Greeks hand out granola for charity

"Would you like a treat with no tricks?"

That's how NYU's Greek organizations passed out Bear Naked granola around Manhattan yesterday, peddling it as a healthy alternative to normal Halloween sweets to raise money. In exchange for promoting the granola, the Greek organizations will receive an unspecified sum of money from the company to donate to a charity of their choice.

Allison Bobman, the vice president of programming for the Delta Phi Epsilon sorority, said in an e-mail that more than 150 volunteers participated in the project. She said the volunteers were located all over the city, from the Lafayette Street residence hall to Madison Square Park, and even up to Riverside Park.

Jeremy Rothschild, the philanthropy chair for Delta Kappa Epsilon, helped pass out the granola in Washington Square Park yesterday, wearing a festive orange wig and a large satchel filled with packets of granola. He said the response to the free treats had been good, apparent in the enthusiastic reception of the granola by passersby. Within five minutes, a number of people had taken the granola, one boy already on his trick-or-treating rounds and a man stopping on his bike just to pick up his share of the free treat.

Rothschild said his fraternity would be donating the money to the Dikembe Mutombo Foundation, founded by the Houston Rockets basketball player, which is "dedicated to improving the health, education and quality of life for the people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo," according to the foundation's website.

Cat Contiguglia is city/state news editor. E-mail her at ccontiguglia@nyunews.com.