The ISU greek community has been working the past few weeks to prepare for an event important to the Iowa State and Ames community – Homecoming.

Working on lawn displays, banners, window paintings and organized events are a few of the ways the greek community gets involved.

One reason the greek community puts so much effort into homecoming events is to celebrate the greek alumni returning to Ames for the weekend, said Andrew Wrightsman, Interfraternity Council president.

“All of the Homecoming events are special to the houses, because we all have alumni brothers returning to ISU, and we want to show off for them,” said Wrightsman, senior in management information systems. “The alumni did all of these events while they were here, and it is fun to swap stories with them about when they were active in the chapter.”

Homecoming Central is the committee in charge of making sure homecoming is a successful and exciting event. Along with this committee, four or five homecoming co-chairs are assigned from each greek house to organize projects for the other members, said Hillary Silver, Kappa Delta Homecoming co-chair.

“[Homecoming co-chairs] are in charge of making sure our house and our pairs do their work and get everything going,” she said. “We also make sure everyone goes to the tournaments and Yell Like Hell to cheer their houses on.”

Silver, sophomore in pre-journalism and mass communication, said fraternities and sororities are paired together by the fraternities serenading sorority houses, and sororities choose two fraternities.

Piper Anderson, director of special projects for the Panhellenic Council, said Homecoming is special to the greek community so the houses put a lot of work into it.

“Homecoming has always been a great tradition in the past, and we are able to show our ISU pride,” said Anderson, senior in journalism and mass communication.

All of these events take a long time to prepare, and Wrightsman said he sees time management as the best way to get ready for them.

“It is up to each individual to determine how much time they can afford to give to Homecoming events,” he said. “Some people put in 40 hours a week and some people hardly work at all.”

Anderson said being motivated and getting excited for the events gets members involved.

“New members see how excited old members get, and they want to participate and have fun,” she said.

A new policy, which took effect this year, is the decision for a house to do either community service or a lawn display, when in the past houses had to do both, Anderson said.

Houses who chose to do community service had a variety of choices, from highway clean-up to helping out at elementary schools, she said. Homecoming Central sets up a list of resources in Ames, and houses have a choice from this list on what community service they want to do, Anderson said.

“[Fraternities and sororities] have the choice, because it leaves them more time to do one or the other,” she said