Music helped kick start the first festivities for Greek Week in Bruin Plaza Monday, as members of the Greek system participated in games at a carnival.
A sea of students clad in colorful T-shirts gathered in Bruin Plaza on Monday morning, assembling beanbag tosses and makeshift Diet Coke flip cup games.
About 600 students participated in Monday’s kickoff for Greek Week, an annual four-day string of activities aimed at publicizing the Greek system while raising money for charity, said Drew Edell, a public relations officer for the Panhellenic Council.
This year’s activities are centered around an Olympic theme, starting with Monday’s Games-oriented carnival. One booth embraced the theme by hosting a game that involved tossing a pingpong ball into cups arranged in Olympic rings.
The carnival raised more than $700 from games and raffle tickets. In an homage to the week’s theme, all of the money raised throughout the week will be donated to the Special Olympics, said Carissa Requejo, the Greek Week adviser.
To unite the Greek system, each of the six Greek councils were scrambled into nine teams that compete against one another for bragging rights.
Throughout the week, each team earns points by raising money, buying raffle tickets, winning games, participating in events and even donating blood at the UCLA Blood and Platelet Center.
By the end of the week, the Greek executive council expects to exceed the $1,500 that was raised last year for UniCamp, an organization that runs a summer camp for underprivileged children, Requejo said in an email. The team with the most points wins a plaque for each chapter represented on the team, Requejo said.
Today, Drake Stadium will be filled with classic games, like tug-of-war and flag football, as well as some nontraditional competitions, such as unfreezing a shirt trapped in ice as quickly as possible and wearing it. A recreation of the trivia game, “Family Feud,” will take place Wednesday. The week will culminate in an awards ceremony on Thursday.
The competitive nature of the games is the best part of the week for Brian Mendoza, a first-year business economics student.
As a member in the Sigma Nu fraternity, Mendoza does not have many chances to get to know members of different chapters.
Mendoza said he’s looking forward to working together with his teammates from different parts of the Greek system.
Greek Week also brings together the different chapters within the Greek system, especially lesser-known multi-interest and ethnicity-centered councils, said Darlene Tran, a fourth-year psychology and Asian studies student and member of the Greek Week executive board.
“Everybody thinks that fraternities or sororities are those big houses on Hilgard or Gayley (avenues), but that’s not true,” said Tran, who is also the president of Gamma Rho Lambda, the lesbian, gay, transgender, bisexual, questioning, queer, intersexed and allied sorority.
Eleven members belong to Tran’s sorority, making it one of the lesser-known chapters in need of more publicity, she said.
“I had never even heard of some of the (chapters) that are on my team,” said Marilyn Kushnick, a fourth-year electrical engineering student and member of Phi Sigma Rho.
Kushnick said that her sorority will make an effort to socialize more with the chapters they meet in the course of Greek Week activities.