Contest to sweeten Little 500

While the Little 500 tradition has made its way through decades of races, the IU Student Foundation and Sophomore Class Campaigns are bringing back another IU tradition this year for the first time since the 1970s: the Little 500 Sweetheart.

Originally, the tradition began in the 1960s, where the Little 500 Sweetheart — usually a celebrity — was given the honor of kissing each member of the winning Men’s Little 500 team.

This year, instead of a celebrity, the Little 500 Sweetheart, who must represent a Little 500 team, will be selected from a group of applicants that will compete to earn points through a series of philanthropy events and interviews.

The Sweetheart will be named during Little 500 week and will win a $500 scholarship, while the runner-up will receive a $250 scholarship.

Any IU woman who has a 3.0 grade-point average and is a sophomore, junior or senior may apply. Applications for the Little 500 Sweetheart competition can be found on the IU Student Foundation website and are due Tuesday at midnight.

Rachel Black, a senior on the steering committee of the IUSF and head of Sophomore Class Campaigns, said to earn points during the competition, Sweetheart contestants must raise money in philanthropic events such as the Taste of Little 500.

“The Taste of Little 500 will have different vendors set up around the track, and spectators will be able to purchase tickets for food,” Black said. “Each Sweetheart contestant will sell tickets, and the number of tickets sold will count toward her point total.”

“One thing to realize that while contestants will be putting in effort,” Black said, “much of their success depends on the support of their fans.”

All proceeds will go to Girl’s Inc., a nonprofit that works to inspire and empower girls to reach their full potential and to understand, value and assert their rights.

IUSF Director Dana Cummings said the revival of the Little 500 Sweetheart program is a part of IUSF’s class campaigns program, which was started a few years ago as an initiative to give back to the Bloomington campus.

“What our sophomore class has done is to attempt to rectify the Little 500 Sweetheart competition that was a tradition years ago,” Cummings said. “The way the class campaign works is every class — freshman, sophomore and junior — are given $1,000 to design and come up with a philanthropy project. At the beginning of the semester, Rachel came to us with her committee and this idea for the Sweetheart, and we jumped on board.”

While this year’s Sweetheart will be limited to only female applicants, Cummings said the IUSF has been interested in expanding the competition to male applicants as well.

“We talked at length about it at the outset, but we have decided for this first year of bringing the program back, we want to focus our effort on the girls to see how it goes,” Cummings said. “Hopefully next year, we can open it up to more of a king and queen type of thing. We are really hoping that we can get some traction and some momentum this year for it to become a new tradition in the years moving forward.”

Apply to Little 500 Sweetheart
ELIGIBLE Sophomore, junior and senior women at IU with a 3.0 GPA
DEADLINE Tuesday at midnight
MORE INFO Go to www.iusf.indiana.edu to apply.