My alumnae club did something at a meeting that might work at a philanthropy recruitment event because it was simple, required no talent and it was easy to talk the whole time we did it. We contacted the local diabetes association office to see what we could do to help and they had boxes and boxes of papers, envelopes and labels for a mass mailing that they needed done. We sat in a small circle and stuffed envelopes while chatting incessantly and had like 400 of them done before we were done talking. I don't know if PNMs expect something more elaborate or crafty, but it was definitely helpful to the organization and allowed for us to talk the whole time with no mess to worry about either. You could split it up into as many parties as you needed, so that there were equal amounts to get done for each party and if you finished all of them that were allotted for that party, then you could just keep chatting and rotating for the rest of the time.

Dee

Hmmm.. this is what the sororities had last year:

Chi O: drew borders/designs on pieces of paper to become pages in scrapbooks for kids in the Make a Wish Foundation. It was fun but the sister kind of just watched me draw and we didn't talk much

Kappa: We carried mini backpacks around from table to table and put toys/etc in them at each table "to donate" to some shelter? or something? I found out that they re-used everything after each party and they ran out of stuff even in my party and it was very hard to talk while moving around from table to table.

AEPhi: We made cards for kids and then tied them onto beanie babies, but they re-used the same few beanie babies each time. (I spoke to one of my friends at that party and she told me lol)

Pi Phi: we made bookmarks and decorated them because one of our big philanthropies is involved with literacy. It was kind of a stupid project and I'm not sure if they ever used them for anything but at least we really got to talk to the sisters.

Alpha Phi: We were supposed to make some magic trick with plastic cups and construction paper but they didnt work and everyone just gave up and talked, which was fun :)

DG: We traced pictures of a letter of the alphabet and an outline of an animal whose name starts with that letter with glitter glue. The pages were then supposed to be bound into a book to be given to the blind. It was an interesting idea but it was a little messy.

I guess my favorite activity was Chi O and my least favorite was Kappa's.

In my chapter, we always do the same thing on philanthropy day. We have the PNMs decorate cookies that are on sticks, then they are all put into cookie bouquets and sent to the children and families at the Ronald McDonald House for them to eat. Every year we get TONS of compliments on it and it's alot of fun. I like it because it's easy to talk while you do that, and it is useful and relevant to our national philanthropy. :)

That sounds great! How do you decorate them? Where do you get the cookies from? How are they arranged in bouquets?

I hate just decorating a little card. It just seems kind of trivial. I also didn't like things that were too artsy. I'm not the most artistic of people and I (stupidly) thought they were scoring us based on how we did the projects.

My favorite philanthropy project is ours. We have clothing racks full of nice clothes from clothing drives, etc. and have the PNMs shop for an outfit (either business or casual) for women at Family Abuse Services. It's easy to talk while doing it, and a lot of fun.

So, maybe I'm just gonna say one that I like. I really like ours. We get ceiling tiles from a local hospital and we have the PNM paint things on the tiles. The tiles go up on the ceiling of the children's wing of the hospital! The hospital picks a theme for us each year, to go along with whatever they are doing. I think it's a pretty cute idea!