Philanthropy
 

Hi Ladies,
I just wanted to ask if anyone has done any really cool philanthropy events that they could share? I just got elected Philanthropy chair and i have some good ideas, but wanted to see what the other chapters do. Thanx much :D

Phi Sig love and Mine,
Rebecca

Zeta Chi Chapter

Ideas!
 

Our philanthropy chair this last year came up with great activities for us.
For every holiday, we made cards for the fire fighters and police officers in NYC. It doesn't sound like much, but we received a letter back from them, telling us how much they really appreciated it! It's really easy too. Just buy a pack of construction paper, some markers, crayons and rubber stamps. We would hand them out during meetings, for the sisters to make. We also would have them out at our Shakey's Night, which is a fundraiser. That way other people and organizations that were there could make some too!
We also made Christmas cards for the Children's Hospital of Los Angeles.
Some of us went to an elementary school, and helped put books inside backpacks. (It was an event planned out by a company, I believe) Anyways, you can read books to the children.
There's tons of other ideas out there. Good luck!

LITP~Beth

We do a quarter mile... where we gather up donations and make them into quarters and line them up for a mile on Main St. If we make a mile it comes to something likle 6000 bucks (I think) and then we donate half and keep half... which is great cos NKF gets 3000 and we do too!

LITP
Alison

I am doing a great job of NOT doing my unit plan....

Thats an awesome idea! Thanks for sharing, i'll have to look into that one :D

LITP,
Rebecca

Philanthropy
 

Our chapter does an annual greek walk a thon that is 24 hours long and brings all the greeks on campus to help with our walk a thon. We got the news involved, the paper, radio stations and got PR plus Philanthropy ! We also put on an easter egg hunt with eggs, face painting, prizes, and fun stuff for the youth.

Great Idea!
 

AngelPhiSig, that's a great idea! Hopefully we'll be able to implement that here!

LITP~Beth
:D

A walk a thon sounds like fun! Unfortunately we're the only greek organization on campus (don't gasp!, its actually kinda cool!) But maybe we could gather up fellow Phi Sigs from surrounding colleges. I know there are some Western Maryland girls that post messages on here...would you be interested in something like that? We could team up and have an awesome time!

Phi Sig love and Mine ,
Rebecca

Zeta Chi Chapter
Villa Julie College
:D

Nkf
 

Ok, so our national philanthropy is the National Kidney Foundation. But, except for donating money once a year, my chapter doesn't really do much for it. What are some things that other chapters do to support the NKF???

Thanks!;)

my chapter is in the same situation as yours...we don't do much for NKF other than donate to foundation.

Call up the affiliate and see if they have anything you can help with....I know they have lollipop(or jelly-beans??) days here, but for some reason the Sigma Chi s do that. And last year a nearby chapter invited us to go to a walkathon with them...it was at the detroit zoo and was for the NKF, so maybe you could participate in a local walkathon too.

also, i've heard that some groups make cover-ups for the IV bags...this is popular for children's wards, but I'm sure you could adapt it for the dialysis ward...after all aren't most IV bags the same?

Although, I really want my chapter to do more community service, it is really tough since we're so small and they need to get the chapter functioning properly again.

My chapter tries to do our best at funding the NKF. We hold bake sales, walk a thons and anything we can to raise maney for NKF. Any fundraiser you do can help support the NKF.

Hi Rebecca,
i'm the philanthropy chair for the gamma pi chapter at umbc. i think it would be a great idea to get together for some events because it seems that, with at least some events, that the more involved the better.

i have a few ideas in mind and i think it'd be cool if we could share since we know what's it's like with a small greek community. just a question- do you get much support from the rest to the student body?

sorry to seem if i'm babbling...

pslam,
faith
gamma pi
university of maryland baltimore county

Philanthropy ideas?
 

so, as of now... we have no "real" philanthropy. i mean, we do little things year round, but we can't compete with say, DG's Anchor Splash or Tri Delts "Dolphin Daze" -etc. we WANT to have a cool, catchy philanthropy event that we can make into a tradition.

any ideas? i know many chapters do the Rock-a-thon but my school is very apathetic and for some reason I just don't see us having much success with that. i think what we really want to do is make something that involves mostly the greek community - some activity or something that we can ALL do together, rather than trying to collect donations.

this topic, of course, is DEFINETLY open to members of other groups. any ideas would be great!

