Cold weather didn’t discourage participants from getting dunked into a pit of water Wednesday.

“It was for a good cause,” said Alicia Garcia, who plummeted underwater to raise money for the Coach Kill Cancer Fund during the College of Agricultural Sciences Spring Fling event.

Amanda Barczewski, assistant to the coordinator of recruitment, said the theme of the event was “So fresh and so clean,” and trophies given at the end of the night fit this – silver and gold spray-painted bars of soap-on-a-rope.

Barczewski said one goal of the event was to build relationships, because many people from the college attended. She said a similar event, Fall Follies, was put on last semester, but they wanted the spring event to pull a larger crowd.

To achieve this, they turned Spring Fling into a fundraiser and donated all proceeds to the cancer fund for SIU Football Coach Jerry Kill, she said.

“It’s to bring our students, faculty and staff together in different events that they can come to,” she said.

Nearly 100 students, faculty and staff gathered at the Agriculture Student Pavilion to enjoy warm barbeque beef and baked beans that steamed viciously in the orange light of the fading sun. While some huddled under the pavilion to avoid wind, others braved the element to warm up in the sun.

Garcia, a senior from Atlanta, Ill., studying plant and soil science and agriculture systems, said the water she was frequently dumped into was warm, and her layered outfit protected her from the wind.

While the experience was more pleasant than expected, she said she did get an unexpected douse of water.

During a water relay race in which a small bucket was passed over the heads of participants to fill a larger bucket, Garcia fell over and spilled water down the front of her outfit.

“This one’s really cold,” she said. “It’s definitely not as much fun the second time around.”

Other events included a fundraiser to kiss a pig and relay races by students and faculty, such as the egg race in which participants ran with an egg on a plastic spoon.

Jean Mangun, an associate professor of forestry, said the 5-week-old pig wasn’t the first she’d ever kissed.

“I used to live in Wisconsin,” she said. “The winters are long and cold.”

Mangun said she would’ve gone to Spring Fling even if she hadn’t participated in the pig kiss event. She said the event helps establish friendships between students and faculty.

“I think the College of Agricultural Sciences really has a nice, homey feeling,” she said.

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