Penn State Fraternity fines members for not volunteering
 

[ Monday, Feb. 14, 2005 ]

Penn State Fraternity fines members for not going canning
For every Thon fund-raising weekend missed, Sigma Alpha Epsilon, 200 E. Beaver Ave., charges $30.
By Joelle Hutcheon
Collegian Staff Writer

A chapter in the greek community has taken it upon themselves to ensure members participate in canning weekends for the Interfraternity Council/Panhellenic Dance Marathon.

Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity, 200 E. Beaver Ave., recently started to fine members who do not participate in canning weekends.

Fraternity President Chris Beans said a member is fined $30 for every trip missed.

A member could receive up to $120 in fines if he misses all four canning trips. "It's really a new thing I started when I took over," Beans said.

He added that the fines are there to make sure all available members participate in raising money for Thon.

"We encourage all the guys -- Thon is a very important thing," Beans said.

Evan Jacobs, Thon rules and regulations overall, said Thon is a student-run philanthropy, therefore all money raised is on the basis of volunteering.

He added that Thon organizers do not promote the fines.

Jacobs said that although raising money for Thon is not a competition, members of organizations are allowed to give out fines based on their own standards. He added that members of these organizations should be aware of the individual policies.

Interfraternity Council (IFC) Associate Vice President A.J. Jugan, the council's Thon liaison, said most of the time the fine does not come straight out of a fraternity member's pocket.

"We never want to force people to raise money by any means," he said.

Jugan added that many fraternities set a target fund-raising number to keep members on pace.

If a fraternity member misses a canning weekend, he would then be responsible for raising an extra amount of money during the next canning trip.

Colleen Briley, Panhellenic Council (PHC) president, said she has not heard of any sororities that fine their members for not attending canning trips. "I think it is up to the individual organization what they decide on," she said.

Briley added that individual sorority chapters would have to agree to a sorority giving sanctions for not canning. PHC does not force any sorority to participate in canning weekends, she added.

Scott Fortner (sophomore-supply chain management), a member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon, said he missed the first Thon canning weekend and was threatened with a fine, but it never went through. "I think it is a good way to get people going," he said.

Fortner added that most of the members in the house attend the canning trips, but there are always a few that wind up staying behind.

Former IFC President Andy Hackett said his fraternity, Sigma Nu, 340 N. Burrowes Road, does not sanction members who do not go canning, but he has heard of other fraternities that do. "I've heard some sort of consequences for certain fraternities," he said. "But to stress on individual trips, I have not heard of that."

Going canning and volunteering really aren't the same thing. This is more like fining people for not showing up at meetings or events.

It's impossible to understand what a HUGE deal Thon is if you're not from around Penn State.

Typical left wing journalists. It is not enough to serve Big Brother; one must love him as well. I agree with them in that I am opposed to fines. When "service" is required, it becomes servitude. But...SAE is a private organization and they can do what they want. The newspaper's criticizim of Greeks because they compete among each other to more fully support a worthy charity just shows the depth of hatred these types have for fraternities. You can't change their minds; to change the paper, Greeks will have to become involved as staff people and take over.

Penn State is a few hours from Pittsburgh, yet every weekend I see Penn State greeks canning around here. I notice them b/c they're idiots sometimes and I almost end up wacking them with my car when trying to get into the shopping center.

Is canning really an efficient way to raise money???

I am happy to say that I never canned :) my chapter just never did it really- a coupel times I think some people went down to Steelers games and canned. Can't say that I missed it. :) I've always hated begging for money like that.

ETA: I love fines as discipline. Of course, that may also be because I used to be treasurer of my chapter. But with college students, nothing speaks to them like money (besides alcohol, lol)

Just Say No To Canning!!!!!
 

Okay, I believe in charities as one of the pillars of the Greek Society. I understand that Thon is HUGE at PSU.

BUT!! When someone supposedly smart enough to get into a college runs out into the street to beg money from people parked at lights, I question their sanity. I have never, and will never give money to anyone silly enough to risk their lives to go canning. I know that's an unpopular view, but it's one I've heard expressed by other people, too.

As for SAE fining their members for not canning, I would suggest this: Set a figure that each member needs to collect towards THON, and make it high. Let the member decide if he is stupid enough to go canning, or if he wants to raise it another way. I would also reward any brother who raises double that figure somehow.

