2016 SAAC Events

January 2016: SAAC Members gathered at Ming's restaurant for a meeting and for a service event. Each Member brought supplies to be sent to former SAAC Member, Kristina Alexander, to donate to St. Jude's Children's Hospital. Also at this event, Brothers were able to send thank you cards to anyone they wanted to thank as part of January's Centennial activity.

February 2016: SAAC had a social event by watching the Super Bowl at Ryan and Jillian's house. Even though most in attendance were non-SAAC Members, all who attended had a lot of fun socializing, eating, and watching the game/commercials.

March 2016: March was a scholarship month for SAAC. Becca, Canaan, and Ryan got together for lunch and watched a civil war re-enactment at the Tipton-Haynes Historical Site. They learned a lot!

April 2016: Since so many SAAC Members are animal lovers, the April service event was held at the Washington County Animal Shelter after lunch and Chapter meeting at Mellow Mushroom. Brothers had several opportunities to interact with the animals of the shelter. Most Brothers took to giving loving affection to the dogs, many which were not allowed outside of their cages due to their breed, walking dogs in the outside area, and cleaning some of the doggie messes. Other Members tended to the cats by emptying litter boxes, brushing the cats, and playing with them in the playrooms. The last task of the event was bathing two very large dogs in the shelter’s grooming room. This took several Brothers to get the dogs in the tub, lather them up, rinse them off, and drying them with towels and hair dryers. It was quite a feat, but it was well worth the dog kisses!

May 2016: SAAC's May social event was a smaller event due to its Members traveling for the holiday weekend. A few Members gathered at the local movie theater to watch The Jungle Book and share an enormous amount of popcorn (2 buckets and a medium bag). After the movie, they went to Jack's City Grille for dinner and great fellowship. Although it was a small turnout, they had a lot of fun for this fellowship event.

June 2016: For SAAC's June scholarship event, Members met at Stone Mountain Park in Georgia. Members enjoyed a hardy lunch and explored the park's attractions. One of the highlights of the event was taking the SkyRail up to the top of Stone Mountain and looking at the views of the surrounding area. It was truly breathtaking.

July 2016: SAAC had two events in July. The first event was to celebrate the 4th Founder's Day. Members traveled to Asheville, NC and spent the day on the French Broad River by Zen Tubing. After a four hour float, they went for a much needed meal before traveling back to Tennessee. The second event was a service event held in Kingsport. Members gathered to paint playground equipment that had been sun damaged in two of Kingsport's mini parks. As usual, Members ate lunch together after spending a couple of hours upgrading the playgrounds.

August 2016:

A whole weekend in August was filled with SAAC Members attending social events. On August 26, 2016, SAAC Members went to the Johnson City Cardinals game to enjoy an evening of baseball and fireworks. The next day, Members gathered in Kingsport, TN to partake in another Escape Game: Sherlocked. This game was a little more challenging for the group, but they escaped with 7 seconds remaining! As always, the group enjoyed lunch at a new local restaurant in the area.

September 2016: For the scholarship event, Members gathered to see "Camelot" at the Jonesborough Repertory Theater. This was a very interesting, musical take on the classic story. Afterwards, members went out to a local Italian restaurant to discuss the play.

October 2016: During October, SAAC had two events. The first event took place instead of the annual retreat. Five Members went back to Escape Kingsport to try out their newest escape room: Virus X. The group of five (the CDC in the game) were paired with a family of four (the FBI in the game) to save New York City from a disaster! They set the record by solving the game and escaping the room in a little over 44 minutes, a huge surprise to the staff. The second event was geared around service by providing dinner at the Ronald McDonald House. Brothers could participate in the event by either donating their time or money. Money was used to purchase the ingredients and those who were available donated their time to prepare the meal at the house. The meal consisted of mandarin teriyaki pasta salad, orange poppy-seed chicken, honey ginger carrots, and smores cupcakes. The Chapter was very happy to provide the dinner for the 25 individuals staying at the house.

November 2016: November was a social event month. Brothers went to Roan Mountain State Park on Saturday afternoon to set up their campsite. The rest of the afternoon and evening was filled with great conversation, laughter, and eating food around the campfire. The next morning, it was so cold (in the 30s) that the Brothers left for a warm breakfast at Waffle House. It was a very enjoyable event.

December 2016: For the December scholarship event, SAAC Members first enjoyed a wonderful lunch at the Black Olive in Jonesborough, TN. After lunch, Members drove into downtown Jonesborough to Tennessee Hills Distillery to take a tour and learn how the company makes their corn liquor and other spirits. We also enjoyed a tasting of each of the available spirits and learned about their upcoming production of new products. This was a very unique scholarship event that everyone enjoyed!