March Madness 2012

On March 24th, 2012 at 7:30pm my buddies and I went to support my friend in Chi Omega's 36th Annual March Madness. March Madness is an annual event where all the sororities and fraternities of Illinois State University come together to raise money for the Make-A- Wish Foundation. Every year this event is organized by the Sorority Chi Omega. The Make-A-Wish Foundation is a non-profit organization that grants wishes to children between the ages of 2 and 18 who have life threatening medical conditions. The program started 36 years ago after a member of the Chi Omega sorority passed away after a long battle with Leukemia.  The previous year the a record $16,262.87 was raised. Since the year 2003 the sorority has raised over $90,000. The event takes place in the Braden Auditorium where each frat and sorority compete in a dance off.  The theme of this year's performances was opposites attract, meaning they had to incorporate two different genres of music into one collaborated dance. For example, the fraternity Sigma Phi Epsilon (the frat my friend is in), mixed together country and rap. More specifically they used songs from the country artist Luke Bryan and collaborated them with rap songs from Nelly.  There was a combined total of fifteen sororities and fraternities, which each act lasting about two to three minutes. In between performances there were three exhibition acts. One of the acts was performed by the Acafellaz who are ISU's premier A cappella group. The other two acts were performed by the Noir which was directed towards a theme of hip hop dancing, and ISU's Competitive Dance Team who did a combination of different dances. Each team got their own choice of costume, most of which were homemade. The guys costumes were basically just t-shirts or some just wore their suits. The women's costumes were all glittered up.  The entire show ran from about 7:30pm to 10:30pm. The last performance of the night was a group dance with two members from each sorority and frat.  After that the judges announced the winner. The sorority and frats were each judged separately. The winner for the fraternities was Sigma Phi Epsilon and the winner for the sorority was Gamma Phi Beta.  Sigma Phi Epsilon also was voted number one for the best use of theme by their selection of mixing country with rap. My favorite performance was Sigma Phi Epsilon. It was really cool to see my friend win something that him and his fraternity brothers practiced so hard for.  All the groups did an amazing job and you could tell that a lot of time and effort that went into this event. The money went to a good cause and benefited a lot of people in need.  I would highly recommend going to this event next year. You are guaranteed to have a great time.