Greek Week raises money for charities
Here at the Rocket, we find there is a negative stigma that people attach to Greek Week, simply because it is related to Greek Life, but these people fail to see the real reason behind Greek Week, which is to use their influence to help others. Many people like to complain about Greeks, but how could you say you are upset when they donate to the Make-a-Wish foundation, which grants dying children their last wishes?
Last year, Greek Life almost granted two wishes for Make-A-Wish from Slippery Rock University’s chapters alone. Greek Life makes up only a small percentage of our campus, but still contributes and donates to charities. Not only do they contribute to Make-A-Wish but they also participate in an event called Can Castle, where they collect canned food for the local food pantry. They also collected children’s books through hosting a book drive. The entire week is dedicated to giving funds and other donations to different charities.
Greeks also donate blood every year, and each SRU sorority and fraternity is required to have at least 10 chapter members donate blood. If every Greek organization does that, it is at least another 130 people that are saving lives. Greek organizations all hold philanthropy events throughout the year and this is the week everyone comes together as one for a big finale.
Not only do we think Greek Week provide a wonderful opportunity for students to get involved in giving back, but it also promotes Greek unity. Each sorority and fraternity has a partner Greek chapter that they work with for the week. This allows people to build friendships that they might not have made outside of Greek Week.
Greeks may not know every person they’re partnered with within their pairing, but by the end of the week there is a good chance that they will. Partners switch every year, so it allows students to meet new people. Yes, the events do get competitive at times, but if you ever watched an event, after a loss or a win, all Greek organizations come to support each other. Say what you want about why people participate in Greek Week. We don’t think it’s for a trophy or a title. We think they want to raise money for a worthy cause.
Greek Week unity separates campus
If you didn’t know, “GDI” stands for “God Damn Independent,” and it is a term coined by the Greeks to describe people who don’t subscribe to the silliness that is Greek Life.
GDIs are never prouder to be GDIs than during “Greek Week,” a time synonymous with Greeks being more in-your-face than usual and going above and beyond to annoy the GDI populace. We’re sure many students can relate on a personal level to the universal hatred of Greek Week.
First of all, the Greeks pretend that the sole motive for Greek Week is to donate funds to the Make-A-Wish foundation and other charities, which is in itself an honorable and noble thing. We do not take issue with that at all, and commend them for that. What we do take issue with is how they pretend that everything about Greek Week is for charity. Before any Greek can argue this, they should ask themselves, “Is this cooler I’ve decorated for the copious amounts of booze I will be consuming, or is it for the kids?” We rest our case.
If you were planning on going to the ARC, the Student Center or the quad this week, you probably had to take another route as these three locations are usually clogged with Greeks (you can tell because they’re all dressed the same and are adorned in more letters than a dictionary).
If they aren’t clogging the most visited places on campus, the Greeks are filling social media feeds with pictures of them in their matching outfits, which is meant to represent unity, except that if the goal of this week was for charity, then they suspiciously don’t post pictures of themselves uniting with SRU charity organizations.
We get it, the Greeks like to be “united,” but they are “unified” every weekend at mixers, and throughout the week during different events that only Greeks can attend. Before anyone says, “People who aren’t Greek can attend any of our events!” or “We’d love to have more GDIs show up!,” then why isn’t the point of Greek Week to promote unity between the rest of the campus and Greek Life? To us, the whole “unity” thing in general is just another ploy to make Greek Life as seemingly exclusive as possible, and Greek Week is just a more annoying extension of that motive.
