Holiday Events
Donations/Gifts
Event Type: Easter Gram
Contributors: Delta Omega Chapter (Spring 2007 Form 110)
Location: Children's Hospital Oakland
Event Summary: Service committee came up with the Easter Gram event because we wanted to come up with a wholly original event. We decided to make 100 Easter-themed gift baskets to donate to Children’s Hospital Oakland on Easter Day. The gift baskets included small items targeted to children with ages 5 to 12 years old. They included 2 pencils, 1 eraser, 1 playdough and a sheet of stickers. 50 gift bags were for girls and also included chair clips. 50 gift bags were for boys and included a race car as well.
To get the campus community involved, brothers tabled on heavy foot traffic area, called Sproul Plaza, on Wednesday April 4th and Thursday April 5th. The goal was to attain sponsorships from various members of the campus community while raising funding for the event. To sponsor a gram is 50 cents. For a 50 cent donation, we would send one Easter Gram on the sponsor’s behalf. The sponsor could personalize a card with the art supplies at our table and attach the card to the gift bag. To our surprise, many people also donated to our event without specifically sponsoring an Easter gram.
Adopt a Family
Event Type: Adopt a Family, holiday specific
Contributors: Alpha Sigma Chapter
Location: Richmond community
Planning required: The Chapter advertised the drive university wide through Facebook events and on the VCU TelegRAM, an email distributed to all students, faculty and staff. The drive was also featured in an article by a student reporter for the campus newspaper, The Commonwealth Times. Friends and family of the Chapter showed great generosity in contributing to our efforts; and university faculty from the Director of Financial Policy and the President’s Office to the Financial Aid Office and Business Services Department held their own collection boxes to gather items for our soldiers. We were shocked at how the event designed to bring families and soldiers together, brought our campus community together as well.
Resources required:
Materials required: Care packages for soldiers serving overseas. Holiday present's for one of the soldier's family.
Event Summary: This event was composed of two parts: 1) collecting stocking stuffers for holiday care packages to three soldiers serving our country in Iraq and 2) sponsoring a family-in-need with a deployed parent. For the soldier’s stocking we collected donated non-perishable, heat-resistant items from Brothers, Initiates, and the university public to send three enlisted men some holiday cheer from home.
The chapter also donated two $50 gift cards to help the family with groceries and gas, to make their day-to-day costs more manageable. And for the mother, when she said she did not want anything but her children’s happiness, they told her to ask her kids what they would want to get her. Her youngest son Dale said “You always say you want new pans mommy. When I am rich I will buy them for you!” The chapter sent her new cookie, cake, and muffin pans as well as some personal gifts to comfort a mom working to raise her family on her own, while worrying about her husband in a war zone.
