Thursday, October 8, 2009

Greeks for Δ (Change)


For those that don’t know…
I, Nate Marshall, am in a Fraternity.

No not like that... well...not TOTALLY. We have our good time but that's not the point of this post. I am a member of an organization that is a part of the National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC). The NPHC are the 9 historically Black international Greek letter organizations. (LEARN MORE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Pan-Hellenic_Council)



That more like it... not really but close enough. So for many people when they think of NPHC organizations they think of stepping, branding, and hazing and such...









While those things may or may not be a part of OUR version of Greek Life (I plead the FIF!) there  are many great things that come from these organizations. I'll spare you the Greek informational list of National initiatives and famous alumni and all that but here's some things about it that I think are a fewparticularly good and progressive programs.
My chapter goes every month to West Nashville Methodist Church to feed those in need. They have a great community kitchen that happens every Thursday Night at 5:30. Check out the church and it's ministries here: http://westnashvilleumc.org/templates/System/default.asp?id=28108.
One of my organization's national philanthropic programs is St. Jude Children's Hospital. My organization (Kappa Alpha Psi, by the way) partners with them to help them raise money to keep their doors open. St. Jude, located Memphis, TN (M10-a-Key!), does cutting edge research and care focusing on children's cancer and leukemia. This year my chapter at Vanderbilt University is working hard to raise money for St. Jude in all our endeavors. This is a really worthwhile cause and St. Jude is a great institution that my Ace (funny name for the shortest guy in your greek intake class) has worked with in the past and that we are all trying to help with now.
This brings me to my final point. This Sunday, a sorority on my campus, Sigma Gamma Rho is having a great philanthropic/educational event. Their program, FΣΣD The Hungry, is utilizing a great website that addresses the problem of world hunger in a breakthrough way. The website, http://freerice.com/index.php, basically asks users to play a free word game and for each question correct 10 grains of rice are donated to hungry people worldwide. The program is run through the UN World Food Programme and Harvard University and it's a super fresh look. If you are in the Nashville area or will be this Sunday I implore you to hit up this event and help make it a success (http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/event.php?eid=166043679877&ref=nf). If not you can still go to the website and help this very worthy cause. It's always good to see Greeks doing good. The founders would be proud.
So to all my Pretty Boys, Poodles, Pretty Girls, Apes, Divas, Dogs, Doves, GOMABs, and Centaurs... keep doing this good work!
And to everybody else...YOU TOO KEEP IT UP. We are all accountable for the world we live in.

and also...

 Hopefully now you know a lil’ something more…

Nate

1 comment:

Esther Adaeze Ikoro said...

nice, yeah a lot of people focus on the negs about greek life but it's really got some positive features. I support you.