March 28, 2024

The brothers of Beta Theta Pi took the phrase “Tiger Up” to a whole new level with their third annual Animal House philanthropy event this past Thursday.

The event included nine square, a food truck from Young’s Dairy and animals from the Columbus Zoo. The zoo brought animals including a penguin, a clouded leopard and a sloth.

The Beta brothers also sold “College” tshirts, to pay tribute to the Animal House movie. Beta DJ Luke Ballard, ‘20, even made sure to play animal appropriate songs including “Roar” by Katy Perry and “Eye of the Tiger” by Survivor.

Students packed around the Columbus Zoo truck while the handlers brought the animals around for students to touch and ask questions, and they stole the show: countless Snapchat and Instagram stories documented the event’s success.

“The sloth was for sure my favorite,” Lexie Cole, ‘19, said. “The little guy was so content just climbing around on his little stand while we all took like, a million pictures with him.”

Proceeds from this event were to support the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). WWF works to conserve nature and reduce the most pressing threats to the diversity of life on earth. While the presence of the zoo animals proved to be a very successful way of drawing in a crowd, getting them there wasn’t all fun and games.

“The main thing that was difficult was getting in touch with their animal promotions department,” Alex Quillin, ‘19 and philanthropy chair, said. “There’s only two people that work in the office and they are only there a couple days a week due to the frequent events that they do.”

In previous years, the Animal House event has been an invite-only event that was held at the Beta house. But, because of the great interest in the event all around campus, the brothers didn’t want students to feel excluded, so they decided to open up the event this year.

“Over 250 people showed up throughout the course of the event, so clearly there was interest,” Quillin said.

 
 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *