Today: Mar 28, 2024

TKE members get painted to end childhood cancer

Jackson VolenecReporter

Students in the Tau Kappa Fraternity held an open fundraiser on the academic quad on Tuesday, Sept. 17 for St. Jude Hospital, where they could throw paint-filled balloons at other students.

For $1, students were given these balloons and could throw it them at designated members of the fundraiser. This event is one of many smaller fundraisers meant to save money for larger events that will generate money for the St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital.

“This is just a fundraiser for now, but this is going to get our money up. We want to be able to save up enough money for grand-scale events for St. Jude in the future,” said TKE member Farith Vilchez, a junior. We don’t want to just raise a little bit of money, we want to make a major impact for these guys,” said Vilchez.

TKE is planning to use the funds they have raised to host larger scale events that will hopefully raise even more money for St. Jude’s Hospital. They have upcoming fundraisers planned months in advance in order to reach that goal.

“We have a rose sale coming up in the spring, along with a bunch of other things this semester coming up,” said computer science major Christopher Caron, a junior and member of TKE.

Members of TKE said they want to continue hosting fundraisers in the hopes that they will be able to contribute positively to the community and their efforts will affect a significant amount of people.

“We don’t want to just raise a little bit of money. We want to actually be able to give them the special events that will make their profits so much better for them, rather than for us,” said Caron.

TKE has several planned events for the future. Several fundraising events have proven to be successful before, while they also have new ideas they are working on in the future according to Caron. “Two of our biggest events are Car Smash and Rose Sales. Those make so much money and all the profits go straight to St. Jude. This fundraiser and the future ones are basically to fund stuff like that, and help plan stuff in the future,” said Caron.

During the event, students and faculty alike had contributed to the fundraiser, and crowds had formed to witness some of the balloonthrowing action. Many people were filming and sharing the event to their peers on campus, spreading word of the fundraiser quickly.

Students not in TKE, but still associated with the Greek life program at Southern, also had their members attend and participate in the event.

“I am really for Greek unity and being able to support everything that [TKE] does so we can get the reciprocation back for the whole community,” said recreations major Abby Karbowicz, a senior.
Ultimately, TKE is trying to raise a significant amount of money to try and better their community by giving to those who are in need. They said they are hoping their future fundraisers will be successful in raising a sizable fund for St. Jude, and growing the scale of their upcoming events ahead.

“One of the huge things about TKE is the brotherhood. They’re also very charismatic on campus and they do their best to give back,” said Karbowicz.

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