Over $500,000 raised for UNC fraternities set to fund 'Flagstock' Labor Day party

A GoFundMe created for UNC fraternity brothers who held up the U.S. flag during pro-Palestine protests on UNC’s campus on April 30 raised over $500,000. The money is set to be disbursed toward an “epic rager,” now deemed Flagstock. 

The fundraiser was created to reward members of Pi Kappa Phi, Alpha Epsilon Pi — and other fraternities later added —with a party. Excess funds are set to benefit military families and veterans, a pro-law enforcement group and a fraternity organization. 

John Noonan and fellow beneficiary Susan Ralston organized the GoFundMe. They established the group Pints for Patriots, including a board of directors and a small team of volunteers. The fundraiser was titled, “UNC Frat Bros Defended their Flag. Throw 'em a Rager,” and has received just under 16,000 donors. 

Both Noonan and Ralston have partisan ties.

John Noonan was senior counselor for Military & Defense Affairs with Sen. Tom Cotton, (R-Ark.), a national security advisor to former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush's presidential campaign and a defense policy advisor to Sen. Mitt Romney's, (R-UT) 2012 presidential campaign. Noonan currently works for The National Review, a conservative magazine and website, and as a senior advisor to Polaris National Security, a nonprofit organization that promotes U.S. safety and military strength. 

Ralston was a deputy to Karl Rove, special assistant to former President George W. Bush, the deputy chief of staff and senior advisor at the White House. She currently works as an entrepreneur and an independent consultant.

Pi Kappa Phi, one of the fraternities whose members held up the flag, said in a May 3 Instagram post that the fundraiser has no connection to their chapter.

“We want to make it clear that we were not the creators of the GoFundMe page,” Pi Kappa Phi said.

The DTH reached out to ten fraternity brothers but was not able to obtain comment from Pi Kappa Phi or Alpha Epsilon Pi. 

Noonan wrote in a May 2 update on the GoFundMe that “it’s incumbent on us to disburse the money in a manner that is faithful to our donors’ intent: throwing these great guys a world class party that will echo across eternity.”

Samuel Scarborough, a Southern Student Action Coalition organizer, said that the fundraiser was unsurprising.

"$500,000 could help evacuate Gazan families from the genocide [that] students were there protesting. It could fund scholarships for low-income students who cannot attend UNC, provide food for the roughly 1 in 5 UNC students who experience food insecurity or house some of the unhoused people living on Franklin Street — $500,000 could meaningfully change the material conditions of so many lives," Scarborough wrote in a statement to The Daily Tar Heel.

In a June 10 update on the GoFundMe page, Noonan added a list of charities proposed by the fraternities that the excess money from the fundraiser will go toward. The charities include Back the Blue NC, Wounded Warrior Project, Children of Fallen Patriots and the Zeta Beta Tau Foundation. 

Flagstock, will be held on Labor Day and is invite only, with country music artist John Rich set to perform along with other entertainment.

Jules Wortman, a spokeswoman for John Rich, said that he heard about April 30's events at UNC on social media and wanted to throw a free concert for the fraternity brothers. Pints for Patriots then organized with Rich so his performance could be held at Flagstock.

“He said he was proud of what they stood for, and he wanted to honor them by doing a free concert,” Wortman said. 

In a video on his X account posted on June 17, Rich said that hopefully Flagstock ignites other young people around the country to be proud patriots.

"If the other side can be loud about it, about how much they hate it, we should be ten times as loud about how much we love it," Rich said in the video on X. "I could not be more proud of these young men.”

On May 2, Duke Academics and Staff for Justice in Palestine created a GoFundMe to support the protesters at the Traingle Gaza Solidarity Encampment at UNC who were arrested, detained and suspended, raising $50,530.

“Undergrads have been kicked out of their homes in the dorms and withdrawn from their classes — grad students are now unemployed without their stipend, healthcare, or any income,” Duke ASJP wrote in the description of the fundraiser.

The fundraiser closed the next day. Kaleb White, a rising senior and the UNC Students for Justice in Palestine event coordinator, said that the Duke ASJP fundraiser was shut off because they wanted to encourage people to donate to Gaza. 

White expressed his frustrations with the outpouring of donations that the fraternities received to throw this party. 

"I think it's such an excellent image," White said. "It's such a terrifying image of the way that our world is currently structured, and everything that needs to change about it."

Scarborough wrote in his statement to the DTH that the U.S. flag represents a nation that "parties while starving, terrorizing, slaughtering, and impoverishing billions of people across the world."

Another student, who chose to stay anonymous for safety concerns, shared their disagreement of the fundraiser. 

“It kind of just felt like a slap in the face because we've been working so hard to raise money for Palestinians and their families,” they said. 

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