This past Friday, Illegal Pete’s hosted a fundraiser for a Greek service trip to Gulfport, Miss. to help areas affected by Hurricane Katrina and other recent disasters. While the Greek service trip is an annual event, the fundraising event began this year in effort to raise school and community awareness of the annual service trip.

The total amount raised during the fundraiser have not yet been totaled, however, Vice President of Philanthropy in the Intramural Greek Council Gage Crispe called the event “a huge success.”

According to Crispe, the total cost for each person who will attend the trip is $800. Sixteen members are currently scheduled for the trip, total of $13,000 in required funds.

All patrons who mentioned the word “hurricane” or simply said they were there for the fundraiser had 15 percent of the funds from their purchase donated to help Greek students pay for this year’s excursion.

The group of over 20 Greek students from the university will be working, once again, with Habitat for Humanity.  This will be the second annual service trip to Gulfport.

Students will help to build homes and other damaged structures with the help of Habitat for Humanity. The trip goes to Gulfport each year, rather than choosing new destinations, in order to provide continued support to the community.

“Even though this tragedy feels like it was a long time ago, and everything must be fixed by now is not true.  People are still struggling with keeping up their homes everyday,” said Crispe.

Since the fundraising for the trip is new, the organization did not have a target amount to raise.  According to Crsipe, this year they were more interested in seeing how much money they could make.  Depending on how successful the fundraiser is, there is a possibility it will be done again in following years.

At 9 p.m., a student band called The Tickle Mafia performed. The band’s members are Nate Leichtman, Megan Letts, Derrick Bozich, Kenny Martinez, Jackson Hillmer, Justin Peterson, Sean Culliton and Aeryk Parker.

Tickle Mafia helped to raise funds because the band was able to make periodic announcements about the fundraiser, informing patrons on how they could help victims of natural disasters.