili said.

While these fundraisers do not yield much in terms of raising money, Jamili said the money is not the only reason UPC puts these events on.

“We just really want to bring together the off-campus community and the on-campus community, and this was a really good way to do it. We want to help people show ways to get involved off campus,” Jamili said.

Since these events do not raise much money, UPC raises money from other places as well.

“We do the Your Campus Life magazine and we sell advertisements in that. We have about $50,000 in the scholarship fund, and we raised about $10,000 of that from the advertisements in the magazine,” Jamili said.

Even though Tonyburgers loses 40 percent of the revenue from the time the fundraiser is going, Carver said the long term benefit is well worth the loss.

“A lot of our customers are students at the U, so we like to help out the U and get people here that have never heard of us. Generally when people come here they like the food and come back,” Carver said.

Students enjoyed going to the establishment, and some said they had never been there before and loved helping UPC out.

“I’m in a fraternity, so I get philanthropy hours for this. But I think that what UPC is doing is great. I think it’s great that we have a student organization that is for students and gets students involved in stuff. I will definitely participate in more things like this,” said Reid Grant, a senior in political science. “I’ve never heard of Tonyburgers, and I think I’ll come back. I would have never heard of this place if it hadn’t been for the fundraiser.”

Jamili said the application for the scholarships go out in February and that they are looking at the potential of expanding the scholarship.

d.bunting@chronicle.utah.edu