Make A Wish

[ChiOmega4Me]

Just wanted to let you know that our chapter (Epsilon Gamma) presented the Make A Wish Foundation with a $6,675 check yesterday! We were able to raise the money during Hootiefest. We will be granting a 3 year old boy with cancer a wish. His wish is to go to New York and go to Sesame Street....we all cried when we were told! Yay Chi Omega!

[aprilxo]

aaawwww that is such a cute wish... 3 years old w/cancer? that is so sad--but thanks to you ladies he can see Sesame street!! way to go Holly

lico,
april

[pirepresent]

first of all, congrats!! what an amazing gift chi omega was able to give to that little boy!!

second of all, i have a question -- how was your chapter able to rasie so much money?!?! I mean, that is absolutely amazing. Can you explain what hootiefest is, because I know that no chapter on my campus has been able to raise that kind of money at one event, and i'd love to know how you did it!

Thanks, and congratulations again on all your success!

[ChiOmega4Me]

Hootiefest is what we call our philanthropy week. We were very happy with how much money we raised this year, it was three times as much as we made last year! The most important thing is to turn it into a contest. We have several events, and other sororities and fraternities get points for attending. Each house will get 3 or 4 girls from our house to "coach" them. The coaches keep the house motivated, and get them to participate in the events. The first event is a bbq we have at our house. We get all of the food donated, and charge $5/person, all you can eat. The other houses get attendence points, which go towards winning hootiefest. 3 houses this year had 100% attendence! Next, we sell stars outside the house during lunch. A person could buy a $1, $3, or $5 star and get their name on it which gets hung up in the house. If you buy a star, your house gets points for that too. We also had a banner contest, all of the houses painted a banner and the winner got points, and last is a karoake contest. All of the houses, with the help of their coaches, put together a dance/song and compete. There is an admission fee to watch which also made a lot of money. People get points for their house to come watch. Last was a raffle. We got a lot of donated goods, and sold raffle tickets, again, points were awarded to the houses for buying tickets. Because it is such a huge competition and all of the houses want to be able to say they won Hootiefest, we get excellent support from all of them. Our bbq alone made nearly $2500! I think the most important thing was advertising. We sent a flyer of the weeks events to each students mailbox, we hung door signs on the apartment doors, we chalked throughout campus, and we sent out an e-mail to the campus. I am SO proud of our house for being able to raise that much money. Our greek system is fairly small at my school (we have 60 girls and are the biggest house), I think a bigger school could easily make that much money! Oh another thing we did to make money was asked that each girl tried to get a donation. We went to businesses, restaurants, and even family and asked for donations...people are surprisingly willing to donate! I hope this helps!!