Sigma Nu’s Snake Days philanthropy week will use baked goods, water balloons and ultimate frisbee to raise awareness and money for St. Jude Children’s Hospital.

“It’s a week for us to try to raise awareness for what St. Jude is and what they do and to raise money for them,” said Evansville sophomore Robert Graupner, Sigma Nu’s philanthropy chair.

St. Jude, located in Memphis, Tenn., is the leading institute in childhood cancer research and provides care to children with no cost to the patient or their family.

This is the first year the fraternity will put on Snake Days, but they plan to continue it in the future, said Sigma Nu President Taylor Rousey.

“Our philanthropy chair was looking through the binder and saw an event called Snake Days,” he said. “We liked the name but came up with our own events to host for the week.

“It seemed like a fun, pretty simple thing to host while still raising money for St. Jude. I’d like to see us raise at least $1,000 on this first year.”

The week kicked off Monday with a toga run, in which the men ran down a hill in togas to support the water balloon fight that will take place Tuesday.

Graupner said the water balloon fight is the biggest part of the week. The fraternity has prepared more than 11,000 water balloons for a fight to take place on McLean Lawn. The idea came from the University of Kentucky’s world’s largest water balloon fight that takes place in the fall every year.

“That’s where the idea of it came from, but we know ours won’t be that big, especially this first year,” Rousey said. “But we’re hoping we can get there eventually.”

On Wednesday, there will be a bake-off, in which sororities can enter a baked good to be judged on both taste and decoration, Rousey said. The winning sorority will get $25 toward their philanthropy.

The fraternity wants to host an ultimate frisbee tournament on Thursday, but currently, no teams have signed up.