"Week on Planet Utah is Utah Alpha's main philanthropy project of the year. This was are third year hosting it and once again it was a huge success. All proceeds from this week benefit Red Butte Gardens, a local outdoor auboritium at the base of the Wasatch mountains. They in turn use the money and time donated by us to help research and protect endangered plant species found in Utah.
This project was first created by Scott Henley in the spring of 1995 as a benefit concert for some kind of charity. As time went on Red Butte became the obvious choice due to their need for volunteers and also the availability of their outdoor music stage. What began as a one night concert soon became a week long service project for the entire active chapter to accomplish. The service project included planting different types of plants, and picking up garbage throughout the park. At the end of the that week we had the concert featuring Peter Breinholdt, and Mike Waterman. Both are two extremely popular, local, acoustic acts. Fortunatly wheather cooperated and it was a huge success.
During our second year Paul Algarian had taken charge of the project. By taking what had been learned from the previous year it had only gotten better. After seeing the success of the first year sponsors were very willing to sponsor us again. After our week of community service we decided that we would try a concert series with three bands. They were Sam and the Hunchback, Gypsy Moth, and Salt Lake's most popular band, Clover. We ended up selling all 1500 tickets that were available along with numerous t-shirts.
This May 5-10 we just completed our third year. Since it became such a big project we put two Phi's in charge. This year it was Chad Piezconka, and Chad Marriott. They once again exceeded the houses expectations by making the week a complete success. This year we chose to go back to using one band because of time limits imposed on us after last year. Salsa Brava, a southwest acoustic band, was the perfect choice to headline on a 85 degree day. The two Chad's were responsible forgetting not only extremely generous sponsors involved but they also sent letters out to each actives parents which in turn brought about a good size of financial participation on their part.
Over the last three years Red Butte has been extremely grateful. Each year they award the house with an achievment plaque to express their appreciation. We have donated more than $8,000 to them which has qualified us to be placed on their major donors wall located in the visitors center. This project has not only benefited the house but it has had an incredible positive effect in showing the public that we really do have a purpose to serve them and stregthen our brotherhood.
"Week on Planet Utah"
