The Facts: Shack-a-Thon anticipated raising $25,000 for Wake County Habitat for Humanity during the weekly humanitarian event. Thirty teams bid to participate in this year’s event, raising $7,000 between them. The event is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year.

Our Opinion: Shack-a-Thon is a true tradition at N.C. State. We should support cohesive campus events like this, and continue to support Shack-a-Thon in the future.

Hopeless basketball seasons, jokes about Harrelson, constant construction, the Brickyard and the Krispy Kreme Challenge are just a few of the many indelible traditions at N.C. State. For the last decade, this list has also included Habit for Humanity’s Shack-a-Thon.

The event, which occupied the Brickyard for the tenth straight year this week, raises funds for the Wake County Habitat for Humanity. The $25,000 the event hopes to raise goes directly toward the construction of homes in Wake County. Last year, the event raised $24,000 for less fortunate residents in the local community.

Shack-a-Thon has become a bona fide tradition at the University and is a trademark of students’ generosity and self-sacrificing spirit. It may not receive the sort of fanfare that the KKC receives, but it is no less important.

Despite the fact that the KKC has been featured on ESPN and Sport’s Illustrated’s “101 Things to Do Before You Graduate,” it raises fewer funds for charity than Shack-a-Thon does. For comparison, the 2009 KKC raised slightly less than $20,000.

This is not to discredit the great charitable work the KKC does, but to acknowledge the benevolent work Shack-a-Thon has brought to the University during the last decade.

Shack-a-Thon embodies the sort of student unity that this campus so desperately needs.

The bid process for shacks — spaces are bid on to raise money — raised $7,000 this year with bids from 30 teams. With inadequate room for all the teams, several were paired together in the same shack. This creates campus cohesion that few other events can. One of the more unusual combinations this year is the partnership between The Presbyterian Campus Ministry and Accepting and Embracing Gender Identity and Sexuality. The two groups also worked together last year and won first place.

In a year mired by racism in the Free Expression Tunnel and the noose incident in Sullivan Shops, Shack-a-Thon is a welcome reminder that the social and common-good issues that bring us together are much more powerful than that which drives us apart.

As Shack-a-Thon ends, perhaps the campus community should take a moment and recognize the event as one of our truest and proudest traditions.