From March 28 to April 5, Brothers hosted their twelfth annual Charity Week. This year the proceeds will be sent to the Hamilton Arts Center and The Commission of Women Victims for Victims (KOFAVIV), an or­ganization that supports victims of sexual violence in Haiti. The week was hectic, as Brothers hosted a myriad of activities to draw in different audiences.

“The week was busy, it was pretty successful, though, considering the large number of other fundraising events going on,” junior and Broth­ers Chief Josh Morris said. Mor­ris was in charge of planning and working on the proposal for the events, as well as overseeing them to make sure everything went well.

“So far we’ve collected more than $3,100, and that’s not counting two events that we haven’t factored in yet. T-shirt sales were a big part of that, and the Bachelor Auction was another big part of that,” Morris said. “Normally we make about $4,000 during the entire charity week. I know we didn’t make that amount, but we did really well considering the circumstances.”

One of the difficult things this past week has been the wealth of other fundraising activities compet­ing for the student body’s interest and participation. Although nor­mally the Auction brings in the most profit, “this year I believe the t-shirts were the biggest. For the Bachelor Auction we lost a lot of our audience to mandatory school events and Par­ty for Pink, which were on the same night,” Morris said.

“Aside from the annual speaker we bring to campus, charity week is the largest scale programming that Brothers does,” said sophomore Jaebum Byun, the Brothers Trea­surer and a member of the Broth­ers Core alongside Morris. “For this event, although we have our specif­ic titles, we don’t necessarily just do our role – we work as a core group of leaders and try to help out in any way we can.”

The jam-packed schedule of the week itself is certainly a tes­tament to strong teamwork and leadership. On Monday, March 28, the week opened with a bake sale at the O’Connor Campus Center (Coop). Tuesday there was a BBQ on the quad, for which Brothers volunteers braved the chilly weather. “[The BBQ] went okay, although it was pretty cold so people were just grabbing food, donating, then running. The grills kept us slightly warm, but even they couldn’t do the full job – it was brutal. At least it was for a good cause,” Morris said.

Later on Tuesday, in honor of this year’s support of KOFAVIV, Haitian ambassador Raymond A. Joseph came to speak. “It was a great speech; he spoke on the reconstruction efforts in Haiti. His basic message was that out­siders need to give [Haitian people] the resources to actually rebuild Haiti, instead of going in and doing it them­selves. He was basically preaching the message give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime,” Morris said.

On Wednesday, March 30, Broth­ers co-hosted their 3rd annual Poker Night at Theta Chi, a great success according to sophomore, Brothers member and Theta Chi brother An­drew McCormick, who enjoyed him­self, despite being the first eliminated. “It was a good turnout, especially from freshman guys; in the future we hope to see more of the campus represented, but it was a great success for Brothers Charity Week,” McCormick said.

On Thursday, March 31st, the Brothers’ Bachelor Auction was host­ed in Love Auditorium. This event can always count on a crowd, and despite the other events that night it still seemed to find success. “It’s always really fun. Girls going crazy, guys lik­ing the attention. It’s the one annual event where the gender roles are pretty much switched, where the guys are be­ing adored and the girls are paying for the pleasure of their company,” junior and Brothers member Jason Lee said.

Some of the men being auc­tioned off were a little less excited about the ordeal. “I was apprehen­sive, although when I thought about the purpose of the event I decided I wouldn’t mind doing it,” junior and Brothers member Trinel Torian said.

Friday, April 1, was the night of the Brothers charity banquet for KOFA­VIV, organized in collaboration with CSA and supported by a number of other groups. This event was well at­tended, and served its purpose to edu­cate attendees on sexual violence in Haiti. Students presented various facts to the audience and read quotes by victims. There were also several music, poetry and dance performances.

On Saturday, April 2, Hun­tington Gymnasium was home to the 3-on-3 basketball tournament co-hosted by Theta Chi and DU. Trophies were awarded to winners of the tournament, the 3-point contest and the dunk competition.

Then, to close off the week, on Tuesday, April 5, the 2nd Annual Super Smash Bros. Tournament was held in Donovan’s Pub. This event was co-hosted by Brothers and the Blue Diamond Society (BDS). “I was personally very happy because we made a lot of adjustments from last year, which had been very hec­tic – last time lots of people showed up at the door and the bracket was impossible. But this year it was a lot more organized, I didn’t need to yell and everything went smooth­ly!” Byun said. The tournament is one event he was in charge of, and his personal favorite.

“The tournament was entertain­ing, a really fun environment. There were a lot of people there; every­one was being kind of crazy. It was good that everyone was able to be themselves,” sophomore attendee Anneliese Gretsch said. Gretsch at­tended a few of the week’s events, and maintains that Brothers events always have a creative, fun environment.

The exposure that Charity Week gives to Brothers as an organization is not lost on its organizers. “Brothers has been getting considerably bigger in membership in the past two years. This is something that can be seen especially in events like Charity Week; with this type of programming the whole school gets to see how much we’ve grown and how far we’ve come,” Byun said.

Leaders were confident in their efforts throught the week.

“Overall, I’d say Charity Week was a great success, not just for brothers but also for the causes that will be benefiting from the events,” Brothers sophomore Denny Gonzales said. At the same time, he thinks that they can always find a way to do even better. “Next year we have our 13th annual Charity Week, and the amount of extravagance will hopefully blow this year’s event out of the water,” Gonzales said.