Advertising junior Resheid Jackson, second left, points toward other MSU teammates during a timeout as psychology senior Najah Allen and marketing junior Shelia Roby listen during the “Dropping Dimes for Babies” basketball game hosted by the National Pan-Hellenic Council against students from Wayne State University on Friday at IM Sports-Circle.
Despite some recent competition between some of the black fraternities and sororities on campus to recruit members, Greek Weekend event coordinator and Alpha Phi Alpha member Philip Lewis said it was a success.
“This shows that we can all come together for a greater good,” Lewis, a sociology senior, said. “That’s why I think this weekend, especially for it being the first time, is successful.”
The MSU National Pan-Hellenic Council, or NPHC, hosted its first Greek Weekend from Thursday to Sunday. Several events were held, and many of them were aimed to assist local nonprofit organizations.
“The MSU Greek Weekend is something that we really thought we needed to do to help give back, not only to the MSU community but the Lansing community as well,” said Lewis.
Lewis initially presented the idea of Greek Week to the NPHC, and in turn, Lewis became the event coordinator.
“When it was presented to us, we helped with getting a lot of the things going, brought in the other organizations,” NPHC president and Iota Phi Theta member Resheid Jackson said. “We helped with getting everybody involved.”
One of the events held, the “Dropping Dimes For Babies” basketball game, was a donation-based event, and more than 500 food donations collected from “MSU Stroll-Off” went to the Greater Lansing Food Bank.
“It’s pretty much based on service, and that’s what our fraternities are about,” Lewis said. “It’s really a great thing to get everyone together.”
Jackson also hopes such an event can help MSU’s black community become more active.
“One of the things I notice is that our community as a whole is losing its leadership roles,” he said. “When I was a freshman, there were a lot of freshman that were, of course, on top of their books, but were also making sure they were connected.”
Today, Jackson said the willingness to stay connected isn’t as strong.
“It doesn’t seem like a lot of people want to network, or if they do want to network, they want to have fun,” he said. “We need to be the people that are pushing for ourselves. The leadership roles, they help build our resume, help build our character. They help build us.”
Lewis and Jackson both hope that Greek Weekend will become an annual event.
“That was my plan when I presented it to them,” Lewis said. “I’ll be gone in May, so if it can continue on for as long as it needs to, that would be awesome.”
Humanities senior and Delta Sigma Theta member Amy Brown said the campus participation of the event made her proud.
“What we’ve accomplished is getting more publicity and making a statement on campus,” Brown said. “People on campus, they’ve never heard of NPHC and the African American fraternities and sororities. Now they know what we’re about.”
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