PennWest California’s Phi Gamma Delta (FIJI) chapter hosted a vintage flea market with multiple vendors in collaboration with Flea-ji this past Tuesday on the Natali Student Center Turf.
Flea-ji, a traveling vintage market that partners directly with the FIJI fraternity, visited the California campus, making it the first stop of their fall tour, which will bring similar fundraising opportunities to other chapters.
With setup beginning around 7:30 a.m., the event ran from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. with students showing up well before the start time to peruse the many booths vendors had set up while upbeat music played in the background.
A PennWest student in attendance, Josephine Richardson, expressed that she was not sure what to expect when she heard about this event over the summer.
“I love thrifting and secondhand fashion, not only for the sustainability and environmental benefits but also the ability to buy already worn-in clothes at a lower price,” Richardson said. “I definitely enjoyed taking a breather from my already busy class schedule to look at some clothing and see old friends.”
Zachary Zizis, a junior business management major, put together this event as FIJI’s fundraising chair.
Zizis has been a part of the fraternity for a year and a half now, and this is his first event as fundraising chair since he took his position for this fall semester.
After Flea-ji reached out to the chapter in June, Zizis said it was fairly easy to put together since Flea-ji handled communication with vendors, and the fraternity just had to get approval from the school to host the market.
According to Zizis, Flea-ji visited for no cost, and the Chi Rho chapter will receive 10% of all profits, making it mutually beneficial for both Flea-ji and the chapter.
Zizis hopes for this to continue semesterly, provided that it goes well and the vendors are willing to come back.
The brothers of the chapter were very excited to kick off the semester with what Zizis referred to as a “lively event”, giving students a chance to obtain unique and sustainable wardrobe pieces while simultaneously raising money for their chapter.
Abby Hays, a first-year psychology graduate student at PennWest, thought the concept for the event was truly unique.
“I had a great time at Flea-ji, it was such a cool event with a great variety of clothing, and all the vendors were very welcoming,” Hays said. “I’m really glad the FIJI organization at Cal had the opportunity to work with them.”
Although fundraising events for the rest of the semester have not been approved through the school yet, Zizis is eager to continue planning activities that will monetarily benefit the chapter, like their semesterly Pie the Feej event.
