The fields behind Pine Grove, around the trail, looked a little different this weekend, and it was all for a good reason.
The second annual Operation: Lost Cardinal paintball event, hosted by Tau Kappa Epsilon (TKE), occurred Saturday, Oct. 3rd, to raise money for the St. Jude Children’s Hospital charity.
Last year, the event raised a little more than $3,200 with about 100 participants. This year, TKE hoped to beat that number after having sold more than 175 tickets prior to the event. However, beating the amount of money raised last year was not the main priority.
“This year, we didn’t focus necessarily on making the donation bigger, which is what we did last year,” said event coordinator Richard Harris Jr. “This year, we focused on growing the base of participants. So, we’d rather grow participation and get the word-of-mouth out there.”
Harris and his committee decided not to raise ticket prices this year to try and reach a higher goal, keeping the prices of the tickets at $15 each to participate.
Other expenses were the price of equipment rental, which was $10, and the purchase of paintballs, also $10 per 500 count, all provided by TC Paintball.
According to Harris, any other paintball experience would probably be a lot more expensive with just a ticket alone.
“It provides them an experience that is dirt-cheap,” Harris said. “If you want to play paintball anywhere else, you’ll be paying 40 to 50 dollars on just a ticket alone, not including equipment or paint.
“Really, we’re providing you with a very cheap experience as a student.”
More than 50 participants were actually from Oakland University, 30 of which were members of their TKE chapter.
Participants also received T-shirts with their purchase of a ticket, as well as pizza and drinks provided for lunch.
While this event was fun, it required TKE to put in a lot of work to have the event, both this year and last. The group had to get approval from Merry Jo Brandimore, the Dean of Students and Associate Provost for Student Affairs, Student Life, Campus Police, Conference and Events, and Connie Schweitzer, the Director of Business Services. This was due to there being a risk factor when engaging in an event like paintball on campus.
The actual event at Pine Grove used around 20 to 25 acres that were cut and cleared by Campus Facilities for this event to take place.
The registration Saturday morning started at 9 a.m. in hopes that the event would start at 10 a.m.. Teams were then divided up, and multiple games were played with different scenarios.
Scenarios included games such as Capture the Flag, Team “Deathmatch” and a final match where the field was shrunk down in order to keep the game close and active. These were just a few of the scenarios played out.
Anyone worrying about the paint affecting or harming the environment can rest at ease – the paintballs are completely biodegradable and are not harmful to the environment in any way.
“We’re the only chapter in the nation that does anything like this. As far as I know, no other chapter of TKE hosts an event as unique as this,” Harris said.