Fraternity and sorority members took underprivileged preschoolers to Hogle Zoo on Wednesday as a part of Greek Week.
U students walked around the zoo with three preschool classes, with children ages 2 to 4, from 9:45 a.m. to noon. The classes were from Children’s Day Care Center, a part of Neighborhood House.
Neighborhood House is a nonprofit, independent day care that provides services for both children and senior citizens. Neighborhood House prepares preschool-aged children for kindergarten, provides after-school and summer programs for grade school-aged kids and cares for senior adults, said Bret Ragan, volunteer coordinator for Neighborhood House.
U greeks walked around the zoo and took the opportunity to build friendships with the children.
“It is fun. The kids have a blast,” said Arash Bakhshandehpourd, a junior in business administration, from the Greek Council. “Imagine as a kid going out with a college kid. It’s the time of your life.”
Ragan hoped to have enough students to have close interaction with the children.
“We’d love to have one-on-one interactions, to create a buddy system where they hold hands and walk around the zoo and for the students to keep them engaged on what’s going on,” Ragan said. “That would be the best case scenario.”
Ragan believes this event was a great opportunity for the kids.
“We’re a nonprofit, so we look for opportunities where people can take our kids out. It’s a wonderful gift for them to be able to just come out to the zoo,” Ragan said. “A lot of these kids have never even been to the zoo, so it’s important for this to be their first experience in a warm environment with a bunch of enthusiastic students who want to be here with them.”
Bringing children to the zoo is part of the weeklong competition to see which house has the highest attendance at Greek Week events. The competition is based on check-ins and whether participants are wearing letters from their house. Each person who attends an event earns a point for his or her house, Bakhshandehpour said.
Bakhshandehpour explained another purpose of this event.
“Greek Row is so much more than partying,” Bakhshandehpour said. “It’s service-based, community-based and academically based. We’re trying to get the whole Greek Row to come together and break the stereotype of greeks. And this is the best way to get our name out there and prove that.”