A man paralyzed from the neck down will walk again thanks to the Kappa Sigma Charity Bowl that took place last Friday. The members of Kappa Sigma have been doing the Charity Bowl for five years now. Every year the Kappa Sigma Fraternity find someone in the community who is in need of a large sum of money to get their lives back on the right track. This year the Kappa Sigma Fraternity chose to help out Bradley Powell, a Mississippi State University student, who needs spinal reconstructive surgery so he can walk again and hold his daughter in his arms for the first time.
“We weighed out other options and thought he was in the most need,” Brennan Sanders, a member of Kappa Sigma, said.
The activities that took place at this year’s Charity Bowl were a football game between the men of Pi Kappa Alpha and Kappa Sigma, and a concert put on by the Cover Girls at Rick’s Cafe Americain. All of the money raised from the events went to the cost of Powell’s surgery.
“Everything went well this year,” Kell Smith, Charity Classic chairman, said. “We presented Powell with a $50,000 check between the first and second quarter of the football game.”
The $50,000 will pay for Powell’s surgery in full. The surgery will take place in Ecuador, South America. In the United States spinal reconstructive surgery costs $150,000, according to Smith.
The surgery is probably the closest thing there is to a cure for paralysis. The surgery is ineffective if proper physical therapy is not taken up after surgery.
“I don’t know if he (Powell) will return to school this semester,” Sander said. “He’s got two years of real intense physical therapy ahead of him.”
“He’s flying to Ecuador March 8th and the surgery is on the 11th,” Smith said.
The money raised came from advertisements sold to local businesses, game tickets, the door charge at Rick’s and donations.
“More people came out this year than have in the previous four years,” Sanders said. “The community and school showed a lot of support and I know Bradley appreciated it.”
The Kappa Sigma team defeated the Pikes in the Charity Bowl 14 to 12 but Smith said without the Pikes participating in the event there would have been no winners.
“We’d like to thank the Pikes,” Smith said. “Without them we couldn’t have done this. They raised half the money.”
Bradley Powell is a junior from Monticello, Miss., and is married with a 17-month-old daughter. In 1996 he was in a single car accident that left him with a broken neck. In August he visited neurosurgeon, Carl Kao, who assured Powell that if he follows the therapy prescribed to him after the surgery he will be able to walk again in two years.
Last year’s Charity Bowl was the most successful philanthropic event in MSU history, raising $65,000 for a local family, according to a press release. The Kappa Sigma Fraternity hope that this event will continue help deserving people in the future.