But Valentine’s Day is not all about making money, as a few RPI groups demonstrated this past weekend, with sales of various love-themed items at various locations on campus. Despite the perception that all RPI males are without girlfriends, sales were profitable.

The Alpha Phi sorority held its traditional cookie sale, which has been a staple of RPI’s Valentine’s Days for as long as anyone can remember. This year was a banner year for cookie sales; the sorority made 700 cookies and sold them all out for $800 by 3 pm on Friday. Sister Jenn Rivnyak emphasized that all of the proceeds, every single cent, went to charity.

The Alpha Phi Foundation, which supports women’s cardiac care, received all of the profits from this year’s cookie sale.

Alpha Phi featured its usual cookie favorites: the heart shaped sugar cookies, the smaller frosted chocolate chip cookies, and the plate-sized frosted chocolate chip cookies. The latter is a hot item for the confection-selling sorority, which sold all 60 of them for $5 each. The smaller cookies were sold individually for a dollar each, in $5 packs of five for the chocolate chip cookies, and $5 packs of 10 for the sugar cookies.

Lots of effort went in to Alpha Phi’s cookie sale. Sisters baked the cookies in Rensselaer Soceity of Engineers’ and Chi Phi’s ovens, and hand-frosted them—with hand-made frosting, no less—in a cookie production line at the Alpha Phi house. The baking “improved this year a lot, because it usually takes us like a week to bake, and this year we did it in one day,” said Rivnyak, who made all the dough herself for nearly two weeks prior to the baking.

The Rusty Pipes threw their voices into the Valentine’s Day festivities, partnering with Alpha Phi to sell romantic serenades with the cookies for an extra $3. On request, the Pipes would sing their arrangement of “When You Say Nothing At All,” their preferred romantic song. One special request of “Hands Down” was granted to a close friend of some of the Pipes.

The serenades proved to be an excellent addition to the Valentine’s Day lineup. One residence director purchased a serenade and cookies for all of his resident assistants and learning assistants, showing that love need not be solely romantic, but can also take the form of simple affection among colleagues and friends.

The Rusty Pipes sold over a dozen serenades; Pipe Maura Whelan said, “I think it worked out really well.” Both groups plan to continue the partnership next year. It is hoped that increased publicity will make the sales even more popular.

The Pi Delta Psi fraternity took a more traditional Valentine’s Day route, selling flowers—red, white, and pink roses—to commemorate the holiday, as well as putting the newly established fraternity on the RPI map. Pi Delta Psi was “trying to get our name on campus, because we just got established last semester,” according to brother Jiang Chen.

Despite apparently lackluster sales, the flower sales did make a profit, but unfortunately not enough to send the “proceeds to a brother in another school who lost everything he had in a fire,” said Chen.

Pi Delta Psi brothers attributed their lack of outstanding success to the absence of students on campus during the long weekend, and will avoid that arrangement for next year’s sale. They are also entertaining the possibility of adding candy sales.

This is the second year for the flower sale, although last year the sale was conducted independent of the fraternity. It drew in $300, despite the aforementioned impressions of a campus full of single men.