KESEMania
On Friday, Nov. 11, an old rivalry was laid aside for the day in order to celebrate Camp Kesem’s fifth annual KESEMania. Students from both the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University participated in this event, held on the main quad at Duke, which helped to raise both money and awareness for Camp Kesem North Carolina. Camp Kesem North Carolina is a free week-long camp for children whose parents have, or have had, cancer. The camp is run entirely by student volunteers from these rival universities and now serves about 120 campers every year. Camp Kesem works to provide the children who attend a summer camp experience that provides them with the opportunity to be carefree children while simultaneously allowing college students to make a difference and develop critical leadership skills. Camp Kesem is open to children ages 6-16 and located at the Keyauwee Program Center in Sophia, NC. It takes about $45,000 to run, and the proceeds of KESEMania go toward that cost. KESEMania is similar to a fall festival and included many free activities such as a caricaturist, jousting platform, inflatable 22-foot slide, sumo wrestling ring and an inflatable basketball challenge. Visitors were also treated to free apple cider, popcorn and cotton candy. Anyone who donated $1 at KESEMania received a raffle ticket, which entered him or her into a drawing for several gift baskets. Water bottles and T-shirts were also sold at the event, and a total of $500 was raised for Camp Kesem North Carolina. It was a beautiful day on the Duke quad for KESEMania, and the volunteers worked very hard to ensure that it was a successful event. Many of the UNC volunteers are also members of the Greek community here and work hard year-round to contribute to the overall success of Camp Kesem. Camp Kesem is also Lambda Chi’s philanthropy. Without the dedication of these many volunteers, this organization would not be possible. The turnout on Friday was one of the largest seen in the past five years of the event, and many people were able to become aware of and more informed about this noteworthy nonprofit organization. “This was our biggest and best KESEMania so far,” said UNC-CH junior and Camp Kesem Co-Chair Brielle Mantin (Phi Mu). “More than 500 people stopped by and heard about our cause.” To learn more about Camp Kesem and other ways you can contribute, visit www.campkesem.org/northcarolina.
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