By Megan Loock
Elm Staff Writer
On Saturday, April 10, the brothers of Kappa Sigma Omicron Phi chapter hosted their bi-annual Pancake Breakfast.
Like last semester, the brothers were not serving fresh, hot pancakes to the Chestertown community. However, they got creative to stream the spirit of the event via YouTube Live from the common room of Dorchester Hall.
The stream started with sophomore Nick Splendoria and seniors Alejandro Mendoza and Will Rotsch introducing themselves as the event’s commentators.
Despite the technical difficulties that caused their sound to glitch out, the brothers introduced two teams that competed head-to-head to win the pancake-making competition: The Dorchester Llamas led by sophomore Dylan Snow and junior Kennett Vail-Rojas and Team Jonathan led by junior Bryce Robertson and freshman Quincy Adams.
Before the competition, each team was required to pick a mystery ingredient to incorporate into their dish — the Dorchester Llamas received sriracha sauce while Team Johnathan received grape Gatorade Zero.
Each team had an hour to run to the study tent next to Sassafras Hall, grab their ingredients, and run back to Dorchester to make their pancake breakfast. The pancakes were judged on two cardinal factors: presentation and effective incorporation of their mystery ingredient.
While the competition was like last semester as they live-streamed the making of the pancakes, the brothers of Kappa Sigma raised the stakes a bit by adding “Sabotage Donation Effects,” allowing the audience to directly engage in and affect the competition, while also raising money to support the Kappa Sigma Military Heroes Campaign.
Audience members were able to sabotage the competition if they donated the following: donating $10 made a team member run a lap around Dorchester, $15 turned off a team’s burner for two minutes, $25 turned a team’s burner back on, $50 added a new special ingredient that a team had to use, $100 swapped both teams’ dishes, and $200 scrapped a team’s dish.
The competition was heated, with all members of each team running laps around Dorchester.
“Not only can our brothers cook, [but] they can also run,” Splendoria said.
However, Snow—who frequently fell victim to running a lap—felt differently.
“My disappointment is immeasurable, and my day is ruined,” Snow said.
While the comments made were all in the good fun of the event, everything took a turn in the last five minutes of the first competition. Associate Professor of Biology and Associate Department Chair Dr. Aaron Krochmal—the advisor and an alumnus of the to the Kappa Sigma Fraternity—donated $200 and opted to switch the teams’ dishes rather than scrap them.
“I get really passionate about random things and during the first round when I came up with the beautiful idea of like sriracha orange pancakes. I thought that I was like Gordon Ramsay reincarnate or something… and that broke my heart,” Snow said.
Snow’s orange sriracha marmalade pancakes won, but due to the swap, Team Johnathan took the win.
“I don’t know I guess, on the one hand, I’m kind of happy that won because… that means that… my idea was good. But on the other hand,… it sucks [be]cause… I didn’t get any of the credit for that,” Snow said.
In the end Kappa Sigma exceeded their goal of over $2,700 — with the help of incentives.
These incentives included Interim Provost and Dean Dr. Michael Harvey dyeing his hair hot pink like Dr. Krochmal’s beard—who promised to dye his beard hot pink if donations reached $2,439.
In addition to these incentives, the brothers of Kappa Sigma also raffled off gift cards to 98 Cannon, Play It Again Sam’s, and other local Chestertown restaurants.
“It was a great time for a good cause,” Snow said.
For more information about Kappa Sigma and to see the other donation incentives that were committed to, you can visit their Instagram page @kappasigwac.