Chapter News

Philanthropy, Concerts, and More at 360 E. Hamilton!

Here at the Alpha Delta chapter, we have been going to great lengths to make an impact in our community. Whether it be campus wide events such as THON, or smaller events put on at the house, this has been a focus of our brotherhood over the past year. Alpha Delta reports a very healthy, spring new-member class of 19 young men!

Recently, we have paired with a new sorority, Omega Phi Alpha, to partner with us for THON. Since the pairing, we have been working endlessly on raising money for the event. In the fall semester, we spent a weekend canning all over Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The canning weekend allowed us to spend a full day outside raising money and talking to people about what we do for THON.

Other than fundraising, we provide support for THON families – the Garcias, Martins, and the Zieglers. We have been with Josiah and his mother Erika Garcia since 2014 and visit them multiple times a year. Josiah finally finished his treatment this fall and we celebrated with a skate party where we had about 40 brothers go and celebrate in Dover, PA. Josiah loves music, video games and sports and he cannot wait to attend Penn State as a student and a brother of Chi Phi. Due to our new partnership with Omega Phi Alpha, we gained two new families this year and we cannot wait to build a strong relationship with them over the next few years. THON is extremely impactful on many families and something that many of our brothers hold very close their hearts.

Another focus of our chapter has been community outreach. In the fall semester, we organized a Sunday brunch at our house and invited numerous people in the community. Our guests ranged from our next door neighbors to the newly elected State College mayor, and everyone in between. We thought this event would be a great chance for our brothers to interact with our community members and for the community members to see what our fraternity is all about. All in all, about 40 community members showed up throughout the day and our feedback from them was very positive. This event went very well and we think it went a long way in our relationship with the community. We look forward to hosting more events like this one in the future.

Along the same lines as our brunch, we recently invited a local policeman to come speak to the brothers at the house. Officer Adam Salyards graciously volunteered to come to this event and teach us how to be better neighbors. His presentation covered many topics from local laws to crisis management. Overall, he provided us with some great tips that will help us continue to improve our standing in the community. We cannot thank Officer Adam Salyards enough for volunteering his time to us and we think we gained some great information from his presentation.

One of the final big events we put on recently was a philanthropy concert at our house. Multiple brothers knew of musicians that would be willing to come perform and we saw this as a great opportunity for philanthropy. Our proceeds from the event will be donated to the Boys and Girls Club of America. We were able to get two seperate artists to come perform at the event with one of our brothers as the opening act. Between selling tickets online and at the door, we were able to raise a solid amount of money to put towards our charity. Prior to the event, we went to many measures to ensure the event would be run smoothly and safely for everyone attending. Sure enough, the event went great and everyone had a good time. We hope to continue to do more big philanthropy events in the future to help raise money.

Over the past year we have also had many brothers involved in Men Against Violence, and Greeks CARE, two on campus organizations that share the goal of decreasing sexual assaults by spreading awareness, providing information on resources, and promoting bystander intervention. Through these programs our brothers have facilitated presentations for other fraternities, sororities, club and varsity sports teams, and other student organizations, and formed a very strong relationship with the staff at the Gender Equity Center, a division of the office of student affairs that oversees both programs. The involvement in these programs has provided many leadership and service opportunities for our brothers, and we have an even larger number of brothers participating in both organizations this year because we all feel that this is a very important cause.

Overall, the brothers of the Alpha Delta chapter have been working hard to improve our community relations while raising money for THON and philanthropies. All of our recent events have turned out well and we have received positive feedback from those attending. In the future, we will continue to work at improving our relations and making a positive impact on the community around us. This past year has been pretty successful, but we believe that this is just the start of the great things that we can achieve as a fraternity.
In The Spirit of the N.R.,

Adam McCullough
President, Chi Phi Fraternity, Alpha Delta Chapter

Vice President, Enactus at University Park
Cell: (330) 690-9369

College of Engineering, Class of 2020