Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. partner with Delaware Valley Baptist Church to raise heart health awareness

Leading Ladies: “Go Red & Think Pink”

The “Leading Ladies Go Red & Think Pink” campaign is an initiative sponsored by the American Heart Association, American Stroke Association, American Cancer Society, and the Cancer Coalition of Burlington County.  Locally, the women of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., Theta Pi Omega, Pi Mu Omega, and Epsilon Upsilon Omega chapters; have partnered along with the Rancocas Valley Alumnae chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. and Delaware Valley Baptist Church to bring this worthwhile program to the African-American community on Friday, February 24, 2012 at Delaware Valley Baptist Church, located at 493 Beverly-Rancocas Road, Willingboro, NJ 08060.  This event is free and open to the public.

This is a collaborative event to share information about the importance of living life in healthy ways while sampling of “Healthy Food Recipes for the Soul” prepared by local chefs and food specialists. The goal of this collaborative is to share information with the hope of raising awareness about the importance of living life in healthy ways to prevent heart disease, stroke, and breast cancer among African-Americans.

The highlights of the evening will be health information workshops on heart health and breast cancer awareness. In addition, participants will be provided a sampling of heart healthy foods prepared by local chefs and food specialist. Further, there will be a video on display, which will feature women who will share their testimonies about living with or having overcome heart health issues and breast cancer.

Heart disease is still the No. 1 killer of women, taking the life of one in three women each year, and this is especially important for African-American women, who are at increased risk due to factors such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, obesity and diabetes.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer among African-American women. It is also the second leading cause of cancer death among African-American women, exceeded only by lung cancer.

We hope that you will join us on February 24th for a casual evening of caring, sharing, and fun.

On Monday, January 16, 2012 the Sorors of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., Phi Tau Omega chapter along with family and friends partnered with Hands On Atlanta for their annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service at Renaissance Elementary School in Fairburn, GA. Volunteering in this event supports Alpha Kappa Alpha’s Initiative V: Social Justice and Human Rights. The day was filled with fun activities for the entire family! Participants worked in various areas including landscaping, arts/crafts and mural painting. Mrs. Saletria Cail, Phi Tau Omega’s Basileus stressed the importance of remembering Dr. King’s legacy of cooperation and working together. She stated, “Phi Tau Omega is proud to be of service to Renaissance Elementary and City of Fairburn on this historic holiday!”

A local sorority has dedicated itself to making life better for homeless children in the area.

The Marshall University Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority adopted a room at Hovah Hall Underwood Children’s Home in Ona, W.Va.

The room serves as a short-term emergency children’s shelter operated by The Children’s Home Society of West Virginia.

“We are ever so grateful when wonderful organizations, like the great ladies of Alpha Kappa Alpha, donate their time and effort to make our home beautiful for the kids we serve,” said Melody Plumley, site manager, in a press release.

Alpha Kappa Alpha adopted a girl’s room at the shelter and decorated it in green and pink, the sorority’s colors. The sorority has been involved since 2011.

In April, they hosted the Ivy Academy, a one-day leadership conference for local high school girls, with a community and campus drive and collected approximately 5,000 personal care items for the residents of the home.

“Alpha Kappa Alpha is committed to community service, and we have initiatives we are committed to completing,” said Kara Hornbuckle,  senior exercise science major and chapter president of Alpha Kappa Alpha.

Throughout the year, the sorority provides training sessions in life skills, college life, diversity and regularly hosts a game night for the residents.

The Children’s Home Society of West Virginia is a private nonprofit organization dedicated to helping homeless children throughout the state.

The society was founded in 1896 by Reverend D.W. Comstock of Arkansas.

In 1900, United States Senator Henry Gassaway Davis donated $10,000, which allowed the society to purchase its first children’s shelter in Charleston.

The society is currently in charge of nine shelters and helps with adoptions to place children in homes as quickly as possible.  The society also provides behavioral health, advocacy and social services to underprivileged and developmentally disabled children.

“One of our goals is to make the shelter pleasant and homelike for our children,” Plumley said in the release. “Their safety and comfort is key.”

It is not always easy to put the needs of others before your own, but that feeling you get when you serve your fellow man is phenomenal. That is something Dr. Martin Luther King, Junior believed in and my sorority sisters do, too.

On the day when the nation remembers the dream, the legacy of Dr. King, for the ladies of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated, service is in the center of it all.

“I think it’s more than auspicious that Martin Luther King was actually born on January 15th and Alpha Kappa Alpha was born on January 15th in 1908. Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority is an organization of college educated women, and we want to reach into the community and make sure as many women can be educated as possible,” said Miriam Blanks-Smart, Pitau Omega president.

