By Barbara Young

University of Wisconsin–Stout students may have noticed an extra bustle about the Memorial Student Center this past week due to Greek Week. This week is an annual event put on by the Greek organizations to strengthen ties between the nine sororities and fraternities on campus.

The week is a busy time for Greek members as each day holds new events such as Greek Olympics, Dance Off and Mr. and Ms. Greek Week. At each event throughout the week, members compete for points. By the end of the week, the organization with the most points is named the winner of Greek Week.

“It’s just really nice bringing all Greek organizations together in a fun way and just kind of get to know everybody,” said Sarah Groskreutz, organizer of the event.

Groskreutz, president of the UW–Stout Panhellenic Council, worked in conjunction with the Inner Greek Council and Kris Sundeen, president of the Interfraternity Council, to put on the event.

Each night, from April 7 through April 12, events were scheduled to bring members of the Greek organizations closer together and to work toward their philanthropic goals.

Monday night the groups battled it out in flag football and in Penny Wars. Tuesday night, Fierce Freedom hosted an educational event on sex trafficking for the members of the sorority sisterhood. Wednesday the Greeks battled once more in a classic game of kickball.

Friday hosted the Mr. and Ms. Greek Week competition, in which one representative is chosen from each organization to compete against other representatives to be named number one. Following this event was the Dance Off and Lip Sync competition. The week wrapped up with the Greek Olympics, which hosted events such as an egg toss, truck push and tug-o-war.

Alpha Phi and Sigma Alpha Epsilon won overall at the end of the week.

This year’s Greek Week theme was “Must See” so the Mr. and Ms. Greek Week competition hosted outfits from Legally Blonde and Pitch Perfect, and the banners hanging around the MSC had various movie and TV show logos and themes on them.

“We try to tweak things a little bit every year, so it’ll be interesting to see how it evolves,” Groskreutz said, “But we’re definitely looking for a way to make it more of a community philanthropy event and less of a competition.”

This year the normally free Dance Off event charged spectators either a dollar or a non-perishable food item as an entry fee.  By the end of the night, the event raised 242 lbs of canned goods and $167, which was donated to Stepping Stones.

The week is a great time for members of the Greek community to come together.

“Greek Week this year had a lot of mutual respect for each organization, and I think that while Greek Week can get competitive, it allows us to get to know each other,” she said. “Maybe you’re going to meet your best friend that’s in another Greek organization, but you would never know that if we didn’t have these organizations and these opportunities to bring us together.”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *