Rob Dalaskey, president of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity, is pumped for Homecoming. He and hundreds of others in the Greek community have been busy the past few weeks getting ready for Homecoming activities.

“I have been the busiest person for the last 2 weeks of my life,” said Dalaskey.

The Greek community can participate in the same Homecoming activities as any other Registered Student Organization, including the Punt, Pass, and Kick Competition; Family Fun Night; the 2.5K race; banner decoration for Lantz Arena; the Homecoming float; and Yell like Hell.

For newer chapters at Eastern, there is more of a strain to prepare for Homecoming.

ATO opened its chapter last fall and SAE opened its chapter in March.

These two fraternities are not only new to the Greek scene, but are also trying to find their fit in the Homecoming activities.

Both have paired up with other fraternities or sororities to combine their resources, especially for the competitive float-building for the parades.

Floats are also a way for them to get their name out to the Eastern community.

“Homecoming is going to be huge for our chapter, and the more we get out there and get involved, the better it is going to be for us,” said Rob Kennedy, sophomore business management major and member of ATO. “This is our first float. The float is definitely putting a strain on us, but every house is strained doing the float.”

Greeks build their floats in secret and are always looking for ways to make them bigger and better. Dalaskey, who hopes his house places in the top three for the float competition, is confident that their alternative construction materials will grab the judges’ attention.

SAE is not participating in the float competition this year, but is performing with Sigma Sigma Sigma and Phi Kappa Theta in the Yell like Hell event Thursday.

SAE’s biggest struggle was trying to fit everything into members’ busy schedules with a limited number of people. Duties fell on Brian McHale, sophomore political science major and chairperson of the Homecoming committee.

He tried to get his fraternity brothers to participate in as many of the activities as they could without conflicting too much with their already busy schedules.

At the same time, SAE is looking to use Homecoming as a recruitment tool – but are also trying to have fun.

“It’s a whole new thing for us; none of us are real familiar with the whole Greek thing yet, but we kind of learn as we go,” said McHale. “Being in our first year, we just want to have fun and participate in all the activities Homecoming has to offer.”