A recent gathering was all about giving as this sisterhood lends a helping hand to another — the young mothers at Catherine Ferguson Academy in Detroit.

“We are going to stock a closet at the Catherine Ferguson academy,” Blanks-Smart explained.

The AKA Care Closet is what they’ll call it and in it will be everything you can imagine to support, educate and empower the girls to get their lives back on track.

“They’re trying to pull their lives up after some adversity and make sure that their children’s lives are far better than theirs in terms of their preparation so that they won’t make the mistakes that they may have made in having children as teenagers. So, they want their children to be educated, and they’re taking the first step by making sure that they are educated and graduate from high school,” Blanks-Smart said. “We want to help them.”

On the MLK Day of Service, a day of remembrance, least we forget those who are serving and sacrificing for each of us every day — our veterans, their families and the military servicemen and women.

“It is an honor to us to be able to say thank you for the men and women who have sacrificed their lives, sacrificed their families for this country and for our freedoms,” said Mary Hall-Thiam, Delta Psi Omega president.

“It makes you really go out and represent those persons who take the time to say we care. We love you. We support you, and certainly as you go over there, we realize that you don’t say no to us, so we won’t say no to you,” said First Lieutenant Demetries Luckett with the Michigan Army National Guard.

“Those dreams of Martin Luther King fit directly with the selfless work of our military veterans and our current service people,” Blanks-Smart said.

AKA chapters throughout metro Detroit and Ann Arbor sponsor this celebration hoping the spirit of service to all mankind will continue on.

“I want them to think about what they owe to society and to the next generation and to the memory of not only Dr. King, but to being an activist,” Hall-Thiam said.

Though there is always more work to be done, as we continue to follow the dream, on this day, Dr. King, “I think he would say I am proud of you. I see that my message, I see that my actions, I see that my ideology that I worked so hard [for] and others, that it is taking root and that it is growing in the 21st century of this world,” Hall-Thiam told us.

They are the black men wearing royal purple and old gold who volunteer to deliver Friend-in-Deed meals to the poor of Springfield.

They help not-for-profit groups with fundraising. They participate in voter registration drives. And they mentor and provide scholarships to disadvantaged youth while enjoying the fellowship of other black men whose roads to college degrees and middle-class life may not have been smooth.

“We try to be a presence to encourage younger men,” said Roy Newman, a member of Springfield’s graduate chapter of Omega Psi Phi.

The black fraternity, headquartered in Decatur, Ga., celebrated its 100th anniversary last year. Current and past members include civil-rights activist Jesse Jackson, comedian Bill Cosby, poet Langston Hughes, radio talk-show host Tom Joyner, basketball star Shaquille O’Neal and astronaut Ronald McNair.

Founded in 1972

The Springfield chapter, founded in 1972, is one of eight graduate chapters of black fraternities and sororities in the city. The others are fraternities Phi Beta Sigma, Kappa Alpha Psi and Alpha Phi Alpha and sororities Alpha Kappa Alpha, Delta Sigma Theta, Zeta Phi Beta and Sigma Gamma Rho.

Several of the Omega chapter’s members said they are keenly aware of the influence they can have on young black males, as well as the positive image they can promote to the community amid negative statistics and stereotypes about black men nationally.

“We have the opportunity to give back,” said Newman, 46, a native of Ebenezer, Miss., who works as an Ameren account executive and is pastor of Fresh Visions Community Church.

The local chapter has 35 members, not all of whom were members of the fraternity when they were attending college. But all members must have four-year college degrees to join, according to chapter president Eddie G. Frazier.

Newman, who has a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Mississippi Valley State University and a master’s in ministry from Lincoln Christian University, joined after his college days.

He said the fraternity’s four “cardinal principles” are “manhood, scholarship, perseverance and uplift.” He said he wanted to be part of “a network of guys that believe in those principles and strive to accomplish them together.”

College degrees

The chapter members’ education level is unusual in Sangamon County, Illinois and the United States. Only 15 percent to 16 percent of black men 25 and older have a bachelor’s degree or higher. White men in Sangamon County, in Illinois and nationwide are more than twice as likely to have earned at least a bachelor’s degree.

About 20 percent of black women locally and nationally also have at least a bachelor’s.

High incarceration and unemployment rates, low educational achievement and a variety of social ills create a “daunting future” for black boys and young men, according to the National Urban League’s 2007 “State of Black America” report.

