Elizabeth Funes/Staff Writer
Sigma Kappa Sorority hosted their third annual King of Hearts pageant on Feb. 29 to raise funds for the Sigma Kappa Foundation, the second-largest contributor to Alzheimer’s disease research, following the Alzheimer’s Association. The Greek organization, which promotes a core value of service, has partnered with the philanthropic association since 1984.
In February, the Obama administration made headlines by announcing their plan to stop Alzheimer’s disease in its tracks with the “Alzheimer’s Can’t Wait” campaign. The government initiative will call for more funding allocated to Alzheimer’s disease research by an extra $50 million in the National Institute of Health allowance.
Under Obama’s plan, effective without the necessity of an approval from Congress, NIH will dedicate the supplemental funds to the research and treatment testing of Alzheimer’s disease.
Stephanie Wietrzychowski, Sigma Kappa’s vice president of philanthropic services, said raising funds for this cause is imperative to ending the chronic disease.
“We’re really hopefully about the extra funding from the NIH. We put a lot of work into hosting events like King of Hearts to remind everyone that we can make Alzheimer’s disease a distant memory for those suffering through it,” said Wietrzychowskt.
The Kappa Omicron chapter of Sigma Kappa has driven multiple fundraisers for the philanthropic cause in its three years on campus.
Last year, the chapter donated $2,500 to the Sigma Kappa Foundation and raised an additional $1,300 for the Alzheimer’s Association’s Walk to End Alzheimer’s. It is expected that this year’s King of Hearts pageant raised more than $2,000 for the foundation.
“A woman at a nursing home once told me that when you become old, your memories are the only thing you have left to hold on to. Imagine how frightening it would be to lose all of these memories and forget your family members. We support the Alzheimer’s Association because we want this epidemic to end,” said Wietrzychowski.
Currently, more than five million Americans live with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia, the serious loss of cognitive ability. The number of people living with the chronic disease is expected to double by 2050.
The national cost for medical and nursing home tabs related to Alzheimer’s disease reaches about $180 billion a year—and that number is expected to swell to $1 trillion.
The winner of the 2012 King of Hearts pageant, sophomore Luis Portuondo, whose aunt and grandmother both live with Alzheimer’s disease, said he hopes to bring to light the severity of Alzheimer’s disease in America on a community level.
“I believe it is up to the ladies of Sigma Kappa and myself to make sure the students of the University are aware of the dire situation that millions of families, like my own, deal with on a daily basis.
Using events, such as the King of Hearts pageant, I think we can push local awareness to an all-time high,” said Portuondo.
The sorority’s latest push involves supporting a petition started by the Alzheimer’s Association, which urges the Obama administration to provide more funding for Alzheimer’s research.
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