APSU’s Alpha Tau Omega Fraternity hosted their annual Jump for Jude Philanthropy event on Friday April 7, in the Foy Rec Center. This year, Jump for Jude helped raised over $15,000 for St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.

ATO has been hosting Jump for Jude at APSU since 2009.

St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital has a mission to find cures for children with cancer. What sets St. Jude’s apart from other hospitals is that patients and their families never pay anything for treatment and time in the hospital.

The contribution made by ATO is meant to benefit the children and research efforts at St. Jude.

Jump for Jude allows students and members of the community to come to APSU and jump on trampolines, bounce houses and bet on items at the silent auction. There is also free food and the fraternity usually cooks around 80 pounds of BBQ for the participants.

During the week leading up to Jump for Jude, ATO hosts other fundraising events.

“We do penny wars, take sponsorships, sell T-shirts and sell $10 wristbands which are the tickets to the event. There are a lot of rebate dinners that we do to raise money,” Tyler Tubbs, the community relations chair, said.

Money aside, Tubbs said ATO wanted to reach out to the community and help raise awareness for childhood cancer.

“We want all the sororities to be there, students from APSU, as well as people outside of APSU. We want to raise awareness for childhood cancer and give to St. Jude,” Tubbs said.

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