For the first time in St. John’s history, members from the African and Latino Fraternal/Sororal Alliance (ALFSA) participated in Greek Week – a nine-day event filled with activities and competitions for members of Greek Life.

The events began on Monday, March 31, with weigh-ins and a soccer shootout. It ended on Wednesday, April 9, with the College Bowl.

Matt Kurz, in his first year as coordinator of Leadership Development for Fraternities and Sororities, said that he encouraged all the different fraternities and sororities to participate in this year’s Greek Week.

“If we’re going to call it Greek Week, it should be all Greeks,” Kurz said. “We’re pushing for tri-council unity.”

Selected members of each ALFSA organization competed as a team for the events.

The three councils – the Inter-Fraternity Council (IFC), Panhellenic Council (NPC) and ALFSA – contain 34 Greek organizations, collectively.

This year’s overall Greek Week winners are sorority Gamma Phi Beta and fraternity Sigma Phi Epsilon.

Sigma Phi Epsilon has won the Greek Week events for six consecutive years.

Headlining the entire week were two major events: the very popular lip sync competition and Relay for Life, which is an all-night fundraiser where Greeks and others in the St. John’s community walk to raise money for the American Cancer Association.

Although there were many serious contenders, Sigma Phi Epsilon won their seventh consecutive lip sync competition and Theta Phi Alpha was crowned the winner among sororities.

“Lip sync is my favorite competition by far,” said Ysmael Reyes, Vice President of Sigma Phi Epsilon. “It’s a great show where you get to see everyone’s creativity.”

Reyes explained that the added competition this year from ALFSA made Greek Week more entertaining.

“Adding ALFSA organizations makes it more fun,” he said, “because there is more people involved.”

“Lip sync is fun, but it’s a lot of work,” said Amanda Lewis, President of Theta Phi Alpha sorority.

While each fraternity and sorority competes collectively as a team, there are certain events where not all members of the organizations compete, such as three-on-three basketball and survival of the fittest.

“Although there is tension and competition in Greek week, we all get along and have a lot of fun with it,” said Tiffany Salcedo of Gamma Chi.

“Greek week is something new to us,” said Jessica Benevides of Lambda Pi Upsilon. “It was really unifying. It was pretty interesting how we all got together to break down the barriers. I enjoyed it.”

Michael Perez, the President of Lambda Upsilon Lambda, had nothing but praise for this year’s Greek Week.

“Greek week gives the Greeks a time to come together in a major collaboration,” he said. “Lip sync was my favorite event, but in terms of the future, we [fraternities/sororities] will continue to come together in terms of programming, community service and future events.”