This isn't an original idea, as this is what we did for charity. We would assess each sister $150 towards the charity, and at Pitt, each Greek was also expected to give blood within 60 days. Knowing that you can donate blood every 57 days (if healthy), and that some sisters will also go above & beyond to raise money, we had what we called "The Double Dippers" - those who gave blood twice or raised over $300 towards charity. The sister who was able to raise the most money was, of course, rewarded, too.

Just an idea or two.

I think that really depends on the individuals as to whether or not fines is a discipline. My boyfriend for example used to hate selling things. His fraternity chapter was small, and one of the fundraisers they did was a BBQ plate selling thing. Each brother was responsible for selling maybe 10 tickets. And since the bf hated asking people for money for these tickets, he just bought all the tickets himself, and distributed them to his friends.

I guess that's one way of doing it. hehehe.

In my own experience, I've noticed that fines work for some and not others. LIke me, for example. I pretty much worked through college and paid my way through. I didn't really have the extra cash to give to the chapter for fines of any sort, so I def. tried to avoid fines. That wasn't always the case with other sisters though. Some didn't care there was a fine and just decided to not show up anyway.

I think fining is really negative... I don't know about other people, but I hate being told that something is "MANDATORY OR ELSE you will be fined". I hate it. Not all people care and not everyone is going to show up just because there is a fine involved. If they don't want to attend for whatever reason, they won't be there and will gladly fork over the cash to make up for their absence.

My school never did canning, but I can almost guarantee ya'll that is not something I would enjoy doing, and probably would have worked my budget to squeeze the money out for a fine.

I like honeychile's idea of letting the members decide how they are going to raise the money.. it's a lot less negative than "BE THERE OR YOU WILL BE FINED! BWAH HA HA!"

Re: Just Say No To Canning!!!!!
 

If we would have been assessed for something like this, we would have had nothing to show for it. Canning may not be the most efficient thing out there, but you have to be sensible about where and how you do it.

Re: Re: Just Say No To Canning!!!!!
 

Which goes to show that what works for one chapter, doesn't work for another. We had a bunch of "Daddy's girls" whose parents would pay the money, rather than see their daughter canning.

we raise the majority of our $3.6 million for THON every year through canning. each canning trip i went on would raise at least $3000 usually more like $5000.

while i don't necessarily agree with fining for not going canning, i'm fairly certain each organization votes on the rules regarding participation in THON. i know we do.

most organizations set a quota of how much each member is to individually raise through solicitation, how many of the four canning trips are required, etc.

SAE got in trouble a few years ago for misappropriation of THON funds, which i think is the reason why the Collegian decided to bring up their organization. the Collegian is not really a greek friendly paper. the few times we do get good press it's usually about THON, which incidentally is this weekend.

48 hours no sitting, sleeping for the dancers. hopefully we'll beat last year's total of over $3.5 million and get back to $3.6 where we were the first 3 years i was at Penn State! :)

ETA: many of the places where we go canning require permits and/or special permission to be on the streets. it's up to the person hosting the canning trip to obtain the proper permission from their town/county/wherever

We used to do canning for various philanthropies when I was in undergrad. We usually called them roadblocks. Since then many municipalities and some states have outlawed doing it on the streets. We used to raise some big $$$ during Greek Week if we were assigned a prime intersection. Now in Indiana and Illinois, I don't really see anyone doing this anymore.

Has anyone ever gotten hit by a car or otherwise injured during canning?

Just a random question out of curiousity.

not that i know of in the 4 years i was at penn state.

Canning is stupid. They drive over 100 miles each way to stand in a busy intersection and beg for money. It is nothing more than panhandling. They would probably be better off getting jobs at McDonalds. You could make $50 working at the McDonalds pay the $30 fine and pocket the extra $20.

that "panhandling" has helped raise approximately $30 million dollars over the past 30 years to help children with cancer.

i'm sorry you think canning is stupid and that getting a job at mcdonalds is better, but if standing out in the cold for a few hours and "begging" for money is going to help ease the pain of one child with cancer, it's worth it.

http://www.thon.org

If canning wasn't worth the time, people wouldn't be doing it.

Trust me that canning is more lucrative than working in McDonald's- groups were known to bring an easy four figure sum in one day (sizable groups in a populated location)... in Indiana.
I don't think most McDonald's employees (at least non-corporate ones) pull down that kind of money in a couple of hours.

