Sorority holds 5K fundraiser
This week has been Kappa Delta’s Shamrock week to raise awareness of child abuse in Cache Valley and nationwide. Their largest event, the Shamrock N’ Run 5k, will take place Saturday beginning in the Taggart Student Center.
“Our goal is to raise awareness because child abuse is something that often gets left behind,” said Brenna Ponting, Kappa Delta’s vice president of community service. “It is something that people don’t want to think about or don’t think happens because it because it happens behind closed doors.”
This is the first 5k that Kappa Delta has put on for Shamrock Week. Their hope is to raise at least $3,000 to go to charities that work to prevent child abuse.
“Our Shamrock N’ Run is a basic 5k run around the university,” Ponting said.“The thing that makes it special is that all of our proceeds go towards preventing child abuse. We have 20 percent going to the charity Prevent Child Abuse America and then 80 stays here locally for the Child and Family Support Center here in Logan.”
Shamrock Week has typically been held around St. Patrick’s Day in March, but Utah State’s chapter of Kappa Delta has switched it to the fall this year in hopes of increasing participation.
“In the past we have usually done it around the last week of March but we are doing it in the fall this year because we want it to work better with the weather,” Ponting said. “We felt like there were more opportunities to do things outside this time of year.”
The revenue from the week’s events will go towards the two charities.
“We are one of Prevent Child Abuse America’s biggest donators which is a nonprofit agency, so they use the funds we raise for everything they do,” Ponting said. “As for the Child and Family Support Center they also are nonprofit so they use it for all their programs and to keep their nursery nice and up to date. They are really prominent within our community here.”
In addition to the 5k run Kappa Delta has put on three other events this week including yoga on the Quad Monday, a service auction in the Skyroom Tuesday and a dodgeball tournament which wwas held Wednesday.
“We did much better than we thought we would at our service auction,” said Madeline Beus, Kappa Delta’s vice president of public relations. “We raised over $1,000 doing it so we were pretty excited about that.”
Pre-registration for the Shamrock N’ Run is $15. Day of event registration is $20 for adults, $10 for ages 11-17 and $5 for ages 10 and under. Day-of registration begins at 9 a.m. and the race will begin at 10. After the run prizes will be awarded to the top runners. Kappa Delta will conclude the event with a free barbeque.