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Berkeley Student Cooperative residents will do anything from selling handmade paintings to teaching people how to brew beer to raise money for a fundraising campaign that will seismically retrofit their housing — an endeavour made more pressing in light of the flurry of earthquake activity in recent weeks.

The ‘What I’d Do for a Retrofit’ fundraising campaign — which launched on Oct. 15 and consists of a number of student campaigns that promise to partake in grassroots fundraising activities in exchange for donations or pledge money — aims to reach a goal of $10 million overall in the next few years. Though the cooperative, which has already seismically retrofitted eight of its 22 buildings, has currently raised $1,545 through student projects, it only has enough funds to retrofit Sherman Hall in the summer of 2012.

Madeleine Loh, development director of the cooperative, said that student safety is a priority in the event of an earthquake and that the cooperative currently uses $200,000 to $300,000 of its annual budget to support seismic retrofits. It has also raised cooperative rent approximately 16 percent since 2006 to support a $20 million bond taken out to fund seven high-priority building retrofits.

Out of the 20 cooperative properties, the buildings retrofitted to date are Stebbins Hall, Casa Zimbabwe, the Northside Apartments, Euclid Hall, the North House at Lothlorien, Cloyne Court and Kingman Hall.

The campaign consists of two parts, the first being a capital campaign spearheaded by the cooperative Alumni Association, which has raised $300,000 in donations and pledges. The second part is the individual student projects, Loh said.

The cooperative does not receive any money from the campus for seismic retrofitting, though they do have an official capital endorsement of their campaign from Chancellor Robert Birgeneau.

Cooperative buildings can only be retrofitted as funds become available through the campaigns, which will continue throughout next semester.

As such, Sherman Hall is the only building with planned retrofits for the summer of 2012, according to Elaina Marshalek, president of the cooperative. Loh said the retrofits are projected to cost $1 million.

“Almost all of our properties are located within one mile of the Hayward Fault,” Marshalek said in an email. “Two of our properties, Davis and Sherman, were only a few steps away from the center of the most recent quake in Berkeley.”

Students are usually not asked to vacate during retrofit construction. However, a separate assessment of the safety of the building is required to determine whether it will remain open during the retrofit construction, according to Emilie Blauwhoff, the student leader of the campaign and a board representative for Cloyne Court cooperative, which was retrofitted five years ago.

The cooperative decides whether to keep the buildings open based on the Unit Retrofit Closure Policy, which lists factors that could lead to a building’s closure.

Loh said that it remains to be seen if the recent earthquakes in the Bay Area will actually result in a heightened amount of donations from alumni and fellow students.

“We definitely brought up the recent small quakes to donors’ attention — there was a little uptick in the student grassroots campaign, fundraising for family and friends,” Loh said. “If they are aware of quakes happening in the area, they are more inclined to give money.”

Anjuli Sastry covers housing.

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