We would can for our Dance Marathon, and people would stop for us and most groups (sororities, fraternities, dorms, etc). You usually had a cute guy or pretty girl standing in the middle of the street with a big DM can, usually with face paint and philanthropy shirts on. Its a good draw. I found people were overwhelmingly receptive.

There may be a law against it in Indiana though because I thought we were prohibited from doing it senior year.

I had always assumed that the people I saw canning here lived in Pittsburgh and were home for the weekend and could stay at their parents' house.

that's sort of true.

there are four designated canning weekends a year. 2 first semester and 2 second semester before THON. those are the only weekends you're allowed to go canning for THON.

people host the trips at their houses. some trips have 15 people, other trips have 4, it just depends on how many people the host wants to have at their house.

also, the trips aren't limited to pennsylvania. my sorority had trips to virginia, delaware, connecticut and new jersey. it just depends on who wants to have a trip.

Do the math. 4 figures for a 50 member organization is not that lucrative. That works out to $20 per member. McDonalds in my area pays about $8/hour x 8 hours x 50 members = $3200 for each day of work.

I wanted to go back to the comment about competition. At USC, the competition is VERY high between sororities. I think that it is sad sometimes that people lose sight of what it's about, but in the long run if two or three (or more) sororities are so gung-ho about competing with each other, and then their way of competing is by raising thousands of dollars for charity, let them do it! I observed the same thing at University of Tennessee... It helps boost the number. I wish USC's fraternities would impose a fine on members who don't participate. Our fraternity participation is SLACK. We have two fraternities that make sure there are guys there, and the rest of the fraternities we're lucky enough to have one or two guys show. I hope they were able to change that this year, though.

Be careful with your cans
 

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Thieves Steal Donations For Sick Kids
* Rutgers University Students Raised $8,000

Feb 15, 2005 12:21 pm US/Eastern
NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. (AP) A setback for Rutgers University students trying to raise money for children battling cancer.
Authorities say thieves walked away with eight thousand dollars from a university office, much of it in coins.
The burglars carted away a safe containing four thousand, and at least six water jugs containing coins.
The dean of fraternity and sorority affairs for the school says the Rutgers students are “just devastated by this.”
The money was meant for the Institute for Children with Cancer and Blood Disorders, affiliated with Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick.
Last year the fund-raising event that runs from September to late March raised 190-thousand dollars for the institute.

Correct me if I am wrong., Canning, is that getting canned foods for Charity?

LXA has the largest canned food drive in the world. Yet again, several times a year, each Chapter does Charity events for other Charitys.

Unless every member is not working part time jobs, it is hard to get out and do. Oh, even night classes interfere as it were.

But unless there is a lengthy time frame, fining members is a bove and beyond the call.

At our House Corp. meeting a member suggested that each Board member give $50.00 to be on the Board. I was livid.

In the last 2 years, I have donated @ $500.00 worth of items for our Auction not counting giving @ $2000.00 for New House building fund or waht I have bought in the auctions.

Ever wonder how and why it is hard to get New Members?

um, no Tom, canning has nothing to do with canned food. If you read the articles and comments you would understand that.

Canning involves decorating coffee cans (or other cans) and standing in intersections (usually... I guess some go to busy events or somewhere else busy) to ask for money for the charity

I've seen them canning for Thon near Harrisburg (where my parents live.) Also, they came door to door in my neighborhood. Sadly, I didn't have any money to give them. But, since I have moved to West Chester, I have seen them there and in the surrounding suburbs (i.e. Downingtown.) Both places, they stood in unsafe areas (right near a highway and the dividing pad between a two lane highway.)

I have a hard time believing that standing on a street with a can nets you $3K. How many people is this? How many different locations?

I've driven by canners many a times, and I rarely see anyone give any money, and if they do, it's only a few cents.

It's not really that much to bring in. I helped can before football games before Dance Marathon here a couple times, and we usually pulled in about $50-100 per person. Keeping in mind that our Dance Marathon is not nearly as large or well-known as Penn State's, and that we probably had fewer people out canning and for a shorter period of time, I don't think it would be a stretch to bring in $3000 in one weekend.

Give that you could bring in $50-100 per person for two hours' work, I'd say that canning was a little more lucrative than working at McDonald's. ;)

good for them if they can do it... just seems unrealistic. But if it works, great.

