By Kristina Dehlin:
I appreciate the acknowledgement that the Greek community has had many successful philanthropic events in the past. As a Kappa Delta and a proud member of the Greek community, I can vouch for the fact that we are aware of the unfortunate stereotypes we face and that we work hard to disprove them.
Besides good PR, our members are genuinely passionate about the various charities our organizations support. In fact, Kappa Delta’s work with the Girl Scouts is the main reason I joined in the first place. Members put in a huge amount of effort into our fundraising events and service projects.
There are many small fundraisers on the quad, but these are often supplemental to the larger events that many of our chapters host. I would like to give some recognition to these as well. The larger events include 5k runs and pancake breakfasts. Tau Kappa Epsilon hosts a Zombie-themed 5K to raise money for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
Sigma Kappa’s pancake breakfast benefits Alzheimer’s Research and is the perfect opportunity for you to eat bacon in the name of philanthropy – if you bring your own for them to cook and pay for the pancakes. In addition to being “pied” on the quad, Kappa Kappa Gamma also recently hosted a kickball tournament. Sigma Chi even hosts a week’s worth of fundraising events to participate in called “Derby Days.”
Yes, some of these events are repeated each year. I would argue that rather than becoming “stale,” they become traditions that people look forward to. I would be disappointed if one year Alpha Gamma Delta didn’t host their annual Casino Night, for example, because I always enjoy it and look forward to attending!
If these types of events have been successful raising funds in the past and are consistently enjoyed by the campus community, I see no need to regularly switch them up. Improvement can also come from building off of what went well or what didn’t the previous year.
I would like to note that we also recognize when we need to try something new. As mentioned in the article, Kappa Delta had one of our most successful fundraising events in our chapter’s recent history just last month.
The backyard barbeque was actually a new idea, as we have traditionally hosted a spaghetti dinner. We saw the opportunity to try something new because the time was right, and it did pay off. That does not mean that we need to change it to something completely new again next year.
The most important part of Greek philanthropy is doing as much as we can to support these charities, for which we often serve as the largest source of financial support.
That means working hard to host events we believe will receive the greatest amount of attendance and support, whether they have been done before or not. In general, I would like to say thank you for bringing awareness to the presence of Greek philanthropy on this campus as we welcome and encourage involvement in our events from all students, Greek or not. We are grateful for any and all support in our efforts to make a difference for the organizations we help.