Kevin Fine’s fraternity sponsored a Sabbath dinner the other week. As a member of Alpha Epsilon Pi, he joined his brothers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign campus for a five course meal he called “delicious.”

His chapter was one of many taking part in the Founder’s week event, which linked campuses across the historically Jewish fraternity’s network of 9,000 undergraduates in recognition of its 98th year.

“For me, as one of the premiere Jewish fraternities across campus we should definitely be leaders in anything that has to do with Judaism and Shabbat,” says Fine, who credits his campus’ Chabad-Lubavitch center with infusing him with Jewish pride and helping him plan events. “It’s just a good way to be involved in campus.”

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Rabbi Dov Klein, who directs the Tannenbaum Chabad House at Northwestern University and also serves as AEPi’s international rabbi, assistant regional governor, and faculty advisor for the Tau Delta chapter, says he encourages the fraternity’s focus on the Sabbath experience. Having spent the past 26 years on campus in Evanston, Ill., he’s watched the relationship between Chabad and AEPi grow into the collaborative efforts that exist between the fraternity and the Chabad on Campus International Foundation in New York.

“It’s an automatic fit to who we are and what we do on campus,” he says.

While various holiday programming is done through chapters’ partnerships with local Chabad Houses during the year, AEPi’s chapters-wide Founder’s day dinner invited both Chabad Houses and Hillel organizations to give local chapters guidance.

“The idea was that the chapters should make their own dinners, and if they needed to help, to reach out to Hillel or Chabad for support,” explains Klein.

Rabbi Zalman Deitsch, director of the Schottenstein Chabad House at Ohio State University, notes that on any given week, between 10 and 20 AEPi brothers make their way across the street for dinners or other events. There’s even an AEPi brother on his board.

Also, at least once a month, the Chabad House hosts a breakfast or similar optional program at the fraternity house.

“There’s definitely a positive relationship,” he says of his AEPi chapter.

For Adam Teitelbaum, the Lorber Director of Jewish Programming and Philanthropy for AEPi, the “Shabbat across AEPi” and the family of programs done in cooperation with Chabad both locally and internationally is all in furtherance of the fraternity’s mission of developing future Jewish leaders. He points to the 28 chapters that built their own sukkahs through a partnership with Chabad on Campus as evidence that Chabad Houses “allow [members] to have a safe space on campus” to connect with their Jewish heritage.