3000/10 people = 300 in one weekend= 150 per day from morning until sundown. Maybe 10-12 dollars an hour?

Like I said, if it works great, but that's a lot of time that could be spent otherwise volunteering for a cause, plus it's very unsafe. I tend to favor event-type fundraising or something other than random begging :(

If you read this whole thread, you can see the wide range of opinion concerning canning. Take out those from PSU, and the spectrum isn't quite so wide. Throw in that those canning usually wear their letters, and you can see many greeks who aren't happy to see their letters involved with canning.

But, it's going to happen. People will can, and those held captive by a stop light will either feel guilty and donate or ignore the canners in annoyance.

I read this and I'm not surprised. PSUSigKap touched on this earlier about how SAE ran into problems a couple years back. If I remember, they had been accused of stealing from their THON budget, something like that. Considering that, I'm not surprised that they are doing every thing possible to make sure people go out and can.

As for canning itself, I went canning this past weekend for Campus Crusade. We went to a supermarket in NJ for about 5 hrs and we raised little over $600 there. We had alumni come up to us and give us money, kids give us little bits of change to people telling us to move out of their way. We weren't obnoxious about it; we had our signs and our cans, we politely asked people and we had a little bit of fun on a chilly Feb. Saturday. Altogether, with 10 people, we raised little over $1100.

Canning is something that has to be experienced to really understand. Canning is the backbone of THON and has helped us raise over $30 million over the past 30+ years. I'm proud to have canned and to have raised money for THON.

http://www.thon.org/

I'm surprised canning brings in that much money for you all. You guys sound hard core about it. We've always just stuck the cans in the office and told people to place them about businesses. Since this year is my first year as an alumnus, I was curious as to how much money comes from the alumni. We're in our 7th year, so our alumni aren't that old yet (i.e. still making under the $50,000 mark as a general rule) but I was curious as to how much support you all get from the alumni who give every year. That's got to contribute somehow to the numbers raising a bit. I know I gave $150 this year as a first year alumnus, but I plan on giving more each year, so hopefully when our marathon hits the 25 year mark I'll be giving thousands of dollars (hopefully I'll be able to afford it!) Also, you have more sponsorships, more dancers, and more in-between events. Call me a skeptic, but I just find it hard to believe that canning brings in the majority of the money.

MadMax, I did do the math. Even though my GLO and most of the others that "can" are 50+ member organizations, we would typically only send 10-15 members for at most a 5 hour stint making about $2000 on an average day.

That breaks down to about $26 and some change per member per hour. That is rounding down though with the total figure on average.

Most people who stopped to donate are very generous. Ten and twenty dollar bills were not uncommon. But we were usually canning in a very upper middle class area that is very supportive of its nearby children's hospital.

I really like canning and support the practice when I can. It can only be done now outside of buisnesses though- at least in Indiana.

Canning brings in a nice-sized portion of the money but its not all of it. Alot of people pledge money to THON and alumni do donate to THON. Some orgs have corporate sponserships. I know that for us, we do have alumni who donate a good portion of what we raise. Its not all canning, thats true but if you aren't in an org that isn't IFC/PHC or hasn't been around for years and doesn't have the tradition and contacts, canning is how you raise money for THON.

I realize you don't care for this method of fundraising, but I don't think people give because they feel guilty. They might just be feeling altruistic. Same with the firemen who have the "fill the boot for charity" and are always on Baum/Bigelow Blvd.

If I see canners and I hit the light at the right time, I give because I know it's for Thon. If I'm with someone else, I make sure they know that too.

No, I don't want to see people running across the street like dorks, but I can honestly say all the canners, boot holders, newspaper salesmen and flower salesmen I've seen on the street have been considerate (they didn't get in anyone's face that is) and didn't get into the flow of traffic.

LOL - I was almost quoting a certain person I was with while the canners banged on the window - only cleaning up the language!

I don't want to give the appearance that I don't realize that the Thon is important to PSU - two of my great-aunts were professors there. I am just against the practice of canning all together.

And if you think I'm not charitable, you should see my tax forms!!!

