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 More
than just social organizations, Willamette’s Greek houses
are committed to philanthropy and community service.
Six-year-old Maria Ibarra stares at an embarrassment of riches.
On the table before her is a mouth-watering banquet of picnic-style
food. All around her the atmosphere is carnival-like and awash in
a sea of ribbons, balloons, games, costumes, painted faces and deafening
noise. It’s “Kid’s Night Out” at the Boys
and Girls Club of Salem where 150 Salem-area kids are being treated
to an evening of fun-filled excess – think “Mardi Gras”
for grade-schoolers.
Watching over Ibarra as she navigates the maze of sights and sounds
is Willamette Pi Beta Phi sorority member McKenzie Cowan ’04.
Cowan and five other Pi Beta Phi members have volunteered to serve
as mentors for the event. Cowan and her friends don’t have
to be there. No course credit or scholarship is at stake. Their
big payoff is a warm hug, a new friend and the feeling of making
a difference. It’s the kind of community service that’s
routine to sorority life according to junior Marie Metke ’05,
Willamette’s Pi Beta Phi president. “We hear about events
all the time from faculty and people who are involved in community
service. We also get a lot of random phone calls from people saying,
‘This event is coming up, can you help us out?’”
“Helping out” aren’t typical first words that
spring to mind when you think of fraternities and sororities. News
media and movies tend to portray Greek life as one continuous alcohol-fueled
party. Spend any time with Willamette’s Greek members and
it’s obvious that those popularized images are misplaced.
In fact, Willamette’s fraternities and sororities devote an
astonishing amount of time and energy in the service of others.
Good Times/Good Causes
Back at the food table, Ibarra has finally selected her meal. She
takes a small scoop of potato salad and some Cheetos, leaving plenty
of room on the plate for a nice, big ice cream sandwich. Cowan follows
close behind smiling at Ibarra’s choice of cuisine. Cowan’s
having a great time but acknowledges that a couple of years ago
she never would have imagined that this kind of experience was part
of sorority life. “I was like most people and held a real
stereotype of what sororities were all about.”
Cowan’s admission isn’t unusual. Unless you’re
a member of a house, most of what fraternities and sororities do
is, well, Greek to the average outsider. “I think that we’re
equally if not more to blame for that,” says Beta Theta Pi
member Michael Rice ’04. “The way we promote things
really highlights our fund-raising events so people tend to think
that’s the only thing we do.”
Rice’s observation identifies an important misperception
that continues to haunt Willamette’s Greeks. They are primarily
viewed as fundraising organizations that engage in few other forms
of community service. The implication is that raising money alone
doesn’t foster the same kind of dedication or affiliation
for a cause that more hands-on service projects provide.
No one disputes that fund-raising is the Greeks’ bread and
butter. Each year the houses host a series of major campus events
that raise money for everything from cancer research to domestic
violence prevention. Arrowspike, Anchorsplash and Derby Days are
just a few examples of the myriad of campus activities they plan
that effectively mix good times with good causes.
At an event this year called Willamette Bachelor, where male contestants
were auctioned as part of a date package, the Sigma Chi fraternity
brought in more than $3,000 dollars for the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
Sigma Chi’s philanthropy chair Josh Vitulli ’05 is excited
about his fraternity’s plans to best that total next year.
“We’ve had a lot of success with Willamette Bachelor
and we’re looking to add more events next year.”
Just don’t try arguing with Metke or the other members of
Pi Beta Phi that fund-raising is somehow a less involved form of
service. In fact, with the months of planning, coordinating and
preparation that go into Pi Beta Phi’s major volleyball fund-raising
event, Arrowspike, Metke appreciates more than ever the importance
of such events. Far from being a detached charity cause, she says,
Arrowspike epitomizes “hands-on” community service.
“We spend a lot of time working with community businesses
and other Salem-area organizations raising donations. We are also
active on campus recruiting faculty and students to get teams entered
in the competition.”
Secondly, Greeks note, whether it’s a canned food drive or
collecting coats for the homeless, fund-raising events impact the
giver as much as they affect the recipient. Jana Fox ’05 and
her friends certainly felt that way after their recent bake sale
to raise money for school children in Tanzania. They under-took
the sale when they heard from a former Alpha Chi member teaching
in the small South African nation that the cost of sending a child
to school for a year was only $100. The letters Alpha Chi later
received from these kids, says Fox, was proof enough that even small
gestures make a big difference. “We get wonderful letters
from these kids and you think, ‘That’s school for an
entire year for them – that’s giving them so much.’
It’s stuff like that where you really realize the importance
of what you do even though it may seem like a small contribution.”
