In the past years, we held a philanthropy to benefit the SAM Spady Foundation to help its mission of educating all parents and students on the dangers of alcohol, specifically high-risk consumption, and the signs and symptoms of alcohol poisoning. The SAM Spady Foundation honored the memory of Samantha Spady, a 19-year old student at Colorado State University, who died of alcohol poisoning on September 5, 2004. This philanthropy project ran for seven years until Sam Spady’s parents believed that the program had run it’s course.

 

We were notified of this change of plan during fall of 2010 and we had to plan out our own philanthropy. After a few weeks of planning, we came up with our Sorority Super Bowl philanthropy to benefit the Iowa City Make-A-Wish Foundation. The Sorority Super Bowl consisted of greek and non-greek women forming seven person teams to play in a flag football tournament at the local Hubbard Park.

 

Planning and organizing a new philanthropy is no easy task, especially when we wanted it to be the best philanthropy on campus. It took several weeks of organizing and handing out responsibilities to members before we could even think about presenting our idea to the university and the sororities. A few weeks before the philanthropy was to take place, we sent a few of our brothers out to each sorority chapter to present them with our philanthropy poster and sign-up sheets. Throughout the week, designated coaches from Xi Chapter held practices with their respective paired sororities for a few hours to learn plays and of course, touchdown dances.

 

With all of our hardwork and effort we put in, our first annual Sorority Super Bowl turned out to be a great success! With the help and teamwork of every single man in our chapter, the day ran extremely smooth for the seven hour event. From the registration people, to the guys in charge of handing out tank tops, to the referees, to the coaches, everyone played a small part in making the philanthropic event extremely successful.

 

We had over 375 women signed up to play on teams during that sunny, Sunday morning. We had four fields set up at Hubbard park with our own stereo system and playlists rocking the downtown area all day. The games were very exciting and fun to watch, especially the touchdown celebrations and time-outs called just so the team could dance around to the latest hit songs. Everyone who participated in the event had a great time, even other rival fraternities that came to check it out.

 

All in all, we were able to raise and donate over $2500 to charity! We can honestly say that our philanthropy is one of the top, if not the best, philanthropy in terms of both having fun and raising money!