For the past few weeks, the tables outside Hughes–Trigghave been a cutthroat battleground. Fraternities and sororitieshave been competing for time, money and participants for theirindividual philanthropy events.

In fact, this Saturday is full of watermelon-bashing,volleyball-spiking and crawfish-eating. Trying to do all at oncemay be dangerous.

This year, Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity is throwing its secondannual Watermelon Bash, Kappa Sigma fraternity is hosting Spikesfor Tikes and Kappa Alpha Order is serving crawfish, all to raisemoney for their philanthropies. The problem is the fundraisers areall on the same day, at pretty much the same time, at completelydifferent places.

Lambda Chi starts the morning of Sat., March 27 off at SororityPark with female teams competing in various events based aroundwatermelons.

The day starts at 10:30 a.m. and runs until 3 p.m. Money raisedwill go towards the North Texas Food Bank.

“Last year we had great success and are just looking tobuild on it this year. So far we have had a great response,”Lambda Chi Philanthropy Chair Eric Richards said.

Kappa Sig travels to Jack’s Pub where it will host avolleyball tournament to raise money for the Jubilee Center, anafter school program located in South Dallas. Games start at 11a.m.

Kappa Alpha will be next door to Jack’s at the GreenElephant from noon to 6 p.m., serving crawfish to raise money forthe Muscular Dystrophy Association.

If planned correctly, one could make it to Lambda Chi to watchgirls fight over watermelons for half an hour, work up an appetiteplaying one game of volleyball at Kappa Sig, and run over to KappaAlpha for some lunch.

All joking aside, this poor planning may propose some seriousproblems in participation, which will affect the amount of moneymade for these organizations.

“It seems typical that we would schedule our event on thesame day as everyone else, but so far it has not been a problem. Wehave 10 to 15 teams signed up and have made a good amount ofmoney,” Kappa Sig Philanthropy Chair Tyler Parr said.

But fraternities and sororities are not the only groups affectedby the tight scheduling. Non-greek students are also feeling thepressure of what to do.

“It is hard to participate in everyone’s events whenthere are so many to choose from. I could not imagine if I were ina sorority and had to participate in my own philanthropy as well aseveryone else’s,” sophomore Aditi Shivapurker said.

And next weekend does not look much different.

Chi Omega had the right idea and scheduled its Fashion with aPassion Show for Friday, April 2. The runway opens at 6 p.m. inUmphrey Lee Ballroom to raise money for the Make a WishFoundation.

However, Saturday April 3 is another battle of good causes, whenDelta Gamma and Pi Kappa Alpha put on their sporting events thatraise $3,000 to $5,000 every year.

Delta Gamma hosts its four-on-four basketball tournament, AnchorSlam, to raise money for the Service for Sight. Games start on theBoulevard at 10 a.m.

For non-basketball players, Pike has its fourth annual PowderPuff football tournament to fight leukemia.

Money raised will go towards the Ryan Gibson Foundation.

Dual scheduling would normally not be an issue since Anchor Slamis aimed towards males and Powder Puff is normally a girls flagfootball tournament, but things got complicated when Pike plannedto possibly add a guys division to the day long event.

“At first I was scared that we would lose a lot of teamsto Pike when I heard it was possibly adding a guys division, buteveryone has been very supportive and cooperative in organizingteams for each other’s tournaments,” Anchor Slamcoordinator Lyssa Allen said.

Inter Fraternity Council President Jim Barber, suggested thatscheduling this year may have been an issue because of Easterweekend, but is still thinking positive about the events going onduring these next two weeks.

“I think it is great to see all the fraternities andsororities working to raise money for these organizations. If toomany events is a problem, I think it is a good problem tohave,” Barber said.

The answer for all the non-athletes is chili.

Beta Theta Pi throws its annual Chili Cook-off at the GreenElephant, which raises money for the Society for the Prevention ofCruelty to Animals (SPCA).

There will be different types of chili, live music and choicebeverages from noon to 6 p.m.

So whether you are bashing, spiking, slamming, puffing oreating, the money raised is going to a good cause.

“They are all just such great events that I would hate tosee someone miss out,” Allen said.