TKE bakes for charity

Tau Kappa Epsilon (TKE) fraternity hosted their first hot chocolate bake sale, Chocos with Locos, on campus to raise money for St. Jude Children’s Hospital.

The bake sale was held on Dec. 3 at the Fine Arts Center breezeway and Dec. 4 at the Founders Hall breezeway from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. There were a number of items sold, including hot chocolate, Pop- Tarts and candy, and they were giving away cookies with or without making a donation. For this particular sale, there were no prices for any of the items. As long as you made a donation, you could choose whatever item was available on the table.

The idea to host a hot chocolate bake sale came from sophomore business major Jaykush Patel. Other TKE members who were a part of the sale were junior general business major Kelly Jacobs, sophomore business management major Garett Lee, junior biology major Bryce Cooper and freshman marketing major Scottie Rivera.

St. Jude has been the TKE’s national philanthropy for more than 50 years. With the help from donations such as these, families will not have to worry about extreme costs of getting treatment from St. Jude. So far, they have raised more than $2 million dollars from working with St. Jude. TKE raised $183 during the twoday Chocos with Locos fundraiser.

“The best thing about raising money is knowing that all of my time and effort is going to save a child’s life,” Jacobs said. “It’s good to know that I’m doing this so they can have the same opportunities I have and also becoming a TKE.”

Lee had the same positive outlook on volunteering.

“I, and the rest of us, enjoy giving back to the community and to FMU,” Lee said. “It is just good to be able to give back in general.”

TKE is planning to host another hot chocolate bake sale in the spring of 2016. They will also be hosting their annual event next semester, Chef & Child. This event is hosted by the McLeod foundation that the TKE are apart of and is also supported by the Performance Food Groups Most of the proceeds from these fundraisers will go to the Red Cross.

Along with another bake sale, they are having two blood drives on campus for the Red Cross next semester. Sophomore nursing major Landen Walters made a statement about the philanthropy work with the Red Cross.

“We usually associate every type of philanthropy event with them since they do go out of their way to include us in any opportunity,” Walters said.