KKG & SAE Host Spaghetti Dinner

Photo By Christina Huck

By Christina Huck, senior journalism major, Meek School of Journalism and New Media

cfhuck@go.olemiss.edu

Kappa Kappa Gamma and fraternity Sigma Alpha Epsilon hosted their 6th annual spaghetti dinner at the Kappa house on Tuesday, April 9 with an event that included live music and a bounce house for the kids in attendance.

The annual dinner benefitted Young Life, an organization bringing Jesus Christ into the lives of adolescents in a way that, according to the Young Life website, “recognizes and respects who the kids are and can be.”

Young Life offers many ways to do this, and one of them is summer camp. Most of the proceeds from the dinner will go toward sending children to camp who otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford it.

“It’s really sad,” said Courtney Richards, Kappa philanthropy chair. “Some of them give … any money they can, just as a down payment to go to the camp.”

SAE philanthropy chairs Read Eggar and Trevor Lovelady grew up going to Young Life camp, and so this philanthropy is one that is close to their hearts.

The charity as a whole is also close to the fraternity’s heart as a whole. One thousand dollars of the proceeds will be used to fund a new scholarship in honor of their fraternity brother Price Thornal, who passed away following a car accident this past Easter weekend.

Thornal was from Tallahassee, Florida, and was quite involved in Young Life. The scholarship is earmarked for someone in the Young Life program in need of assistance paying for college.

The number of tickets sold for the event are currently unknown, but Eggar believes they sold close to 2,000 tickets, and Kappa and SAE hope to raise around $15,000 –– $5,000 more than what they raised last year.

“The dinner was a complete success, and it was great to see how big of a turn out we had overall, especially within the Oxford community. We really appreciate and value their support and involvement,” said Eggar. “ It’s great being able to continue helping out Young Life and raising more and more money for them every year. We are looking forward to seeing even more improvement next year.”