By Anne Halliwell

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The long wooden tables in the Alpha Omicron Pi dining room filled quickly with groups carrying full plates of salad, spaghetti and bread.

The sorority held a $5 all-you-can-eat spaghetti dinner to raise money for its philanthropy, Habitat for Humanity.

Olivia Payne, a secondary english education sophomore and AOPi member, said the event was to raise money for a prior Panhellenic project – sponsoring a family and building a home for them through Habitat for Humanity.

“And, I mean, who doesn’t love spaghetti?” added theatre production and management sophomore Grace Trudeau.

According to the Stillwater News Press, AOPi and the Sigma Chi fraternity pledged to help build a house in 2013.

Stephanie Hesser, the operations manager for Habitat for Humanity, told the Stillwater News Press that the two Greek organizations had raised a significant portion of the funds needed on their own.

The build was “a partnership between long-term Habitat for Humanity volunteers and Alpha Omicron Pi and Sigma Chi,” the article continued.

Although the house was finished and the family moved in, not all of the funds necessary to continue payment for the home were raised.

To that end, Payne said the projected amount of guests for the dinner was somewhere around 200 to 250.

Sarah Fulton, the fundraising chair for AOPi, said that the chapter bought enough Italian food to feed 300 to 500 people.

“Obviously, anything over that is better,” Payne said. “But that’s the number we had going into it.”

Taylor Wilson, an undeclared freshman from Tau Beta Sigma, attended the dinner with her roommate, civil engineering freshman Claire Collett.

Wilson said the event was a chance to socialize and meet new people from other Greek organizations. Collett, a member of AOPi, said her chapter tried to get all of its members to attend.

The goal, she said, was to raise enough money to help cover the house’s living costs like heating by attracting as many people as possible to the dinner, which ran from 6 to 9 p.m.

“We all shared on social media,” Collet said. “Maybe if everyone in our chapter brought one other person, maybe we’ll (raise a good amount).”