It's just before midnight on the Friday of Green Key Weekend, and you're feeling good. After weeks of practice, you've finally perfected the dance moves you've been saving up just for tonight.
But, abruptly, you find that you are dancing with yourself. The reason for this sudden dance floor exodus soon becomes clear: The party packs have arrived.
Since the 2004 inception of the "party pack" program, this scene has been a familiar one on Friday and Saturday nights. The program, an initiative created by Linda Kennedy of the Student Activities office, allocates money to pay for pizza and non-alcoholic drinks to be provided to party-goers at registered Greek parties.
The packs, which were created in order to provide another option to students who do not choose to drink, and to ensure that those who do drink do not do so on empty stomachs or without also consuming water, have seen much popularity since their inception. The clamor for pizza and breadsticks, care of Everything But Anchovies, has become a common feature of many fraternity parties.
The Student Activities office, however, became unable to continue providing funding in 2005. Since then, party packs have seen sponsorship from several different organizations who have worked to keep the program going -- an endeavor which this year included increased funding efforts from the Greek Leadership Council in preparation for Green Key festivities.
Though the program had previously been under the partial sponsorship of Student Assembly, this year the GLC took over leadership of the initiative. The council has been funding the packs by transferring money to the Student Activities Office, which then distributes the funds to Greek houses, according to Eric Ramsey, associate director of the Collis Center and Student Activities.
The $18,000 allocated to the program began to run short early this spring, however, leading some to question whether there would be enough funding to support one of the program's most important weekends: Green Key.
Current GLC President Michael Simoni '08 said that the council acted quickly to ensure that Green Key party-goers would not go hungry.
The GLC allocated extra funds toward party packs for Green Key and the remainder of spring term and also gained outside funding from other councils, including the Interfraternity Council, Panhellenic Council, the Coed Council, the National Association of Latino Fraternal Organizations and the National Pan-Hellenic Council.
In sum, current funding for Green Key and the rest of the term totals $2000.
"It should definitely be enough for Green Key Weekend," Simoni said.
In general, Simoni said, the GLC allows for enough funding for four party packs -- each of which contains $150 worth of pizza, breadsticks and water -- per weekend. However, Simoni said he was certain that over Green Key the demand for packs would be far higher -- a belief which led to the move to gain extra funding.
Simoni said that he hoped the current amount would also sustain the program throughout Spring term.
Student Body President Tim Andreadis said he would be happy to ask the Assembly to provide financial support to the packs if needed. The Assembly is currently running a surplus of about $20,000.
"I think party packs are great," Andreadis said. "Especially when they don't just end up off in a corner somewhere."
Simoni said that the GLC had not yet considered contacting Student Assembly for funding.
Regardless of their source, the packs, now a staple of many students' weekend routine, are sure to be appreciated at parties across campus this weekend.
"It's always nice to get free pizza," said Kevin Treadway '10.
