Kappa Sigma Fraternity held a ceremony at the fraternity house May 5 at 3:15 p.m. to donate a $3700 check to SafePlace, Inc.

SafePlace is the only domestic violence shelter in Northwest Alabama.

“(We chose SafePlace) because of all of the negative press fraternities have received in the past couple of years.,” said Master of Ceremonies and Vice President of Kappa Sigma Hugo Dante. “A lot of that included domestic violence (We want) to show that we care about our community and that we believe domestic violence is a serious issue that needs to be addressed.”

Dante said the money came from their “Driven to give” event with the Lincoln Motor Company.

“For every test drive that we got, (it) counted as $20 toward the philanthropy of our choice,” he said. “We ended up getting 185 test drives.”

SafePlace is a “great” organization to give the money to, said sophomore Erin Hill.

“I think it’s very generous for the fraternity to think of them,” she said.

The shelter will use the money to pay for some of its counseling services and shelter necessities, said Executive Director of SafePlace Rachel Hackworth.

“Safeplace serves on average 550 people a month,” she said. “It takes a lot of people and money to make that happen. Groups that are doing projects like this are certainly heroes to us.”

Hackworth said she hopes to work with the organization again.

“We’re grateful for (the help from) Kappa Sigma,” she said. “They were just a great organization to work with.”

Dante said he plans to work with SafePlace in the future.

“We hope to have more fundraisers and supply drives,” he said. “(We would like to do) anything that we can to help them out.”