Editor’s Note: Kappa Alpha Theta was also on the winning Greek Week team. We apologize for the confusion.
Sara Natividad
snatividad@mustangdaily.net
Members of greek life celebrated the finale of their weeklong philanthropic and competitive festivities with a lip-syncing event in Chumash Auditorium on Saturday.
The winner was team Athena, consisting of the Phi Kappa Psi and Zeta Beta Tau fraternities and Sigma Omega Nu sorority.
The money raised for donations this year has not been completely counted, but it definitely exceeded last year’s amount, which totaled close to $6,000, Greek Week 2013 Chair and biological sciences junior Laina Ruzic said.
This year’s event was more successful than previous years because of a new event using social media, Ruzic said. The fundraiser, called the “Like Wars,” is an online competition in which people vote for their favorite non-profits. The winner of the votes receives the majority of the money, and 5 percent is awarded to the rest of the organizations.
Head of the Greek Week Beach Day Committee Zachary Gates attributes the week’s success to high attendance at both the competitive and volunteer events.
Each community service event had approximately 15 members from each team, totaling approximately 120 people per event, said Gates, a biomedical engineering sophomore.
“There was a lot more participation this year,” Gates said. “It made everything a lot more fun and really impacted the community service aspect of it.”
A manual labor volunteer event in which students prepared ground for planting brought a lot of attention, but in the end, it was the lip-sync event that stole the show.
Lambda Chi Alpha member Ryan Payne represented his fraternity in a team consisting of approximately 30 people, he said. The general engineering sophomore said the group spent about three weeks practicing for the competition, and had a blast throughout the entire process.
His team chose a ’90s theme: Their performance featured a mix of songs including “Wannabe,” “… Baby One More Time” and “U Can’t Touch This.” Each song was introduced by someone from the team, giving the show more of a “skit-like” feel to it, he said.
Though some may find dancing and letting loose in front of a large audience intimidating, Payne said he doesn’t get nervous in front of crowds.
“It’s something that’s good for people that are outgoing like me and like to act goofy and have fun,” Payne said.
His fraternity only had seven males who participated in the event, which made him bond with new people during their practices.
“That’s what I feel what Greek Week is about,” Payne said. “It introduces you to new fraternities and sororities that you may not have known, and gives you a chance to meet and spend time with new people.”
The week, and the practices leading up to it, gave him the opportunity to get to know members from Kappa Kappa Gamma, a new sorority on campus he was not familiar with, Payne said.
“I thought we did very well, but we didn’t even place,” Payne said. “I still had a lot of fun, and I’m definitely doing it next year though.”