From Saturday’s Watermelon Bash to yesterday’s Lambda Chi Bash, Lambda Chi Alpha has been able to raise significantly more money for its philanthropy, the Peoria Area Food Bank, than last year.
Lambda Chi Alpha Vice President Brandon Johnson, who organized the events, said the Watermelon Bash kickoff event raised nearly $1,000, which was the total amount raised from last year’s week of events.
Johnson said he attributes the success of the week to students getting excited about participating in the events.
“I saw some things that I wanted to tweak and change from last year, so there’s that, and I also wanted to get people really excited about the week and make it more of an experience thing,” Johnson, a senior public relations major, said. “I feel like that’s why people got really involved in it.”
Johnson said he first made changes to the Watermelon Bash, where students participated in various activities that included watermelons.
“I wanted to amp it up a little bit, so we had a radio station there and I opened it up to the entire campus [instead of having just greek teams participate], so that helped a lot of people really get into it,” Johnson said.
Johnson also changed Lambda Chi’s traditional Tuesday night event from a Subway or Fieldhouse fundraiser to “Taco Tuesday” with Los Jimadores.
“It was a huge success,” Johnson said. “The place was completely packed for the first three hours.”
This week’s events also included a volleyball tournament, bake sale and Lambda Chi Bash.
“Seeing that this was my second year with Lambda Chi and first year planning all these new events, the week was a huge success,” Johnson said.
The philanthropy week concludes tonight with the Crescent Queen Pageant at 7 p.m. in Neumiller Lecture Hall.
