Fraternity ‘sleeps out’ to raise rape awareness

ORONO – The snow held off until Saturday morning, which turned out to be good news and bad news for the 44 members of Beta Theta Pi at the University of Maine.

For the 11th year, the fraternity raised money for Rape Response Services by sleeping out on the front lawn of their big, red house facing College Avenue.

So far, the fraternity has raised about $1,400 according to Kyle Webster, a senior from Burke, Va., who handles public relations for the fraternity.

“Rape is one of the most serious issues on any college campus,” he said Sunday. “The purpose of the sleep-out is to show that guys are not only willing to raise money to fight against it, but also willing to make a stand against it. People see what we’re doing and get the message that rape is not acceptable.”

The 21-year-old junior said Sunday that usually the 12-hour sleep out, which began at 6 p.m. Friday, includes igloo building, snow fort construction and snowball battles.

This year, however, there wasn’t enough snow for those activities, but a bonfire kept warm the more than 400 students who attended the event, Webster said.

Beta Theta Pi is a member of Brothers Engaged Against Rape, an organization of fraternities at UM that work to raise rape awareness on campus.

Rape Response Services, based in Bangor, works with the Safe Campus Project to provide support in the issues of sexual violence, dating violence and stalking at the University of Maine and other campuses in the Bangor area.