In recent years the Alpha Psi chapter has begun to expand its philanthropy resume. While still working towards raising money and awareness for The Ability Experience, we have also incorporated helping support other organizations and foundations. The men of the Alpha Psi chapter take pride in supporting and participating in philanthropy events all over campus. Since the start of 2022 we have participated in philanthropy events for Pi Beta Phi, Alpha Phi, Chi Omega, Alpha Xi Delta, Delta Zeta, Phi Delta Theta, Sigma Alpha Epsilon, Delta Gama, Beta Theta Pi and The Greek Basketball Association (presented by Beta Theta Pi).
Along with supporting other organizations’ philanthropy, we have hosted our own annual member only philanthropy event to support The Stackpole Foundation. We started this tradition in 2020 after current senior Patrick Murtagh suggested we do a stair climb philanthropy event to raise money for those effected by the events that took place on 9/11. Since 2020, every year on 9/11 we wake up at 6:30am and climb 110 flights of stairs to honor the first responders who risked their lives on that tragic day. We complete the stair climb inside of the Alpha Psi chapter house and walk up the 3 flights of stairs 37 times for a total of 111 flights of stairs climbed. Since the start in 2020, we have seen a drastic increase in participation from members. In order to raise money for The Stack Pole Foundation, we ask members to reach out to family and friends to receive a pledge of a certain amount of money per flight of stairs climbed. In the past three years that we have hosted this event we have raised just over $5k. We have plans to make this event open to all Greek organizations on campus and move the event to Memorial Stadium in order to be able to host all the organizations that would like to participate.
For next semester we are currently in the works of planning the War of the Roses event to support The Ability Experience [formerly Push America]. War of the Roses is a 6-day long philanthropy event using a point system to determine the winning organization of the event. However, this is our first year hosting this event and we may decide to break up the different events and host them at different times throughout the semester. War of the Roses is a great way to raise awareness and funding to support The Ability Experience, and we are extremely excited to finalize the details of this event and start marketing it to the rest of campus.
By the end of this academic year, we hope to raise over $15k for both The Stackpole Foundation and The Ability Experience. Should we achieve this goal, we will have increased the amount of money raised for philanthropy by over 500% from previous years.
This all began with what a brother called his “friends tour”.
In the summer of 2021, fellow Pi Kapp member from Indiana University in Bloomington, Steve Boone, contacted me and said he and his wife Marie, a Sigma Kappa from IU, were forgoing their regular vacation and organizing what they were calling a “friends tour”…If the pandemic taught us anything, it was the importance of family and friends as many of us were hit hard with loss during that time. They were going to make four stops and wanted to see if I would be around as stop #2. I was thrilled to be included, because, like many long graduated brothers of Alpha Psi, we had lost contact since graduation.
Fast forward to the summer of 2022. My wife, Wendy, and I were traveling home from our sons house in and I floated the idea of having a Pi Kapp reunion at my lake house in Huron, Ohio this summer. Honestly, we had no idea what kind of response we would have but decided to roll the dice. We contacted as many brothers as we could via email, Facebook and, yes, even the USPS. To our amazement, the responses were coming in fast and they were positive. Now remember, this is 40 years later and most of the Pi Kapps responding had lost contact during that time. I had, sadly, not had contact with my roommate of two years, Brian Hinton, since graduation. The weekend began and to say it was anything but “amazing” would be an understatement! It started on Thursday and ended on Sunday after brunch. We had brothers come in form Texas, Arizona, Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio and, of course, Indiana. Like any reunion, high school, grade school or college, there is a bit of anxiety of whether you will recognize some people or if they would remember you. Rest assured, that anxiety went away in the first minutes of seeing a long lost friend and brother.
If this article does anything to push one person to think about doing a Pi Kappa Phi chapter reunion, it has met its objective. But I encourage you to not only think…but act. It just takes one person to organize the event and the thanks and appreciation Wendy and I felt from those that attended will be forever etched in our hearts. My hope is to see another article in the Star and Lamp next summer of a similar weekend.
Cheers to friends, brothers and God bless Pi Kappa Phi. Until we meet again…
Dr. Chris Dalton, DDS Alpha Psi #385