The University of Rhode Island Interfraternity and Panhellenic Councils have chosen local first responders for their Greek Week philanthropy this year, with the event themes set as “Horror Movie Madness.”
The idea of fundraising for first responders was pitched by Kayla Owens, the Panhellenic vice president of philanthropy.
“She texted in our [philanthropy] group chat and was like, ‘Why don’t we do something with first responders?’ Panhellenic’s Philanthropy and Service Chair Kayla Balisciano said. “And I was like, ‘Oh my God, we have to do that. This is the best idea ever.’”
This year’s benefactors are 100 Club of RI, Special Signals Fire Association, Kingston Fire Department and the URI Community First Responders Program, as posted on the @urigreeklife Instagram.
Greek Week will take place from Sunday, April 12 to Friday, April 17, according to Balisciano.
“It’s such a fun week of a ton of activities and raising money [for] specific organizations, to put it extremely, extremely simple,” Balisciano said.
This year’s Greek Week philanthropy hits close to home for Balisciano, who has first responders in her family.
“I just absolutely love that I was able to take part in this and help decide what we were raising money for,” Balisciano said.
Opening Day kicks off the week’s schedule on Sunday, April 12, which includes tug of war, bubble ball soccer and Chariot Race, according to Drew Conroy, IFC’s vice president of programming.
Monday, April 13 follows with the Fraternity Classic hockey tournament. The following day, the chapters and pairings take a break from events to complete their service project.
“We’re doing thank-you cards to give to our local first responders,” Balisciano said. “We’re going to go deliver them [to] fire departments, police departments and emergency medical personnel.”
The rest of the week is dedicated to Mr. and Mrs. Greek Week, a pageant-style talent show, Greek Sing and Lip Sync.
“They’re all these events that everyone dresses up in and they’re competitions,” Balisciano said. “Lip Sync is the big one where it’s like a dance competition.”
Conroy and Bianca D’Antuono, Panhellenic’s vice president of programming, are in charge of making the fraternity and sorority pairings.
“Everybody works with new chapters that they haven’t before,” Conroy said. “We’re just trying to create different relationships throughout the community.”
Conroy’s role in Greek Week planning includes selecting the theme. A TikTok from another school doing Horror Movie Madness was the inspiration, according to Conroy.
“We were going to do it in the fall [for Philanthropy Week]–that was the original idea,” Conroy said. “Then we thought that people would do so much with it that we wanted to use it for the bigger week, which is Greek Week.”
The theme helps to keep the events interesting, fun and more organized, according to Balisciano. To help with fundraising, the IFC and Panhellenic also plan givebacks throughout the community.
“We do a fundraiser with local businesses,” Balisciano said. “This year we’re doing [The] Fresh Monkee.”
At the Wakefield location, Greek life members can show a “code” corresponding to their pairings when they make a juice, smoothie, or protein shake purchase. The Fresh Monkee will then donate a portion of the earnings back to the teams, according to Balisciano.
Greek Week allows all of the university’s Greek life chapters to be on the same team, according to Conroy.
“Everybody has their own thing, but there’s two weeks a year where we can all come together for one cause,” Conroy said.
Greek Week is one of the deeper, more meaningful activities that the community engages in, according to Balisciano.
“I just love raising money and helping people,” Balisciano said. “I think it’s so great that we do this.”