For years, notes University President M. Lee Pelton, Greek contributions
– both great and small – have been part of Willamette’s
larger dedication to ser-vice. “Tradition and philanthropy
are the hallmarks of Willamette’s Greek organizations,”
says Pelton. “Willamette’s sororities and fraternities
have traditionally been very community-service oriented and compassionate,
actively demonstrating their commitment to those less fortunate
through a myriad of volunteer charitable activities.”
Defying Stereotypes
For all the attention that their fund-raising events generate, Greeks
are involved in many other community service activities that often
go unnoticed. No one was awake when sophomore David Gestaut ’06
and 14 other members of Phi Delta Theta rose at 4:30 a.m. one Sunday
morning to make a two-and-a-half-hour drive up to Mount Hood for
the Romp to Stomp Breast Cancer event this spring. The Phi Delta
Theta members stayed throughout the day to help support every aspect
of the 3 km-5 km run/walk event – a few guys even ran the
course. “We made up more than 50 percent of the volunteers.
When you have that kind of presence at a small event, it really
makes you feel like you’ve made a difference and contributed
something,” says Gestaut.
Nor is it common knowledge that many Greek houses encourage or
even require service as part of membership. At the Delta Gamma sorority,
members perform a minimum of 10 hours of community service. Much
of that time is devoted to the Oregon School for the Blind (OSB).
Delta Gamma philanthropy chair and junior Karlie Lewis ’05
notes that many Salem-area organizations like OSB are turning to
Willamette for volunteers as their resources dwindle. “They’ve
experienced tremendous budget cuts in the last couple of years and
are understaffed and lack adequate resources. So we’re there
as mentors and just to help out where we can.”
These activities don’t register in the larger campus subconscious
because students – whether Greek or non-Greek – aren’t
very public about their community service work. “I would say
even some of my close friends aren’t aware of the kind of
stuff that we do because you don’t exactly try to work it
into any of your conversations,” says sophomore and Sigma
Alpha Epsilon member Winthrop Head ’06. At a recent highway
cleanup event, Head talked more freely about his own community service
involvement. In the previous semester, he had spent two hours every
week tutoring at risk high school kids. “That was an awesome
experience,” he recalls. “We were working with kids
who’d been expelled from high school but wanted to make a
fresh start and get back in school.”
“You don’t talk about the community service you’re
doing because that negates the whole purpose of performing the service
in the first place,” echoes Rice. Like all of the other Greek
houses notes Rice, Beta Theta Pi requires its new pledges to design
a community service project as part of their initiation process.
This year the fraternity performed an extensive cleanup and revitalization
to the Deepwood Estate, one of Salem’s historic land-marks.
The process of having new members design a service project, says
Rice, reinforces the idea that service is an institutional component
of being Greek. “It gives them an appreciation and under-standing
of the way that community is supposed to function in the way that
everyone’s working toward a common goal.”
Another reason why Greek community service isn’t better
known on campus is that fraternity and sorority members are identified
by much more than their house affiliation. “We’re so
integrated in every other part of campus that it’s hard to
identify someone as only a Greek member,” says Rice. “I
think it’s very positive because it supports a better Willamette
atmosphere.” Willamette’s Greeks are so diverse and
involved in so many other aspects of campus that people are often
surprised to discover just who belongs to a fraternity or sorority.
This is the case for Vitulli, who is active in his fraternity
but has also worked with the developmentally disabled since his
sophomore year in high school. “It shouldn’t be a surprise
that so many fraternity members are involved in community service
because Willamette is the type of place that attracts those kind
of students,” he says. “I started out doing my work
as a requirement for the national honor society, but I ended up
liking it so much that I stuck around.”
The same holds true for Lewis, who spent her sophomore year as
acting president of Circle K, an international service organization
with a branch at Willamette. She enjoys all the work and involvement
that goes with sorority life, but she wants people to understand
that her life is about more than just one organization. “The
sorority is a priority but it’s not the only focus,”
she says. “I like being involved with Circle K because you
really feel like you’re part of something larger than yourself.”
A Lasting Impression
Whether or not they stay involved in community service after they
leave Willamette, many Greeks express profound satisfaction for
the work that has enriched their lives. Back at the Kids Night out
event, freshman Katie Archibald-Woodward ’07 says that helping
the Salem community adds a refreshing dose of reality to her Willamette
experience. As Woodward talks, she helps 9-year-old Tiana Davis
try to hook a fish from a kiddy pool using a magnate. “It’s
great to be involved in the community because at Willamette you
can create your own little world. This kind of event forces you
to break out of your comfort zone.”
Kappa Sigma member Richard Medeiros ’04 says that being
involved in community service allowed him to carry on a legacy of
service that began well before he arrived. This year he helped organize
the 19th annual Tracy Hoffman 5km run/walk that benefits the leukemia/lymphoma
society. The event is named for former fraternity member, Tracy
Hoffman, who died of leukemia in 1985. Every year, the Hoffman family
returns to lend its support to the event. The Hoffman family’s
gratitude toward the members of Kappa Sigma, Medeiros says, was
deeply moving. “It was amazing to meet Tracy Hoffman’s
mom and look into her eyes and have her thank you for the work that
you’re continuing to do in the memory of her son.”
