IFC expands community outreach with IFCares

IFCares hopes to have Saturday events at least twice each month.

By Travis Cornejo

Published March 2, 2010

The Interfraternity Council hosted its second Saturday of Service in conjunction with IFCares, a new service event created by the 2010 IFC executive council.

"When I first ran for programming (vice president), one of my biggest things was improving on the service of our IFC community," IFC Programming Vice President Jeremy Johnson said.

Johnson said talking with IFC's Greek Life adviser helped him create a more realistic goal.

"The goal is to have these on at least two or three Saturdays a month," IFC President Brandon Green said. "It just basically depends on what local places in Columbia can take us."

Green said if organizations can take them every Saturday, then they'll host IFCares events every Saturday.

The idea for IFCares was created during an IFC retreat, where executive board members were setting goals for the year, Johnson said.

"It started off because I wanted to do a huge IFC service event and after talking about it with the executive board, we realized it would be a lot more effective if we just did smaller service events every single Saturday," Johnson said.

He said it is aimed at anyone and everyone in the IFC community.

"I think that with this, it's trying to really put an emphasis on service and really put service at the forefront of what our community is trying to do," IFC spokesman Danny Ritz said.

Ritz said e-mail notifications are sent to IFC chapter presidents and fraternity members can also sign up on IFC's Web site.

"You're not required to sign up, but we encourage you to because it makes everything more organized," Ritz said.

Ritz said Johnson has already set up all the service events for the rest of the spring semester. The next IFCares event was canceled because of conflicts with the basketball game against Kansas.

"We really want to have this be a big deal and do as much as we can, but we want to be realistic," Ritz said. "It would be tough to get people to go during the KU game."

The last IFCares event took place at Columbia Second Chance. Members from approximately six chapters attended, Ritz said.

"We were pretty happy with the turnout," Ritz said. "I hope as the word spreads, numbers will increase."

Green said the work they did in three hours was more than the organization could have done by themselves.

"A lot of these organizations, they don't have the manpower to do all these things," Green said.

Ritz said IFC is trying to promote service in its community through this program, along with the new Spotlight Chapter program.

"The Spotlight Chapter program rewards the fraternity that demonstrates the four values of IFC: leadership, brotherhood, scholarship and service," Ritz said.

He said IFC is keeping track of what houses are sending a lot of members to IFCares.

"We're asking presidents to send us information, as well, about the service they've been providing the community," Ritz said.

According to the IFC Web site, the winning fraternity of Spotlight Chapter receives a pizza party paid for by IFC, an advertisement in The Maneater, a letter to its national organization and T-shirts.