Kappa Delta holds Wild Bill roast for charity
Each year, the Kappa Delta sorority organizes a week of fundraising for the Child and Family Support Center of Cache Valley and one of the sorority’s national philanthropies, Prevent Child Abuse America.
“Eighty percent of the proceeds will go to the Child and Family Support Center and 20 percent go to PCA America,” said Jenna Black, the vice president of public relations for Kappa Delta. “The Child and Family Support Center serves more families in Cache County than many people realize. They are a nonprofit organization, so they really need our help in order to serve children and families in our county.”
According to the PCA America website, the organization “has led the way in building awareness, providing education, and inspiring hope to everyone involved in the effort to prevent the abuse and neglect of our nation’s children.”
Events organized for the week of fundraising included a fundraiser at Fox’s Pizza Den, a dodgeball tournament and a comedy roast of Bill Sproat, known to USU basketball fans as “Wild Bill.”
During the roast Wednesday, Sproat was teased and insulted by a panel of his friends. The event was held in the Eccles Science Learning Center auditorium and tickets were $5 at the door. “We got the idea to do the roast while we were at a leadership conference for Kappa Deltas around the nation,” Black said. “A couple of our council members were up late talking about Shamrock event ideas and one of them just thought of doing a roast. We presented it to Bill, and he was totally on board with us.”
There were six roasters, including ASUSU President Erik Mikkelsen, Athletics Vice President Ryan Baylis and student Keenan Nuehring.
Baylis was the master of ceremonies for the roast. Following along with the popular televised celebrity roasts, each panel member took a turn roasting Sproat and teasing fellow panel members.
Black said Sproat chose his roasters and specifically asked for Baylis to be the roast master.
Chase Casillas, a roaster, said he was a little unsure about being on the panel at first.
“When I found out Bill handpicked the panel, I was on board,” Casillas said. “He’s a good friend of mine and a solid dude. So if he wanted me on the show, then I was down.”
Each roaster took his turn joking about Sproat’s 12 years as a student at USU, funny moments spent with Sproat and his presence at Aggie basketball games.
“You’ve been a good friend to me, Bill. But I want you to know you’re not a celebrity,” Nuehring said during the roast.
“Bill, you have a very strange career. You took your shirt off, you went famous,” Casillas said during his roast.
During his turn to roast Sproat and the panel, Mikkelsen created a slideshow presentation that contained pictures from Facebook.
“Some of these guys I know and some of them I don’t, so I started looking at their Facebook pages and some things started to come to light. So I decided to make a presentation,” Mikkelsen said.
Mikkelsen used the photos as comic material to tease the panel with.
“We all love Bill,” said roaster Josh McDonald.
“I’m not as funny as you might think,” Sproat said. “I know some of you came out to hear me get made fun of, but it goes to a good cause – preventing child abuse.”
Black said she thought the roast was successful.
“None of the panel members held back, which made it really funny,” Black said.
“I think the Shamrock fundraiser that Kappa Delta does is a really strong program that not only helps raise awareness of child abuse and families in crisis, but also lends a helping hand to help prevent it,” Casillas said.
Leigh Dean, the development coordinator at the Child and Family Support Center, said the Kappa Delta sorority has been supporting the center for at least the past five years.
“They have been a great supporter for the center,” Dean said. “They have been great supporters for events that we sponsor by being volunteers. They are great assets and provide the volunteers that we need to make events a great success.”
Dean said last year the center helped 5,292 children with direct services and 2,124 parents. The center’s respite nursery had 3,788 visits last year.
Dean said the donations from Kappa Delta’s fundraisers would be used to support the center’s general services.
“We have been serving the community since 1982, so this is our 30-year anniversary of the center,” Dean said. “We provide four core services – a 24-hour crisis-respite nursery, a therapy department for victims of abuse, parenting education and children education.”
April is Child Abuse Awareness Month, and the Child and Family Support Center will hold events throughout the month. For more information about these events, Dean said to visit the center’s website at www.cachecfsc.org.
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