On the beautiful sunny day of March 1st, numerous Florida State student organizations came out to Heritage Grove to participate in “Water Wars,” Alpha Gamma Delta’s annual spring philanthropy to raise money for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and the Alpha Gamma Delta Foundation. The event is held every spring semester and last year raised over $7,000 to be donated to the charities!
Leading Up To The Event:
The week before “Water Wars,” participating teams had the opportunity to earn points before the actual event began. The first activity was a funny banner competition, where teams were able to go to the Alpha Gamma Delta house and take funny pictures in front of the “Water Wars” banner. Every picture uploaded onto Instagram with the hashtag “thismeanswar” and @fsualphagam earned the team 5 extra points to their overall total. Two share nights were also held at Moe’s Southwest Grill and Firehouse Subs, where all proceeds raised by purchasing a meal at either of the two restaurants went straight to the philanthropy and the charities.
The Event:
In order to participate, each organization put together a team of four people. Each team was led by their “reps,” two Alpha Gamma Delta sisters that gave their teams a fun theme and took them from station to station, recording the amount of points the teams earned as they went around! The teams were put against another team and competed to win each event. Stations included a slip-n-slide, water balloon dodge ball, swimwear relay, and the tug of war to name just a few!
The Results:
The overall women’s team champion award belonged to the Sigma Delta Tau team, with Chi Phi taking home the overall men’s team champions award! Spirit awards were also provided to Chi Omega and Delta Chi as they consistently kept happy and peppy during the event and gave each activity their all!
The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation:
The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) focuses on developing the skills and resources necessary to conduct research on finding cures and additional treatments for type II diabetes (a disease that causes very high levels of glucose in the blood.) This chronic disease affects 90% of Americans suffering from diabetes, including a group of students at Florida State!
Alpha Gamma Delta Foundation:
The Alpha Gamma Delta Foundation works to provide annual grants to students and various organizations for research. Additionally, funds are given for the care and treatment of diabetes patients, as well as a large amount of funding going towards providing students with education about diabetes. Alpha Gamma Delta’s international president, Jackie Brannon Stutts, feels passionately about the cause and states, “the mission of Alpha Gamma Delta Foundation is to impact and enrich our communities by providing essential support for education, philanthropy and leadership.” The wonderful women of Alpha Gamma Delta at Florida State uphold these ideals and donate all of the funds raised from “Water Wars” to both of these charity foundations annually.