Lambda Chi Alpha at the University of Florida has always had a great reputation for its service to the community and the ideals our members retain after they graduate. Our chapter’s most recent achievement was Watermelon Bust 2007, our annual philanthropy benefiting the North American Food Drive (NAFD). This boasted higher participation and more donations than ever before! From conducting a food drive at Westwood Middle School, to marketing and executing Watermelon Bust 2007, Lambda Chi Alpha was able to have a great time and benefit enormously from this year’s event.
With the assistance of Gainesville Harvest, a local food distribution center, Lambda Chi Alpha was able to successfully explain to the Greek community the impact that one can of food would have for a struggling family. The members of the Greek community were excited to participate in our event sending 13 sororities and a total of 28 teams. They also donated twice the amount of food from last year (622 cans = 11,440 pounds of food). This year, the food drive was a large percentage of the overall points! We even had to order more watermelons than in the past because we were not expecting such a large turn-out. Not to mention, with great shirt designs, the women bought 240 shirts this year, allowing us to donate $517 of the profits.
The record number of teams and food indicated to our chapter that we were in for a ground-breaking philanthropy. With traditional events such as the Watermelon Toss, the Watermelon Obstacle Course, and a Greasy Watermelon Hand-off, we added a unique field event: Slip-and-Slide Watermelon Bowling. The bowling event ended up being the most enjoyable event of the day. Our unique philanthropy provides excitement and competition throughout the day, as it is not often that people bust watermelons for a good cause.
Total Number of Sorority Teams = 28
Total Number of Sorority Participation = 13
Food Cans Donated at Watermelon Bust = 622
Food Cans Donated at Westwood Middle School = 530
Profits Donated to Gainesville Harvest = $2100
Total Amount Donated to the North American Food Drive = 31,736 pounds!!!
The scoring points indicated some great competition with only 1 point making the difference for each winner: the Overall Winner for Watermelon Bust 2007 was Phi Mu, and the Best in Field Events Winner was Kappa Alpha Theta. The brothers of Epsilon-Mu would like to thank all our supporters and the sororities for participating in this year’s philanthropy making it the most memorable philanthropy for our chapter in recent history! The following are various photos from the event - a special thank you to Brothers Jay Moore and EJ Vincent for the collection of photos. A more extensive collection may be found in our gallery!
