CHENEY, Wash. – You’ve heard the expression ‘fraternity brothers.’ One Eastern Washington University fraternity is making sure that phrase is more than just words.
One of their members is fighting cancer. He can’t even go to school right now. His fraternity brothers are fighting to help him, and they hope you will, too.
When you walk into their fraternity house, you’ll notice two words written on the wall, “Brotherly love.”
It’s not something they take lightly. When they learned a brother needed help, they went straight to work.
Now, Sigma Phi Epsilon at EWU is transforming.
“We are setting up a haunted house for one of our brothers that had to drop out of school due to cancer,” said Steven Poole, sophomore at EWU.
The haunted house is to raise money for their fraternity brother, Jeremy Wilkes.
“Around May, he told us he would be cancer-free in June. In June, he like finished all of his stuff. The following month he relapsed with Leukemia. And right now, he’s at like a very high-risk stage,” said Colin Axtell, junior at EWU and Jeremy’s former roommate.
“It really hit the house hard, so we’re just trying to do everything we can to support him,” Poole said.
Cancer hits home for some of these men.
“My grandma was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2017, and then she passed like the following August,” Axtell said.
When they heard cancer was affecting a brother, they came together in a big way.
They set up a GoFundMe which already raised thousands of dollars for Jeremy.
“Honestly, it inspired me to help him out more. He’s just doing this stuff by himself, he’s not asking for help, he’s just doing it. But for us, to come together to help him out it brings everyone together and makes everyone happy,” Axtell said.
