The Kappa Sigma fraternity’s annual Box-A-Thon philanthropic event raised more than $2200 for The Fisher House, an organization that benefits military veterans and wounded soldiers.

While the event has been going on for more than 20 years, this is the third year that it has benefited The Fisher House.

The Faith Mission was the previous benefactor of the philanthropic event.

Their help and contributions to the homeless population of Wichita Falls was the basis of the creation of the Box-A-Thon event, a weekend where the members of the fraternity would live like homeless people in boxes and take donations.

“We changed to The Fisher House because the fraternity’s national headquarters became a sponsor for [them],” Kappa Sigma president Mark Stephens said. “One of our chapter requirements is that we have to donate at least $1000 to the organization to be eligible for national awards. We decided that our chapter would fulfill this requirement by donating all the proceeds from Box-A-Thon to them.”

From Nov. 16 to Nov. 18 active members of Kappa Sigma, as well as a few alumni members, stood on the corner of Hampstead and Taft collecting money from traffic passing through the entire weekend, including at night.

“We always made sure we had someone out there at all times,” Stephens said. “Some of the guys slept out on the corner all weekend.”

The event didn’t go down without a few obstacles, though. The Box-A-Thon was originally scheduled to happen over Veterans Day Weekend, Kappa Sigma was shut down midway through their first day by Greek Life coordinator Kevin Bazner.

“A few hours into the event, Bazner came out and said he was going to shut us down because we’re not allowed to have any events while on suspension,” Stephens said. “He told us that we had to leave the premises or he was going to get the cops out there to escort us off.”

According to Bazner, the event was stopped because the fraternity was on an interim suspension due to reports of alcohol being at one of their events, as well as Kappa Sigma never fully registering the event.

“Apparently we were on a suspension from previous accusations of having alcohol at a non-alcohol approved event during our annual Toga Party,” Stephens said. “We’ve denied these claims, but there are nine people that have made statements about seeing trashcan punch at the party, which we didn’t have. We haven’t heard anything about the investigation in over a month and a half.”

Amanda Snodgrass, Special Events Coordinator for the Clark Student Center, approved the event before the suspension and investigation and placed it on the Greek calendar near the beginning of the semester.

“We had confirmation of the event through an e-mail from [Snodgrass], but we didn’t have it on us at the time we were being shut down,” Stephens said. “Nothing was ever said to us about not being allowed to do it. It’s not like we just went out there and decided to do it anyway. We were under the impression we could still do it because it was a previously approved philanthropy event.”

Bazner said the fraternity’s major infraction was not getting their event properly reapproved after the notice of suspension was sent and received by Kappa Sigma on Oct. 1st.

“We still wanted them to have the event,” Bazner said. “But they had to do it properly. Once they came in and got their event reapproved, we were okay with it.”

Stephens added that the decision to reapprove the event was almost instantaneous.

“They said we were supposed to have the event reapproved since we got suspended after it had already been set,” Stephens said. “No one in the fraternity, myself included, had ever heard of that rule, but Matthew Parks reapproved us on the spot and agreed to let us come out the following weekend to have the Box-A-Thon.”

Stephens also said he believes that Parks realized the intent of the event was philanthropic and didn’t want to cancel it, but he also didn’t want to undermine Bazner’s previous decision.

Despite the event carrying on the next weekend, Stephens and the fraternity believe that the setback hurt the final amount of money they were able to donate to The Fisher House, noting that they raised $3600 last year on Veterans Day Weekend.

“We had already raised close to 700 dollars alone in the few hours that we originally had the Box-A-Thon,” Stephens said. “So I think the event being moved to the following weekend really hurt the size of the contribution we could have made.”