Women Advancing Via Engineering and Science (WAVES) used the Pi Day holiday to host a pie sale to fundraise and promote women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields in the Student Center Plaza on Tuesday.

Club adviser Kelly Ramos said the event is meant to fundraise for the WAVES club’s general funds for expenses like traveling to educational conferences, touring four-year institutions or industry field trips, when club members visit a scientist in their lab to experience a professional work environment.

WAVES President Erika Cortez said the club wants to be active by going places and inviting different guest speakers to the campus.

Cortez said they are specifically interested in the Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) national conference, where female undergrads students, professionals and professors meet to share their research and their support.

She said, “This conference is coming up next semester, so we want the majority of the girls, like 10 or so, to attend instead of just one or two.” It would be a good experience for the club members to have together, she said.

The pie sold for $2 a slice, for any flavor, and the event also featured a game two participants could pay to play.

“If you have a friend you have beef with, face them in the Pie Face Showdown game,” Ramos said into a microphone, as lively music filled the Campus Center Plaza.

She said WAVES is a fun group, so this event definitely characterizes the good times that they are having.

The club also loves to collaborate with other people, so for this event they brought in faculty and students to participate, she said.

Cortez said it was hard to gather enough participants from the United Faculty to participate, since the event was planned two weeks prior to Pi Day.

It was worth bringing them in because the Pie Face Showdown Hasbro game attracted many people to participate, or just watch, because of the fun people were having around the game, Cortez said.

Psychology major Esmeralda Topeg said, “I was passing by and saw the booth and thought it would be cool to battle a teacher (in Pie Face Showdown).”

She said she knows only a little bit about the WAVES club, but it looks like a well-rounded, tight-knit group that she could be part of.

Cortez said that apart from fundraising, the event helped the club promote community building, promoted women in engineering and educated the campus population that participated about the club.

“STEM is something many people don’t know about, so it is so it is good for us to do this,” she said.

METAS tutor Atzhiri Cooper said she works with Karla in the METAS tutoring program.

There are other female engineers, scientists or mathematicians, she said.

It is important to promote them because there are not a lot of women in the field, so if other women know there is support within the field, then they are more likely to undergo the challenge of majoring in STEM fields, Cooper said.

The $2 pie was well worth it to be able to help WAVES generally support women in Contra Costa College’s clubs.

Cortez said that in one of their weekly meetings they talked about fundraisers they could host in March.

She said one of the ideas was to focus on small holidays they could base the theme on.

“We got a perfect idea when someone though of selling pies on Pi Day, because we are all about math in STEM,” she said.

The Waves club meets every Friday from noon to 1 p.m. in the Physical Science Building, room 107.