Philanthropy

What is St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital?

Unsure of his life’s direction, a young Danny Thomas sought guidance from St. Jude Thaddeus, the patron saint of hopeless causes. If the saint would point to the path he should take, Danny vowed to build a shrine in his name. Success followed Danny’s plea and soon after, the legendary entertainer set about fulfilling his vow to St. Jude. The result was St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. St. Jude has spent more than half a century finding cures and saving children, and their groundbreaking research has helped push the survival rate for childhood cancer from less than 20% in 1962 to more than 80% today.
More than 30 years ago, Tau Kappa Epsilon joined the fight against childhood cancer when Danny Thomas asked his fraternity help him with his cause. At the beginning of 2016, TKE pledged to raise $2.6 million towards the naming of the proton therapy synchrotron/particle accelerator in the Red Frog Proton Therapy Center. TKE’s goal is to reach this commitment within six years have already raised $2 million towards this goal so far. The money raised by TKE Nation helps ensure families never receive a bill from St. Jude for treatment, travel, housing or food — because all a family should worry about is helping their child live.

Screams For St. Jude

This past semester, we hosted our second annual Screams for St. Jude on October 30th. This event was a haunted house and carnival hosted out of our chapter facility. We transformed our property into a carnival full of games and activities and our house into a three-story haunted house. We grew our event by adding a floor to the haunted house and the carnival to help with the wait times. Our event went on 7:00 PM to 11:00 PM and we had 650 participants come through our house and we raised over $4,200 dollars to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. We had the pleasure of working with Lambda Theta Alpha Latin Sorority Incorporated. They were extremely helpful in the planning and execution of the carnival. We look forward to helping them with their event this spring Acts for St Jude.

Mac Attack

We will also be working with Delta Delta Delta Sorority to put on St. Jude Week. This week will be a week full of events to raise money. Our largest event of the week will be Mac Attack. We serve the community Mac and Cheese and host various competitions and activities. This is one of the largest philanthropy events in our community and we are looking to have over 1000 participants this year.

We have set our goal of raising more than $60,000 dollars for St. Jude this year and we have raised $43,000 dollars this fall so we are well on our way to reaching our goal.

Ash Avenue Fest

Starting in 2019, the men of Epsilon have paired with four other fraternities on Ash Avenue to throw Ash Avenue Fest. This is a joint philanthropy that helps raise awareness for all fraternities causes. Each fraternity has an event at their facility such as soap hockey, volleyball, inflatables, or others. This event, started by Matthew Kaczynski, our 2019 philanthropy chair, is a one of a kind joint philanthropy that was largely unheard of in the community’s history.