A meatball-eating contest, a testicular cancer self-check demo, and a slew of musical performances will all grace Ackerman Grand Ballroom on Monday.
Balls for Balls, presented by the professional business fraternity Phi Gamma Nu and the UCLA Student Welfare Commission’s Gender Health Committee, is a meatball-eating contest punctuated by performances and educational presentations about testicular cancer, said fourth-year political science and Chinese student Christie Liu.
Proceeds from the $10 contestant registration and all attendee donations will go directly to the Lance Armstrong Foundation, said Liu, the head of philanthropy for UCLA’s chapter of Phi Gamma Nu.
The goal is for there to be 24 teams of four members each to participate in a relay-style meatball-eating competition. There are currently about 10 teams signed up, Liu added, and she said she expects around 300 people to be present on Monday.
“There are a lot of tentative groups signed up right now,” said fourth-year international development studies student Jay Park, a member of Phi Gamma Nu. “We want as many as possible.”
Four teams will face off during the first round, and the first team to finish 4 ounces of meatballs (vegetarian or actual meat) will progress to the next one, with one team standing at the end to win a Wii.
This is the first philanthropic event UCLA’s chapter of Phi Gamma Nu will host since its initiation at UCLA in 2007, although its members regularly participate in community service to fulfill the philanthropy aspect of the fraternity, Liu said.
“We’re pretty new, so we wanted to do something big,” she said. “It’s such a fun event, and it’s relevant to the fraternity’s mission because we do have a philanthropy pillar.”
Liu got the idea for Balls for Balls from University of Pennsylvania’s Phi Gamma Nu chapter, which hosts the event annually.
While people may be attracted to the event because of the entertainment it will provide, there will be a large focus on the health aspect of the evening, said Gender Health Committee director Erica Li.
“We’ve added an educational component because testicular cancer is one of the most common forms of cancer in college-age men … and I think it’s really important to get the message out there,” said Li, a fourth-year physiological science student. There will be tables set up for the entire event with representatives from Colleges Against Cancer and a dietician to talk about cancer prevention through a healthy lifestyle, Liu said.
“I know people don’t worry about (cancer) much because we’re young,” Li said, “but it does happen, and people should know about it.”