Shedding clothes in run for charity

Rising temperatures in Central Florida wasn't the reason 150 students ran around campus in their underwear on April 8. The reason for the entertainment — charity.

The Mu Psi Chapter of the Sigma Nu fraternity at UCF hosted its second annual philanthropy event, The Undie Classic.

Participants donated their clothes to Goodwill Industries, paid a required $5 registration fee that went to SGA's philanthropy Knight-Thon, and finished the one-mile-run around campus wearing only their underwear. The run started and ended at Memory Mall, went through Greek Park, around the Reflecting Pond and into the Student Union.

This year's event had five ‘quick-stops' gathered around campus that encouraged the runners to cross the finish line. The stations included the spirit station, water station, misting station, crowd support station and techno station.

According to Joseph Lebowitz, The Undie Classic event coordinator, about 150 students who donated more than 1,000 pounds of clothing and $675 in donations attended this year's event.  This was a significant increase to last year's event, which raised $250 and 653 pounds of clothes.

Lebowitz said Sigma Nu chose Goodwill Industries as the organization to receive the donations because of the positive influence they have on the community, from providing clothes to providing job opportunities for people in need of assistance.

Lebowitz said Mu Psi chose Knight-Thon because as UCF's largest philanthropy, they felt it could be of great benefit to the community.

Lebowitz said the idea behind running on campus in underwear for a particular cause had been done in other universities such as the University of Florida. Arizona State holds its famous annual Undie Run each May.

According to a Sigma Nu news release, the University of California at Los Angeles underwear runs for charity has exceeded 8,000 participants.

Lebowitz and his fraternity brothers began working on the event six months ago. In the future, they are hoping to extend the tradition they began last year and augment the number of participants and donations.

"The hardest thing when we planned the event was the marketing," Lebowitz said. "It's hard to make students show up to the event and run in their underwear, that's why we used Facebook and displayed signs on campus to attract their attention."

Lebowitz believes students should take advantage of the chance to participate in events that fun and allows you to do something out the of the ordinary.

"College only happens once and what a better way to live it up with your friends and at the same time do something for a great cause," he said.