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By the end of the week, it didn't matter to us that we won because we knew we worked hard to raise money and competed for all the right reasons.
NC State junior and Delta Zeta Jenn Hearon
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Sigma Chi's Mark Anna and two sisters of Zeta Tau Alpha celebrate after an ice-cream-eating contest. Each year, teams from NC State's eight Pan-Hellenic sororities compete at Derby Days to help raise money for the Frankie Lemmon School.
By Dave Pond, Web Communication
Through spirited competitions that included karaoke sing-offs, organized food wars and even roller-skating relay races, NC State's eight Pan-Hellenic sororities pulled out all the stops to help Sigma Chi fraternity raise a record $20,000 for Wake County's oldest preschool serving children with developmental disabilities.
"When we were counting up all the money, we were just shocked," said Michael Sumner, who served as co-chair of 2008 Derby Days alongside fellow Sigma Chi brother Scott Harwood. "We had to triple-count the donations because we couldn't believe how much money the sororities raised."
For 33 years, the brothers of Sigma Chi have hosted the weeklong Derby Days fundraising competition to benefit local and national charities. Since 1994, the non-profit Frankie Lemmon School and Developmental Center has been the event's sole beneficiary.
"For the past twenty years, members of Sigma Chi have passed along their interest in Frankie Lemmon School to new members who joined, and they have made it a priority to become personally involved with the children each year," said Janet Sellers, acting director of Frankie Lemmon School. "Frankie Lemmon School has benefited from the Sigma Chi relationship much more than financially – several of these extraordinary young men, including our current Board Chair, have served on our Board of Directors after they have finished school."
During Derby Days week, members of different sororities volunteered their time and efforts at the school each day, helping to put the event's more competitive aspects into perspective.
"It was such a gratifying experience – I know that I and the rest of the Delta Zetas appreciated Derby Days on a whole different level," NC State junior communications major Jenn Hearon said. "The kids were adorable and it felt good to know that we were helping them out."
"By the end of the week, it didn't matter to us that we won because we knew we worked hard to raise money and competed for all the right reasons," she said. "In supporting Sigma Chi's philanthropy, we were able to have a great time and our chapter was able to bond so much that week."
Sigma Chi and the competing sororities raised money through Derby Days sponsorship and t-shirt sales, tickets to an inter-sorority dance competition as well as Penny Wars, an event in which members of each sorority donate pennies into their own containers while putting coins of other denominations into other sororities jugs, which would "detract" from their rivals' totals.
"Derby Days was a huge success again this year," Sumner said. "Our 2008 donation to Frankie Lemmon School is more than double the amount we were able to give in 2007, and more than our previous three years donations combined."
In 1933, the Sigma Chi chapter at the University of California Berkeley held the fraternity's first incarnation of Derby Days, but it wasn't until the late 1960s that chapters across the country began to combine fun and games with fundraising.
Today, almost all of Sigma Chi's 194 nationwide chapters organize Derby Days events to benefit local organizations, as well as international groups such as the Children's Miracle Network and the United Cerebral Palsy Foundation. Sigma Chi was also the first men's collegiate social fraternity to adopt and maintain an international service project.
"Unfortunately, fraternities and sororities get portrayed negatively a lot of the time in the media," Sumner said. "Sigma Chi is founded on certain principles – we strive to be men of good character and good morals, having a deep sense of personal responsibility to build positive relationships – and we really try to live up to those standards every day."
