Belmont students showed up in full force for the annual Greek Sing event on April 24 on the McWhorter Hall lawn.
Ticket sales, concessions, coin drives and sponsor donations for the event raised $23,445 for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital — over $3,000 more than previous years.
“I always say Belmont has the secret sauce, like they’ve found what motivates students and what gets them to raise money,” said Mare Rhodes, a St. Jude’s representative. Rhodes attends events like this all across the state, she said.
Belmont’s Greek Sing is a concert-like event in which some of the Greek life sororities and fraternities perform dance numbers and themed songs to raise money for St. Jude. This year’s participating groups were Kappa Alpha Theta, Phi Kappa Tau, Alpha Gamma Delta, Delta Sigma Theta, Alpha Sigma Tau and Phi Mu.
Covers of classic songs are a popular choice for the event, like Kappa Alpha Theta’s version of “Dark Horse” by Katy Perry and Phi Mu’s “Crazy in Love” by Beyonce. Alpha Gamma Delta’s version of “Womanizer” by Britney Spears changed the titular lyric to “hunger fighter” in reference to its community service work in hunger prevention.
One performance that seemed to really stick with the crowd was from Alpha Gamma Delta and its show “Dawn of Pop.” They did a version of “The Climb” by Miley Cyrus, and while the music ended up cutting out due to technical difficulties, the singer continued with no backing track — and the crowd went crazy.
And while the atmosphere was charged, there was an air of camaraderie through the evening.
Commentators went up on stage and gave their opinions of the performances at the end of the show.
“That was the most creative thing I’ve ever seen,” Kate Neal, marketing director for event sponsor BeReal said of Theta’s performance.
“Y'all definitely put a lot of skills on display,” said Joe Mankowski, assistant director of fitness and recreation at Belmont.
Rhodes emphasized the importance of the event and the impact that the chapters can have.
“The money raised at this event and all the other events every year is helping St. Jude further its missions of finding cures and saving children,” said Rhodes. “There’s no better work you could do.”
Greek Sing will return with a whole new slate of performances this fall.
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PHOTO: Kappa Alpha Theta onstage during Greek Sing. Reyna Galvez / Belmont Vision
This article was written by Joanna Walden.
CORRECTION: This story was updated to clarify a quote from Mare Rhodes.