Lambda Chi Alpha Fraternity hosted their annual Watermelon Bust philanthropy event on Sept. 21 with proceeds directly benefiting the Middle Georgia Food Bank.
The North American Food Drive is the fraternity’s national philanthropy that was established by Lambda Chi Alpha. The fraternity does various events throughout the year to benefit food drives.
Watermelon Bust is an event that occurs across the country hosted by various chapters of the fraternity. The event is a type of “Olympic Games” involving activities with watermelons that teams compete in. Events include watermelon painting, eating, seed-spitting, watermelon tossing and an obstacle course involving the fruit. Following the event was a barbecue held in porter patch.
The event has been held at Mercer since the 1970s.
Students who wish to participate in the event sign-up their teams of five people and pay an entry fee of $50, which is given to the Middle Georgia Food Bank.
Teams are also encouraged to bring canned goods to donate and in doing so, earn additional points toward their competition.
The fraternity was expecting this year’s event to be one of their largest participated with 10-14 teams competing.
The teams with the most points at the end of the competition were awarded various prizes that were donated from local businesses in Macon.
“I absolutely love this event,” said Branden Ryan, Lambda Chi Alpha brother and High Epsilon. Ryan was responsible for organizing the barbeque held on Porter Patch after the Watermelon Bust competition.
“It brings a sense of Panhellenic competitiveness to the sororities here and it is a fun way to compete against each other but also raise money, food, and awareness for a great cause,” said Ryan.
Kyle Wright, another Lambda Chi Alpha brother and High Beta, is responsible for the fraternity’s philanthropic endeavors and handled the organization and logistics of this year’s Watermelon Bust. The chapter of Lambda Chi Alpha worked as a whole to recruit sponsors and execute the event.
“Hunger is an issue that we often associate with other countries, but here in America, we have hundreds of thousands of individuals who suffer from the effects of malnutrition and hunger every day. This is a constant reminder that Greek life is not just about social events, but also about benefiting a philanthropy and cause which often gets overlooked when people typically think about fraternities and sororities."
Greeks compete for a cause
