By night’s end of the inaugural Sig Delt Shakedown last Sunday, Nov. 15, the University of Hartford Sigma Delta Tau sorority had raised $7,065 for Prevent Child Abuse America (PCAA), reportedly making it the highest donation made by any University of Hartford Greek Life chapter.
Sig Delt Shakedown was a dance battle competition between four of the six University of Hartford sorority chapters with Delta Gamma taking home the first place prize.
Finishing in second place was Delta Zeta, third place was Sigma Kappa and rounding it out in fourth place was Phi Mu.
Each chapter was also asked to raise money for their respective national philanthropies.
As an incentive to win, only the first place winner would get to keep all of their fundraised money while second, third and fourth place would have to relinquish their money to be included with Sigma Delta Tau’s donation to PCAA.
Sigma Delta Tau began raising money in May by asking for donations from friends, family, alumni and Sigma Delta Tau chapters at other universities and colleges. Going into Sunday night’s event, the sorority had already raised over $6,000.
For that amount of money coming from a small private school like the University of Hartford, Sigma Delta Tau senior programming chair Jackie Heatter said that it’s a big deal.
“For big schools like Penn State they give like $20,000 and that’s big for them,” Heatter said. “Usually we’re only giving $1,000 because it’s hard to raise money, but for us to say that ‘we have $6,000 for you’ for such a small school, it’s a very big deal. We’re just trying to promote that to the school and show that Greek Life is a good thing.”
The idea for having the Sig Delt Shakedown came from Sigma Delta Tau vice president of philanthropy Lauren Platt, who has a friend that goes to the University of Georgia where they do a similar thing called “Greek Grind.”
“Our main thing for this was not only to make our chapter look good, but for Greek Life as a whole to look good,” Heatter said.
Also performing dance showcases during the night were the UHa Steppaz, members from each of the Greek Life fraternities and Sigma Delta Tau themselves.
Judges for the dance competition were University of Hartford Interfraternity Council advisor Abe Siliman, Sigma Delta Tau sister and former vice president of philanthropy Nikki Bellicha, University of Hartford director of student activities and Greek Life Felicia Bumpus and University of Hartford president Walter Harrison.
Prevent Child Abuse America is a voluntary organization dedicated to the prevention of child abuse through citizen action.
PCAA builds awareness, promotes and enacts prevention efforts and works to ensure that every child has the opportunity to achieve his or her full potential.
Sigma Delta Tau adopted PCAA as their national philanthropy in 1982 and have been raising money doing charity events since.