After selling out more than 1,200 seats in the Performing Arts Center (PAC), Cal Poly Theta Chi raised $15,600 through Sorority Best Dance Competition (SBDC) for the Big Brothers Big Sisters of San Luis Obispo organization according to Alumni Chair Dylan Glass.
SBDC is a philanthropy event run by Theta Chi where sororities form a dance team and work together with a couple of members of Theta Chi to produce a three- to four-minute dance. The teams perform at the event and are scored by a group of judges, according to Theta Chi Vice President Jack Murphy.
Sigma Kappa won first place, according to the Cal Poly Theta Chi Instagram.
The Big Brothers Big Sisters of San Luis Obispo County supports one-to-one mentoring opportunities within SLO County. Their organization provides partnering volunteers or “bigs” with children to participate in activities together. Through this partnership, it provides children with an opportunity to learn and gain more life skills.
“We’re a nonprofit organization. And so donations really fuel all of our programs…We’re so grateful to partner with [Theta Chi] and for them to give us the opportunity to not only raise money and support our organization but also to get awareness about our work, especially with the students at Cal Poly,” Big Brothers Big Sisters of San Luis Obispo County Executive Director Stacy Salame said.
Through the money raised, it helps sponsor children in The Big Brother Big Sisters of San Luis Obispo County.
According to Glass, it costs around $2,000 to sponsor a child for a year from the Big Brothers Big Sisters of San Luis Obispo organization. With the money raised, roughly seven kids have opportunities to have access to mentorship and activities.
This year was the first time SBDC took place in the PAC; previously it was held in the Chumash Auditorium.
“It was really positive this year, and a lot of people came,” Glass said.
The event is additionally mixed with pieces of comedic entertainment from Theta Chi MCs between dances, according to Murphy.
Murphy and Glass helped oversee the event by communicating with the sororities and promoting the event via Instagram.
“Generally [I’m] organizing the event, communicating with the Performing Arts Center, in my chapter and all the other sororities and then just promoting as much as I could,” Murphy said.
To prepare for SBDC, sororities choreograph and practice their routines for six months. Child development senior Caroline Quigley was a co-choreographer for third place winners, Gamma Phi Beta. Her role consisted of choosing the music and putting the songs together, figuring out the outfits worn in performance, and organizing everyone’s schedule together.
“We do it like starting from January…It’s a long process of kind of getting everything together,” she said.
Quigley additionally worked with her sorority “little,” child development junior Reilly Fraser, weekly to choreograph the dance.
“We’re really proud of what it came out like,” Quigley said.
Quigley said she appreciates SBDC allowing her to dance with her other sorority members and to help dancers stay dancing in college.
“You can really feel like the energy especially in our team like we would be like yelling on stage during the dance just like hyping each other up so that was like a really cool part of it,” she said. “It’s just having fun with with the girls that you’ve been practicing, putting in hours with for so long, so it finally pays off.”