Assuming that McDonald's needs 50 employees that day for 8 hours...

regarding mcdonalds workers
 

I love raising money for charities, but with the economy right now i would be VERY upset if i had to give up my job even for the day for someone else to raise money for charity. I need every cent i have to live (actually need more but that is another story). I understand what someone is saying, but with todays economy getting donations is a better idea than taking a job away from a minimum wage employee who lives pay check to paycheck.

just my two cents.
debbie

ps plus there are many programs online that can allow groups ( or individuals) to make money and not taking away jobs from other people who need the job.

Re: regarding mcdonalds workers
 

Why would you be giving up your job? :confused: i'm puzzled b/c I didn't see this mentioned.

If you're talking about the McDonalds comments... I don't think anyone was serious, but it's more a comparison about what else could be done with your time to make the same amount of money that doesn't involve playing in traffic and begging for money.

As I said earlier, if people make money from canning, good for them, but it's not something that i'd support or give money to.

For the people who give 10s or 20s... they've gotta know someone that's involved with THON or have some other tie to it. Who else, no matter how wealthy (being that many wealthy are also very stingy!), would just randomly give out 10s or 20s to people on the street?

Outside of State College (where PSU is located) and people who went there or know something about it, people don't know what THON is. I didn't know what it was until I saw someone talking about it on GC. And I live in an area with lots of PSU alumni!

Also, when people are canning, usually you don't even have enough time to see what they're canning for. Usually I just see the Penn State logo. Which, as a die hard Pitt person, is enough to turn me away ;)

I'm also always wary to give to canners b/c you really don't know where the money is actually going. There are many people out there that will just take the money for themselves. If they're wearing greek letters, it might make them slightly more credible in my eyes, but I still know of chapters that do it as a fundraiser for themselves- give like 20% to charity and keep the rest for their chapter or something like that.

Actually, the McDonald's in my area gives three hour chunks of time to a charitable organization one day a week. McDonald's has cannisters for receipts and the organization gets 100% of the profit for the receipts put in the cannister. They do it for schools, cub scout/girl scout troops, etc. It's usually on a Tuesday night. If you publicize well, you can raise a couple thousand in those 3 hours. It may be something to check into as a fundraising opportunity. Adult leaders help bus tables and keep things tidy in the dining area under the guidance of the usual McDonald's staff. It gives McDonald's good PR as a contributor in the community and keeps people coming back!

(I do realize nobody really meant to go work at McDonald's and I have nothing against canning, it just reminded me of this idea for an easy philanthropy)

Dee

I dunno, I live in South Carolina and I'm aware of what Thon is. Granted, I was on DM exec, but it's pretty legendary.

But you're Greek, you're on GC, and you were on DM exec. So it would be legendary to you, but not to the average person. Heck, most greeks don't even know about it.

Thon raises a ton of money for a very worthwhile cause and i'm not trying to knock it. It's well known in certain circles, but your average Joe Blow who would be driving past the canners doesn't know that. And even if they did it's generally not made real clear that it's for Thon... it's usually pretty small on the can.

BTW- there's been times when i've seen people canning for something at Pitt or somewhere, and maybe I would give them some change. But I don't have time to find my wallet or even dig into my consol to find the change usually. I actually tried to do this last night... some homeless guy was LAYING on the ground with a sign in a very busy, very narrow area of highway (for you yinzers... in the bathtub on 376 by downtown), but I couldn't get to my money fast enough. I figured if he's desperate enough to be there and risk being killed, he's not faking. There's no shoulder, there's maybe a foot between the white line for the outside edge of the lane and the concrete barrier.

Interesting enough i've seen college students canning in this same area... stupid stupid stupid.

Even though folks say they go to different states to can, most of it takes place in Pennsylvania, and a huge proportion of Pennsylvanians either went to Penn State or have someone in their circle of family/friends who did, so there's a very high awareness of THON. This is especially true in the Phila and Pitss 'burbs where most of the canning takes place.

So folks are aware that it's a very legit charity (like when you see firemen with their trucks out with their boots) which increases the likelihood that people pitch in $1, $5, $10, $20 vs. dimes and quarters.

I always ask what Greek org they're canning for, and if it's guys, what sorority they're doing it with. My SO, not a Penn Stater, said "that's pretty nosey - asking what sorority a guy's 'doin' it with' ".

I think he was being deliberately obtuse.

Congratulations to all the participants for amazing work! Makes me proud to be a Penn State Greek alum!!!!!