Today: Mar 28, 2024

First ever OwlTHON on Southern’s campus

Students dance all night long for the children.

Aaron JohnsonGeneral Assignment Reporter

For the first time ever Greek Life hosted OWL-thon this past Friday night in the Michael J. Adanti Student Center. The event raised over $5,500 for the Yale-New Haven Children Hospital. “It’s great. Really great,” said Derek Emerick, the president of Greek Life. “A lot bigger of a turn out than I thought.” After months of committee planning and a little assistance from Program’s Council and the Residence Hall Association, Emerick, a member of Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity, said that the night was an overall success. “Program’s Council has a big relationship with Perfect Parties. So we have some people that are in Greek Life that are also in Program’s Council, in RHA, and in other big things on campus so it was a lot easier to connect with them to get those things that we needed so it’s great, ” said Emerick.

The six-hour dancing marathon had representation from 10 different fraternities and sororities across campus, including Tau Kappa Epsilon and Delta Phi Epsilon. Freshman Katherine Smith, a member of Delta Phi Epsilon, said that she really enjoyed herself and the event as a whole. “I love it. It’s pretty cool. I think it’s cool how all the organizations are here and we’re getting a chance to meet new people. I think it’s a good way for all of us to come together,” said Smith.

Throughout the night, students were able to dance, jump, and laugh to a different theme each hour. Emerick said that the point of the themes were to continue to keep the people engaged and having fun. “It’s a set schedule,” said Emerick. “Every hour is a different theme of music. It makes it a lot more live. People are staying interested, they aren’t gonna leave because they’re getting ready for the next theme. It’s been working really well. First hour was today’s hits.”

Several members of RHA were also in attendance taking pictures and working the Dance Dance Revolution video game that had been set up. RHA member Pam Nicholas said that she was happy to be apart of an event like this. “For this particular event, we (RHA) ran the photo booth so that students could have ‘memories captured by RHA’,” said Nicholas, with a smile. “I think this is a really great event, especially for its first time at Southern. It’s a really interesting and different event and I feel like it has the potential to become even better in the future.”

Students dance all night long for the children.
Students dance all night long for the children.

Nicholas said that she believes opening OWL-thon up to other groups on campus in the future will help it grow. She also said that RHA would be up for continuing to helping with the event in years to come.“We would definitely offer to be apart of something like this. I know it’s run by the Greek Committee, but if they were to ask other organizations to participate, I know especially RHA we would,” Nicholas said.

During the night, several awards were handed out to the various fraternities and sororities – including the best-dressed honor going to Delta Phi Epsilon. A step performance was done by the sisters from Zeta Phi Beta. Prior to the event, Emerick said that the monetary goal was to reach $5,000. OWL-thon completed that goal by raising over $5,500 for Yale-New Haven Children Hospital.

“My biggest thing with this event was that we raise as much money as possible obviously but, also want the to raise awareness,” said Emerick, who came up with the idea for OWL-thon. “I was the one who came up with the dance-a-thon idea. I have a lot of friends in other Greek organizations at other schools and I was looking for something that Southern doesn’t do.”

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