It’s March Madness and everybody’s following their bracket in Campus Minister Daniel Kriegl’s March Madness challenge. This challenge isn’t just for fun, though, as Kriegl explained his goals in this challenge.

“The goal is to build school spirit and find a unique way experience almsgiving during Lent.”

Each bracket in the NDA group was set up with a $3 donation to the St. John’s Homeless Shelter.

In the past years, Notre Dame has been closely connected to the shelter and provides a dinner there every month.

“We have a close relationship with St. John’s,” he said, “and because of this every month we have a dinner there. Then the week March madness was starting two students came to me asking if we could help donate to St. John’s, which gave us the perfect opportunity to do so, since we were already doing a fundraiser.”

This creative idea actually came from a few years ago.

“We did this several years ago for Catholic Relief Services. It brought great energy and spirit throughout the school,” said Kriegl.

Students are getting into it. So far, Kriegl said that 90 people have signed up. According to Kriegl, UNC and Duke are popular choices among the students.

Kriegl revealed his pick saying, “I picked Gonzaga to win because they are a Catholic College.”

English teacher Carolyn Brown, who has two brackets in the challenge, said, “It’s a great experience, and I’m glad Mr. Kriegl came up with it. I had some of my students fill it out for me, and my only requirement was getting Texas Tech, my alma mater, to the Elite Eight.  Fuzz even picked Tech for the Final Four.”

Although the deadline to sign up has passed, students can still donate to St. John’s and keep an eye on the March Madness games. The games can all be found on the NCAA website where they are being streamed.