For most sororities at UCF, spring philanthropy week has already concluded, but not for the ladies of Alpha Epsilon Phi. The long-anticipated wait led to a massively successful philanthropy week, with many organizations on campus participating and showing support.
Their philanthropy is known as Sharsheret, which is an organization founded by an Alpha Epsilon Phi alum to support Jewish women who are struggling with breast and ovarian cancer by providing them with the resources to understand and recover from the disease.
Fun fact: Alpha Epsilon Phi was founded to give women of Jewish descent a place in Greek life, as they were initially excluded from joining other sororities.
According to the National Cancer Institute, Jewish women are more likely to develop certain cancers because they are more likely to carry the BRCA gene. The BRCA gene is a mutation that increases the risk of certain cancers. The NIH states, âMore than 60% of women who inherit a harmful change in BRCA1 or BRCA2 will develop breast cancer during their lifetime. By contrast, about 13% of women in the general population will develop breast cancer during their lifetime.âÂ
The Beta Zeta chapterâs philanthropy set a goal of raising $8000 by the end of the week, starting strong on Monday with a partial-proceeds event at BurgerFi.Â
On Tuesday, an event known as âSundaes for Sharsheret’ was held at the house. This event drew supporters from many of the different houses on campus. In addition to the ice cream, a raffle was offered to bring in additional donations, with prizes such as Universal tickets and a facial.
âAEPhi isnât as big as other national sororities yet, and I want to do as much as we can here to make it more known,â said Emily Hearney, vice president of Philanthropy. âThatâs why I started playing around with ideas to make our events more interesting.â
On Thursday, a crowd favorite known as âPie-a-Phi’ took place. Participants arrived to pie their friends in AEPhi at the reflection pond late in the morning to early afternoon.
The Friday event was a partial proceeds at Jeremiahâs, located in Oviedo. Jeremiah’s is well known for its gelati, which combine soft-serve ice cream with sorbet or gelato. To donate, all you had to do was show up and say that you wanted to donate to AEPhi at checkout. This was cleverly designed so that people who may not be a part of Greek life but still want to show support could easily participate.
At the end of the week, the main event, âSwinging for Sharsheret,â is a competition where teams and individuals can compete and show off their baseball skills. Supporters flocked to watch the event on Sunday at the RWC sports club fields from noon to 4 p.m., with the overall winners set to receive a personalized trophy and one hundred dollars donated to their philanthropy.
Phi Delta Theta won the Fastest Pitch competition, and Delta Tau Delta won the home run derby. Alpha Delta Pi won the team softball competition, and Phi Delta won again in the baseball competition. The winners of the spring competition for sororities were Kappa Delta, and for fraternities, Delta Sigma Phi.
For the ladies of AEPhi, this week was filled with many good memories, all for a good cause.Â