For many Greeks, the feeling they get from helping others is difficult
to put into words. Some, like Gestaut, feel a profound sense of
gratitude for the abundance in their own lives and they want others
to experience that same feeling. “I’ve been lucky in
life. I’ve realized that it just gives me a lot of plea-sure
helping out someone who hasn’t enjoyed all of the advantages
that I have.”
For others, it’s the small measures of hope that mean the
most. “Just seeing other people smile,” says Lewis.
“We’re here trying to learn, develop our critical faculties
and figure out what we want from life so it means a lot when you’re
able to touch someone’s life. Making other people happy makes
you feel happy about yourself.”
Philanthropy, volunteerism, community service – Willamette’s
Greek system gives back to the community at many levels. But at
Kids Night Out, the members of Pi Beta Phi aren’t thinking
about that right now or the positive impact they’ve made on
the kids around them. The eating’s done and it’s time
for more games and fun. As they drift back into the noisy crowd
with their young charges in tow, it’s clear that this is one
party these sorority sisters will never forget.
– Brad Millay ’97
A Look at Willamette’s Greek
Life
Willamette’s Greek organizations have contributed to the University’s
rich and proud history. Growing out of social clubs and societies,
which developed as early as the 1850s, local fraternities and sororities
were officially formed at Willamette in the 1920s. Following World
War II, President G. Herbert Smith invited national fraternities
and sororities to affiliate with the local Greek organizations at
Willamette. Willamette now hosts three nationally affiliated sororities
(Alpha Chi Omega, Delta Gamma, and Pi Beta Phi), and five nationally
affiliated fraternities (Beta Theta Pi, Kappa Sigma, Phi Delta Theta,
Sigma Alpha Epsilon, and Sigma Chi). Approximately 25 percent of
Willamette students are affiliated with one of these eight organizations.
While each fraternity and sorority chapter values its unique heritage
and ritual, the principles upon which these groups were founded
are shared: brotherhood/sisterhood, scholarship, leadership and
service to the community. Like many Willamette students, our Greek
students are especially committed to serving others.
Here is a look at what Willamette’s Greek chapters are currently
doing, as reported by the chapter leaders, to sup-port philanthropic
causes:
SORORITIES
- Alpha Chi Omega sorority participates in the
Oregon Beach Clean-up each spring. Its national philanthropic
cause is preventing domestic violence, so the members complete
projects at the Mid-Valley Women’s Crisis Service in Salem
and have raised more than $1,000 for the shelter in the last year.
- Delta Gamma sorority contributes four hours
of service to the Oregon School for the Blind (OSB) and hosts
a competitive water sports activity called Anchorsplash, which
raises more than $2,000 for OSB and the Delta Gamma Foundation.
- Pi Beta Phi sorority participates in the Champions
are Readers (CAR) program, dedicating one month to reading to
third graders and sponsor two philanthropy events which raise
more than $1,000 for Doernbecher Children’s Hospital and
the Salem Literacy Project.
FRATERNITIES
- Beta Theta Pi fraternity participates in the
“Adopt-a-street” program and collected more than 400
coats in their annual Penny-Coat Drive philanthropy.
- Kappa Sigma fraternity holds two major philanthropic
events annually: the Mark Bellemore Canned Food Drive benefiting
local missions and food banks in the fall, and the Tracy Hoffman
Memorial 5km Run/Walk benefiting the American Cancer Society in
the spring. Both are named after brothers who passed away while
they were students at Willamette.
- Phi Delta Theta fraternity cleans a few blocks
of 12th Street monthly and hosts its annual softball tournament,
which raised $500 this year for the Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
(Lou Gehrig’s Disease) Association.
- Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity cleans a stretch
of Highway 22 three times per year, volunteers in the Salem-Keizer
School District, and sponsors three annual fund-raisers that benefit
Doernbecher Children’s Hospital in Portland.
- Sigma Chi fraternity holds Derby Days, a philanthropic
competition that supports Doernbecher Children’s Hospital,
and Willamette Bachelor, which raised $2,900 to benefit the Make-A-Wish
Foundation.
“Each Greek organization’s contributions to the Salem
and Willamette communities are impressive. These students learn
the importance of being involved community members as they witness
the impact of their dedication. Through their efforts, Greek men
and women live Willamette’s motto, “Not unto ourselves
alone are we born,” and are an important part of our campus
life.”
– Lisa Holliday, director of Student Activities, &
Michael Hevel, assistant director of Student Activities
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