I don't have many ideas for big philanthropies. But a chapter in our division does a Mr. PhiSignificant pageant. They recruit men from some fraternities and some from sports teams. have a whole pageant. judges were mostly e-board and alum. tickets were about 3-5 dollars. and they sold chocolate roses and other snacks.
I guess this depends on teh sttitude of yur school, since even some around our division didn't like the idea of a pageant...but last year when i went it was so funny...the guys had a good time, and well, so did the ladies :D

LITP

Our chapter started a cancer fundraiser last year and it was a huge success. We worked with our campus volunteer center, had speakers come, provided a meal, invited all students, staff, faculty & comuunity, and 4 of our students on campus shaved their heads for cancer awareness - one of them was a Phi Sig sister! Our campus made that day the official Cancer awareness day for our university and now Phi Sig will be the annual hosts for the event. Last year we raised a couple thousand dollars and are hoping that it will get bigger and bigger every year.

We have also done the sleep out for the homeless.

Leah

sapphiresphinx
okay, basically anchor splash is delta gamma's national philanthropy - correct me if i'm wrong, someone, but i think pretty much all DG chapters do it - it's really fun, even though it's mostly for the boys.

they basically have it set up as a series of events (ie water races, synchronized swimming routines, etc) where houses compete. the fraternities on campus get pretty into it.

tri-delt's dolphin daze i dont know as much about but i think its a similar type of thing. the key thing about them is they're CATCHY and memorable - good for marketing and continuity, etc. all of the good houses on campus participate. we need something like that. we're still working on it... thanks for your advice everyone!!

awesome idea!
 

just a few weeks ago we kicked off a new philanthropy idea. We had a battle of the sexes (hosted it with another frat-theta chi) and had a bunch of events like tug o war, toe nail painting, stuff like that. We had a really good time doing it and a lot of people signed up!

Welcome to Greek Chat PhiSigirlie!

Philanthropy Ideas
 

Alrighty, well I was asked by Nicole to come up with a list of Philanthropy Ideas... And being the Queen of Lists, I did. (sorry it took me a couple of days to get this to you Nicole!)

Thanks to other organizations and websites, I have complied the following list... Please feel free to add on anything that's not listed. BTW, I listed items that are more service oriented than fundraising oriented. :D

National Kidney Foundation!!!
Throw a theme party for a nursing home
Perform a puppet show for a pediatric ward
Do yard work for the elderly
Clean up a playground
Build a community garden
Hold a canned food drive/clothing drive
Collect Toys for Tots
Adopt a grandparent
Cook a meal for the homeless
Host a learn to read seminar
Entertain patients in the hospital (ie. spinal cord injured, V.A’s, cancer, etc.)
Plant flowers at a nursing home
Adopt and Clean a highway
Give gifts to children in an orphanage
Sponsor a blood drive
Clean up a neighborhood
Host a picnic for a elementary school class
Run errands for handicap/elderly people
Recycle
Beautify your campus
Hold a walk-a-thon
Garage sale
Have a raffle for donated items
Become a part of neighborhood watch
Volunteer at the library to read to children
Volunteer at a hospital (candy stripers)
Join the local police/fire department’s volunteer program
Sponsor or coach a little league sports team
Sponsor guest speakers for campus/community
Tutor at local schools
Hold a haunted house for the community
Sponsor an after school program for children at a local park
Hold a bingo night
Sponsor Risk Management seminars for Greeks on campus
Have a used book sale
Sponsor a student/faculty art sale
Volunteer to re-paint public surfaces (ie. curbs, fences, benches, poles, etc.)
Work with police on fingerprinting children
Volunteer at a soup kitchen
Habitat for Humanity
Make-a-Wish Foundation
United Way
Volunteer at the Special Olympics
Ronald McDonald House
Provide a scholarship to an underprivileged high school senior
American Cancer Society
Teach food nutrition to elementary school children
Sponsor sex education courses for middle/high school students
Sponsor a health fair on your campus
Alzheimer’s Association
Sponsor a seminar on eating disorders
Local battered women/children’s shelter
Boys and Girl’s Club
Clean the beach/lake/pond
American Red Cross
Sponsor Seeing Eye Dogs
YMCA/YWCA
Girl Scouts of America
Camp Fire
Sponsor a child/family in a third world country
9/11 family funds
Muscular Dystrophy

Well I hope that helps you out.

PSLAM~Beth

We have fun philanthropy/fundraising thing called "Sleepout For Homeless" which we do with the boys from Sigma Pi. Its basically a bunch of people, camping out on the steps of the Campus center from 9am-11pm, hanging out and raising some money for good cause.

I guess it used to go overnight...but I dont think we can do that anymore. Lol.

LITP :-*