Eight brothers of Beta Theta Pi Fraternity broke the Guinness world record for longest team marathon on a bouncy castle after bouncing for 50 hours to raise funds to fight against sexual violence.
The previous record was 43 hours of bouncing, and the brothers beat the record by seven hours during their event “Betas Bounce Against Sexual Violence,” which started on Friday Sept. 1, and continued until Sunday afternoon.
“We officially broke the record at 1:25:02 p.m. on Sunday, which was one of my favorite moments of the entire experience,” said David Navadeh ’19, chapter treasurer and event organizer. “We’d been bouncing in the rain for about 12 hours at that point, and everyone was soaked and exhausted.”
The biggest challenge was the weather, when it started to rain at 1 a.m. on Sunday, Navadeh said. The brothers purchased a tarp in an attempt to cover the bouncy castle.
“That worked until the tarp ripped,” Navadeh said. “We were getting very wet with water in the bouncy castle. We bounced more carefully to avoid falling, but the colder, rainy weather took a lot of energy out of us.”
The brothers made sure that there was always an overlap when switching bouncers so that the bouncing was continuous, as required by the Guinness World Records.
“It’s definitely a tiring quad workout,” Navadeh said. “But not as exhausting as we expected since we mentally prepared so well for it.”
Though the eight brothers were part of the official bouncers who broke the record, community members also joined after paying a fee, which was donated to charity.
“Members of Alpha Phi Omega and Alpha Chi Omega were incredibly helpful in witnessing the entire event so it could be verified as an official Guinness World Record,” Navadeh said.
The University was accommodating in allowing the philanthropy event to take place on the Arts Quad where there was high visibility, Navadeh said.
Students and professors stopped by to donate to the cause, and the brothers are still accepting donations through Venmo to celebrate breaking the record.