Lambda FIJI’s philanthropy committee for the 2014 fall semester includes seniors David Gordon (chair), Michael Weber, and Andre Bobrovsky; juniors Mark Brunsman, Ben Fisher, and Patrick Rutledge; and sophomore Alex Ruger. Although about half of the semester remains at the time of writing, our committee has accomplished a great deal. In addition to increasing the service hour requirement per brother from 10 hours each semester to 15 hours each semester, our committee has organized many successful events.
The first event we’d like to highlight is a mass “Ice Bucket Challenge” event, held in our backyard. Our participants included our neighbors and sister sorority, Kappa Alpha Theta, faculty members of the DePauw psychology department, and, of course, our own Lambda brothers. All together, we had about 50 participants braving the Ice Bucket Challenge in our backyard, and raised about $500 for ALS research. The challenge video and photographs can be found on Lambda FIJI’s Facebook page.
The second event we want to mention is FIJI Theta Bark-B-Que. Bark-B-Que was wildly successful this year. In addition to hosting dogs from the local humane society, this event featured live music by local blues singer Tad Robinson, and a professional dog show by the K9Crew! We estimate that about 300 people attended Bark-B-Que this year, which helped us raise more than $1,400 for the Putnam County Humane Society!
The final event we would like to highlight is our annual philanthropy, Pumpkin Bash. Pumpkin Bash this year was a contest between the Greek houses. We had 11 Greek houses register teams, including all six DePauw Pan- Hellenic sororities, four IFC fraternities, and even a minority sorority. The contest events included a pumpkin carving contest, bobbing for apples, a three-legged race, a costume contest, and a pumpkin- chucking contest. In addition to the contest events, we had casual pumpkin carving, our very own FIJI pumpkin patch, and of course, pumpkin smashing! Pumpkin Bash this year raised $1,200 for the Wounded Warrior Project.
Our philanthropic involvement extends beyond the walls of the FIJI house. In addition to these internal accomplishments, we’ve experienced much success participating in external philanthropy events. We won first place in Delta Gamma’s philanthropy corn hole tournament, and second overall for Anchor Games, organized an awesome “FIJI Photo Booth” for Kappa Kappa Gamma’s Kappa Karnival, provided a great show at Pi Beta Phi’s Culligan Ball tournament, and charmed our Theta sisters in Kappa Alpha Theta’s Black Tie Talent Show, to name a few. Despite our success so far, there is still much we hope to achieve. It is for our brotherhood, our community, and the upward march of humanity that we strive to press on!
David Gordon ’15
Philanthropy Chair