Greek organizations inspire by example with grant money

Pi Kappa Alpha’s mission during finals week of last semester went beyond studying. Its final goal was to collect as many teddy bears and trucks as it could for charity. It was not on its own, however, having also had help from peers and the GIVE Center.

Five $100 Inspire by Example mini-service grants were given out by the GIVE Center last semester, including two given to the Pi Kappa Alpha and Kappa Sigma fraternities.

“Each of the activities that the fraternities did is associated with their philanthropies,” said Tiffany Cannon, graduate assistant for student involvement at the GIVE Center. “Kappa Sig’s national philanthropy is Fallen Heroes. The PIKEs do not have a national philanthropy, but they have chosen locally to support Toys for Tots.”

The PIKEs counted on the help from fellow students to get enough toys during the last week of school.

“They held a toy collection on campus for a few days right before Christmas and they also had a party downtown,” Cannon said. “They collected toys instead of having to pay to get in.”

From there, the PIKEs made sure the toys went to kids in need of Christmas spirit.

“The thing about Toys for Tots, there’s not a physical entity,” Cannon said. “It was something started by a group of Marines. There’s no place to send the toys. A lot of times toy drives are done under the name of Toys for Tots, and then they’re taken to children’s hospitals, which is what these guys did. They took them to a children’s hospital in Atlanta.”

The Kappa Sigma fraternity did its part to support Fallen Heroes.

Tyler Wright, a Kappa Sig senior marketing major, did his part to help gather supplies and ship them out.

“We set up a table as a part of the ‘big Greek give’ to collect care package items, like toiletries and stuff like that, to send to a church overseas,” Wright said. “With the help of the Georgia College community we were able to put together several care packages. We involved the Oak Hill Middle School and the kids in the Y.E.S. program helped us assemble the care packages.”

Kappa Sig was able to assemble nine care packages total with the help of the Youth Enrichment Services of Baldwin County.

“It’s about 20 kids,” Cannon said. “Georgia College students actually volunteer over there (at Oak Hill). They go once a week and teach the kids about community service and civic engagement. We call them the ‘Heroes Class’ because they worked on sending cards to veterans. It was a great way for them to implement things they’ve been talking about. The (Kappa Sigs) helped them decorate the boxes and write letters and cards to put in there.”

Wright first heard about the Inspire by Example grants by attending the pace setters meetings. The meetings are held on the first Mondays of the month at 12:30 p.m. in the Maple Room of the Student Activities Center.

“The pace setters meetings are held once a month,” Cannon said. “They’re sponsored by the GIVE Center. It’s basically a networking and resource meeting for any group on campus that has interest in serving and volunteerism. It provides the students opportunities to volunteer or for them to say, ‘hey, these are some of the things that you can use to make your events better.’ ”

The GIVE Center does what it can to help students with their volunteering. Their GIVE Team is in charge of the Inspire by Example grants.

Kenneth Morris, a senior psychology major, is a part of the GIVE Team that determines which applicants receive the grant.

“Whenever they put in an application (for an Inspire by Example grant), we also have them come and give a brief presentation about it,” Morris said. “Usually what stands out the most is how it’s going to affect the community and what group they’re trying to appeal to. It’s about the level of impact that we think they’re going to have with the group they’re trying to reach. If we see that we can help them by giving them that grant, then we’re all for it.”

The GIVE Center will be giving out more grants this semester. Students that have a passion for helping others are encouraged to look into the grants.

Posted by Courtney Murrah on Jan 29 2010. Filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry