Two weeks ago, Alpha Epsilon Phi and Maryland Hillel hosted their philanthropy event, Cupcake Wars. This event brought together members of the Greek and Jewish communities using food and a passion for cupcake decorating.

Teams were given 15 cupcakes to decorate in 20 minutes according to the theme of “Save the Day,” which was open to artist interpretation. Some teams transformed their cupcakes into murals of superheroes like the Green Lantern, whereas others took a more environmental approach, decorating cupcakes with recycling symbols and flowers. One team even centered their cupcakes on the theme of doctors saving the day and battling breast cancer. I never expected to see such a plethora of ideas from people in such a short period of time.

I participated in this event with five other girls in my sorority — together we were team Vicious and Delicious — and we ended up winning. Each of our cupcakes displayed a different meaning of the “Save the Day” theme, which is what the judges liked most.

Morgan Jaffe, another participant in the competition, said the best part of the event was that “it was a fun and cool competition that also raised a lot of money for a great cause,” which is what every philanthropy event strives to do.

In addition to the fun competitive component of this event, Cupcake Wars raised cultural awareness and money for Sharsheret, a national organization that supports women and families facing breast cancer and ovarian cancer. Between rounds of the competition, a Sharsheret representative spoke about her personal experience with cancer and the organization and how it has immensely helped Jewish women, serving as a personal gateway to the network of resources women of all ages may need over the course of their lifetime.

Future Greek philanthropy events should look to this event as an example of how their philanthropy events should be run. It was fun and organized, but more importantly, it educated its participants about all the good AEPhi’s philanthropy does and what the money being donated goes to. As I am not Jewish myself, I felt privileged to learn about such an amazing Jewish organization and help fund a non-profit I would have never even known about otherwise.

As a participant, I can vouch that having a speaker who had a personal connection to this cause was powerful and made my teammates and I feel lucky to be a part of this event and all the awareness and donations that came out of it. Great job AEPhi!