As breast cancer awareness month came to an end this weekend, Kappa Sigma held its fifth annual Breast Cancer Awareness Walk. In the weeks leading up to the walk, the fraternity and 5 sororities held fundraisers and raised over $6,000 for the National Breast Cancer Foundation.
The groups all gathered Sunday morning in the Chamberlain Student Center to give out t-shirts to those who donated and to begin the 30-minute walk around campus.
“We’re just really glad to be able to help out and do something for a great cause. We just want to make sure we donate to somewhere that’s gonna use the profits to help breast cancer survivors and women who go through a lot every day,” said Matthew Braun, a senior political science major and the president of Kappa Sigma
To raise money, the fraternity created a competitive edge by having each sorority that partnered with them elect one woman from their organization to be Kappa Sigma’s sweetheart. The candidate from the sorority that raised the most money would be awarded the title.
“We have all of our sororities that we talk to and hang out with here today, they helped us raise a lot of money by competing for our sweetheart competition, so whoever wins is going to go on our composite, they get a bunch of free shirts for their sorority, and they get some flowers and a little cookie cake,” said Braun.
The competing sororities were enthusiastic to participate, especially due to the competition.
“I’ve been posting on social media, we’ve been having fundraisers and things like that because every sorority has a sponsor this week ours was Brenna [Palczewski] so we’ve been supporting her,” said Lindsey Doyle, Alpha Sigma Alpha’s (ASA) service and giving chairman.
The organizations raised money and awareness primarily via social media, posting about the event and where to donate. Several organizations utilized Venmo donation bingo boards, which are graphics that members of the organization could post on social media depicting a bingo board with various dollar amounts that people could send through Venmo. The goal was to fill the board by having someone donate for each of the spaces.
“We had bingo boards, so we would post them through Venmo. We also had a link through the national breast cancer organization that we raise money for so we posted that, and all of that just goes directly to the organization,” said Hailey Dugan, a junior biological science major from Sigma Delta Tau (SDT), who was also a candidate for the sweetheart competition.
The sorority Alpha Sigma Tau raised the most money with over $2,000, and their candidate Zuzanna Lukaszewicz won the sweetheart competition. The other sororities participating brought in large numbers as well: Alpha Epsilon Phi (AEPhi) raised $851, ASA raised $835, Delta Phi Epsilon (DPHie) raised $323 and SDT raised $229.
In total, over $6,000 was raised for the Nation Breast Cancer Foundation. Competition aside, the campaign and the walk were very successful in raising money and awareness for an important cause.
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