During the Spring semester I decided to pledge the business fraternity, Delta Sigma Pi. Since one of their core pillars is Help, Delta Sigma Pi is very community conscious and encourages service around Farmville. Their main service event is helping with the charity Catfish Festival, an event located about 20 minutes outside of town. They’ve been partnering with the Shriners for over 20 years to help put on the festival, in addition to Hampden-Sydney fraternity Delta Kappa Epsilon the past few years.

I decided to sign up a few days before the initial festival to help prepare the catfish that Shriner fishermen had caught. It took about an hour for 10 of us to bread and package 500 pounds of fish on a farm right outside of Farmville. While I had second thoughts about going at first, I found the trip to be extremely enjoyable. It was nice to have the chance to bond with my brothers and the brothers of Delta Kappa Epsilon while helping the Shriners with their charity event. We could tell that the Shriners were extremely grateful for our help, so it was nice to meet people from the community and it felt nice to give back to the Farmville area.