Pack-a-Thon, an organization that works year-round to raise money and awareness for the North Carolina Children’s Hospital, is working to come up with an original idea to raise money for the Children’s Hospital that could also serve as a new University tradition.
Emily Gray, president of Pack-a-Thon, said the club sent out an e-mail to all student organizations a few weeks ago calling for original and unique tradition ideas.
“We wanted to do something different this year, something that everyone on campus could be involved in,” Gray said. “We were very pleased with the amount of responses. 40 students sent in ideas within the week the survey was open.”
Five finalists from the 40 entries were awarded $25 gift cards. The winner of the competition received $75 and the promise that his or her idea would be implemented as a new University tradition and fundraising effort by Pack-a-Thon.
Pack-a-Thon selected May Chung, a sophomore in English secondary education, as the grand-prize winner.
Chung’s idea was to create a “giant obstacle course” around campus to include many of the University’s most popular landmarks.
“The obstacle course could include fun activities such as swimming in the Talley fountain or painting the Free Expression Tunnel,” Chung said. “It would turn out great if a lot of people participated.”
Gray said Pack-a-Thon has plans to implement Chung’s idea and incorporate some of the other entries as well.
“We are going to call our event Pack Life, because we want to center the obstacle course around the life of a N.C. State student,” Gray said. “It also stands for the Pack coming together to save the life of a child.”
Pack Life is tentatively scheduled for mid-April. Gray said registration is planned to start in late November. The fee for entering is $100 for a team of five students, with all of the proceeds going to the N.C. Children’s Hospital.
While Pack-a-Thon is optimistic about Pack Life becoming a long-lasting University tradition, some students have different ideas of what makes a tradition.
“It is possible to come up with an idea that would be a good tradition, but it takes some time to make a real tradition,” said Megan Schneider, freshman in biology and nutrition. “If Pack Life is still around by the time I graduate, then it would really be a tradition.”
Nicholas Dippel, a junior in polymer and color chemistry, was one of the five finalists for the competition. His idea was to have a “bed race” where student and community members make creative race cars out of mattresses and race down a street on campus.
“A tradition happens when a group of people that share a common passion and interest get together to make a difference in their community,” Dippel said. “That could definitely happen with this idea.”
Although Dippel does not plan on organizing his event by himself, he hopes that other clubs will look into the possibility.
“You can Google this idea and see how other universities and communities have had a lot of success, and fun, doing this,” Dippel said.
There were three other finalists. Claire Duff, a sophomore in business administration, submitted an idea to give students an opportunity to take pictures with athletes, and Joseph Rozsa, a senior in business administration, wanted to have an inter-college competition. Accounting junior Caroline Williams’ idea was to make the Bell Tower an “angel tree” with pictures of children that students could sponsor for Christmas.
