Pi Kappa Phi will host its second philanthropy event of the week, the Tournament of Roses, Saturday.
Ben Lingo, sophomore in civil engineering, said he organized both his fraternity’s spring philanthropy events as the PUSH chair for Pi Kappa Phi.
“We started with our philanthropy last night at the Brickhouse where we had Band of Oz, and all the money we raised is going to PUSH America, which is a nonprofit organization that helps people with physical and mental disabilities,” Lingo said.
Pi Kappa Phi’s second spring philanthropy event, Lingo said, will be this weekend.
“Tournament of Roses will be Saturday,” Lingo said. “There will be a sorority flag football tournament starting at 1 [p.m.] and there will also be a cookout and barbecue too.”
The fraternity donates a significant portion of the proceeds from both events to its national philanthropy.
“PUSH America is our national philanthropy,” Lingo said. “It is great being involved with it.”
Stefan Kalczynski, junior in history and a brother of Pi Kappa Phi, said he is excited aboutevents.
“I am quite ecstatic. The prospect of helping out others but still having such a great time fundraising, it’s really a great experience,” Kalczynski said. “
Along with raising money, PUSH Week is an opportunity for brothers to come together to support one for the more prominent philanthropies in Greek life.”
Pi Kappa Phi has created a tradition of hosting Band of Oz because one of the brothers is a son of a band member, Lingo said.
“We have had Band of Oz the past couple years,” Lingo said. “We had … Prefontaine open this year.”
Daniel Genung, sophomore in general engineering, said he is the lead singer for the band, Prefontaine, which opened for Band of Oz.
“There is a guy in a fraternity that we are pretty good friends with. We have known him since last year,” Genung said. “We wrote a song last year, kind of as a joke, and had him over, and he listened to it. Somehow we got more serious about the songs and so when he was planning the event for last night, he said we could play for it.”
Genung said the band really enjoyed the atmosphere of performing at such an event.
“It was so much fun, we were sitting around talking about it,” Genung said. “I could not stop smiling, I was having such a good time.”
The band plans to continue playing and scheduling shows around the local area, Genung said.
“Well we have been talking to an apartment complex and we are trying to play a show at a pool during the day, ” Genung said. “We are playing at the Cave in Chapel Hill soon and we might be playing in Global Village coffee shop. I’m not sure how that is going to work since you expect a coffee shop to be quiet and calm. We were going to try and pack it and get everybody to jump around, which I think would be funny at a coffee shop.”
Wednesday’s event, Lingo said, was an overall success.
“I had a great time and I think everyone had a pretty good time,” Lingo said. “It was a great time hanging out with everybody and listening to good music.”