GreekChat.com Forums - $$$ for little/pledge daughter gifts?

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In the three preceding weeks before Big/Little Week, the new members get one gift per week from their Paw Pal. These gifts are part of the Phi Director's budget and are purchased from the Carnation Collection so that everyone receives the same gift. During Big/Little Week though, the gifts are purchased out of pocket. Each gift has a maxmum spending limit, depending on the item, which is set by the Phi Director. There are ten days of gifts (a week for Big/Little and a week for Initiation), and the total of all the maximum prices is around $115. This is what we consider the average cost of picking up a Little; however, it can be done for much less, considering you can find most of the gifts for less than the maximum. Handmade gifts are also pretty popular. This price also does not include the two dinners following Revealing and Initiation that are paid for by the big sister.

We have a week and give our lils the same things as everyone else on each day ... like if its pic frame it doesnt have to be the SAME exact pic frame but it is a pic frame and we can only spend 100 dollars. Then after that people will sometimes buy their littles more but only when its one on one and not so all the other littles see.

Quote:

Originally posted by adpiucf
Here's a policy that is great in theory, but not really working in practice...

The new thing for our sorority is that the New Member Coordinator is supposed to budget for ALL new member gifts, and that the only out of pocket expenses the "big" incurs are writing notes and very small and inexpensive gifts which are optional. We're very big on spending one on one time together, though. The district officers who oversee budgets and the new member program do check to see that new member gifts have been budgeted, but there are still "bigs" who go all out and spend lots of money, and chapters that encourage the "bigs" buying everything.

The reason for all gifts coming from the chapter budget is so more initiated sisters will want to become Diamond sisters (what we call the big/littles) because a lot of the time women are deterred because of the expense.

When I was a collegian, our chapter had a policy that any gifts you gave had to be given off sorority grounds. This way, if Suzy Q got tons of stuff and Amy Alpha didn't, there wouldn't be any hurt feelings because it was a private and discreet exchange.

As a collegian, I embraced my arts-and-crafts side and made most of my diamond sister's gifts. It's very easy to bake cookies and then decorate the container with paint pens in sorority colors, her name, etc. There were some store-bought things, of course, but it was fun to spend the summer making things in anticipation of having a diamond sis!

Also, I made it point to call her at least once a week and get together... all the gifts in the world can't add up to cultivating a friendship and helping acclimate a new member to the chapter!

This is what my chapter does. Each NM gets a Bid Day gift (last year it was their shirt, a tote bag, stationary, a picture frame, and a diamond board to hang on their dorm door) out of the NMC's budget. I gave my diamond sister extra gifts, but I had friends deliver them to her dorm so the other Alphas wouldn't be jealous if they had fewer gifts.

I truthfully didn't spend too much money on gifts. I made a lot of things, passed down some old shirts, and wrote a lot of letters to her. The number one thing I did was spend a lot of time with her, inviting her to dinner, hanging out in the suite, going out at night, etc. Obviously it paid off, because even though she had to leave our chapter for health reasons, we still have a very close relationship. She is one of my best friends at Miami.

ETA- We also give gifts throughout the week before Diamond Sister Revelation. Every older Diamond sister leaves a specific gift in the suite for her NM Diamond (like a passdown shirt, or a fleece blanket, etc.). These also come out of the NMC's budget. The idea behind this in our chapter is to encourage everyone to take a Diamond, even if they are short on cash.

We paid out of pocket. I don't think we had a max that we could spend, but people usually didn't go too crazy.

During the first part of the NM period, each NM is paired up with first an Alpha sister (usually whoever preffed her), then an Epsilon sister (usually someone the NM doesn't know that well, to mix things up). Alpha and Epsilon sisters usually get little gifts for the NMs, make sure their dorm room doors are decorated, maybe take them out for lunch or dinner, etc. Then the NMs are matched up with Phi sisters, who are their bigs. Then the spoiling begins :D

ETA: Of course, the NMs get bid day gifts too. These come from the new member educator's budget. We're proud of our NMs, and waste no time slapping a ribbon and a t-shirt on each of them ;)