Pi day raises more than $1,600 for charity

ESS volunteers kindly "deliver" the pies to the lucky recipients.

Olga Ivanova - 16 March 2017

(EDMONTON) The Engineering Students' Society whipped up its most delicious annual charity event, Pi Week, raising more than $1,600 for the Habitat for Humanity Edmonton branch, to help build affordable housing in the community. During the second week of March, Faculty of Engineering students and staff, including the Dean of Engineering Fraser Forbes, were taking whipped cream pies in their faces to honour Pi Day, March 14 (3/14), and support the fundraiser.


2017 Pi Week in numbers:

  • $1,672.96 - the total amount of money raised this year for Habitat for Humanity
  • $154 - the amount engineering students chipped in to pie Dean Fraser Forbes
  • 22 - the number cans of whipped cream were used to make the pies
  • 40 - the number of people were pied on March 14 alone;
  • 4 - the highest number of pies received by a student

Pie your friends or professors:

Here's how it works: Every March, the ESS puts 100-per-cent whipped cream pies on sale. You can pay $10 and arrange a pie "delivery" to a friend or colleague. In what must be the best volunteer job ever, fun-loving ESS volunteers will kindly "deliver" the pies to the lucky recipients, mushing a dish of whipped cream into the recipient's face.

What do you do when the friendly ESS volunteers arrive to deliver your pie? You have options:

  • Take the pie in the face
  • Buy a real pie for $π³ (about $31)
  • Redirect the pie to the person who sent it to you, or send it to a third party for $5
  • Choose not to participate as Pi Throw is a voluntary charity event