Chapter Spotlight – Epsilon Rho (UC Davis)
This month’s Chapter Spotlight is on Epsilon Rho (UC Davis) who put a fresh spin on their King of Hearts Event to bring their Greek community together on campus! Red Dress Chairman Elle Clelland fills us in on all the details.
Event Name: King of Hearts
Event Location: University of California Davis
How many times have you held this event?
10
Tell us a little about the event.
We held a week-long King of Hearts competition with other fraternal organizations on campus. Some of our events included a flag football tournament, a blood drive, a Catch APhi event, an Alpha Phifa event, a fundraiser at a local restaurant, a King of the Court basketball tournament, a week-long raffle, a corn hole competition and a backyard BBQ to close out the week. We served pulled pork and chicken, sliced watermelon, lemonade, shaved ice and ice cream – all received through in-kind donations! At the end of the week the president of the fraternity with the most participation points in these events was crowned the King of Hearts!
Who attended your event?
All 13 fraternities on campus participated! We assigned teams of 10-12 girls per fraternity to go to fraternity meetings with treats and get the men excited for King of Hearts! This approach was different from years past because we were able to get more girls involved in the event and getting the fraternity men excited The girls loved this aspect and said they made really good friends with the guys after the event was complete.
How did you publicize the event?
We did a great deal of contacting, calling and marketing to get 3 incredible road bikes donated by City Grounds, Pure Fix and Aventon Bikes! We then sold raffle tickets all week while tabling at the memorial Union/Student Center in addition to selling tickets to other events. I highly recommend using a live Google Doc of the points from the week – the competitive fraternity guys really appreciated it. . I also recommend contacting companies in your local area for donations of table rentals, discounted food, and free marketing and advertising in exchange of a donation. We really tried to get the community involved and we found that people are very willing to donate if you speak from the heart about your non-profit!
What was your favorite part of the event?
My favorite event was the basketball tournament, which we held for the very first time! It was super successful and many people came out just to watch because they were so invested in the philanthropy. We rented 3 basketball courts and split them into half courts, to make 6 10 minute 3 on 3 games. The most crucial part of this was having an organized bracket for all of these games before going into it. The response from the Greek community was heart-warming!
What do you think made your event so successful?
All of our countless hours of hard work. They were completely worth it because by the end of the week we truly felt as a chapter we made a difference in the UC Davis Greek community. Our event was so successful that people were still talking about it until the end of the school year. We made sure that every fraternity and individual participant felt appreciated and had fun It was most important to me that everyone felt included, treated with kindness and felt welcomed to be part of the Alpha Phi community at UC Davis all in support of women’s heart health!