“This state of underachievement, with its devastating and far-reaching ramifications, is the most serious economic and civil rights challenge we face today,” Urban League president Marc Morial wrote in the report

Springfield’s Omega Psi Phi chapter, which includes men in their late 20s through their 70s, has become a family of sorts for some who didn’t have two parents at home during their childhood.

“I love the brotherhood,” said Doug Collins, 42, Lanphier High School’s girls basketball coach.

Collins, who grew up the only child of a single mother in Springfield’s old John Hay Homes public housing project, joined the fraternity after he graduated from Iowa State University with a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts.

Focus on public service

Omega Psi Phi, like many graduate black fraternity and sorority chapters locally and nationally, focuses on public service.

Springfield Police Chief Robert Williams, a Springfield native, said he learned about the fraternity as a child from his physician, the late Dr. Edwin Lee, a founder of the Springfield chapter.

Williams, 48, a graduate of the University of Illinois Springfield and Benedictine University, said he joined the chapter for “the opportunity to serve and just to enhance and help the community as a whole.”

Collins said he tries to expose Lanphier students to successful African Americans by inviting black Greek letter organizations to Lanphier’s annual Orange and Black Alumni Fundraiser.

“I’m trying to decrease the students’ level of excuses,” Collins said. “Education brings opportunities, and it also gives you a chance in life. There is a better life.”

Frazier, 60, a civil engineer, added: “We say, ‘You can make it. I don’t care what kind of household you came from.’”

The fraternity’s projects include g an annual community picnic, providing scholarships to aspiring high school students, and giving school supplies to needy children.

Newman said chapter members mentor young people whenever possible. He said he and other members are grateful for the help they received when they were younger.

“You want to give back to the community,” he said. “I came from a large family in a rural area in the South, and so certainly people helped me get through school.”

The chapter’s activities can improve the public image of black men, Williams said.

“Overall, it changes perceptions,” he said.

Edmund Lewis measured about a dozen young men for shirts and gave them donated ties. While he took measurements and tied ties, the 25-year-old Detroiter talked about college.

“I want them to know you don’t have to be sagging to be cool,” Lewis said after a meeting at Community High School in Detroit’s Brightmoor neighborhood. “There are brothers with their pants pulled up wearing ties, and they’re still cool.”

For Lewis, the tie-and-talk session was more than idle chatter.

When he was a high school senior in rural North Carolina, Lewis met a man who helped him forge a path to success. Without that man, Lewis, who has a master’s degree in social work from the University of Michigan, says he could have easily been another statistic.

African-American men remain twice as likely as white men to be unemployed, three times as likely to live in poverty and more than six times as likely to be incarcerated, according to a 2009 National Urban League report.

Lewis works as a community support person, coordinating services for the Brightmoor Alliance, a consortium that works to improve the lives of neighborhood residents. That work led him to volunteering at Community High School, where he is trying to keep the dream of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. alive by encouraging success among the young men there.

“I appreciate what he’s doing,” said Eduardo Marshall, 17, a senior at Community High. “He wants to change the image of black dudes, you know, the hoodies and sagging pants.”

U-M grad works to expose young men to a better life, then help them achieve it

Edmund Lewis never gave any thought to going to college.

Growing up, his grades were mediocre. Mostly, he hung out with friends, acting as if he didn’t care about anything. He ran track for his high school team in rural North Carolina.

That’s what young black boys did, he thought, never having had a father figure to talk with about what he could — and should — aspire to do.

Then one day during his senior year, a man who volunteered at his school stopped him and asked about his plans after high school.

“I don’t know, and I don’t care,” was Lewis’ response.

But he did care, and the man, Gregory Lee, knew it.

Lee told Lewis that he ought to go to college. And Lee went further: He helped Lewis fill out applications and apply for scholarships and paid the application fees.

“He basically took away every reason I had for saying no,” Lewis said.

Four years later, Lewis graduated with honors from North Carolina Central University. In 2009, he received a master’s degree in social work from the University of Michigan.

Since then, Lewis moved to Detroit and vowed to pay Lee back by giving back — following in the footsteps of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

He works as a community support specialist, coordinating services and programs through the Brightmoor Alliance, on Detroit’s west side.

Since last year, he has spent hours volunteering at Community High School.

He recently formalized his volunteer efforts by creating a nonprofit called Minority Males for Higher Education. The intent of the initiative is to ensure that young black men have all the resources they need to get into college and be successful once there.

“There were so many things I didn’t know, that can make you uncomfortable in a professional setting,” Lewis said.

The group will teach young men such things as dressing for success and dining etiquette. In addition to visiting college campuses, the young men will attend plays and other programs to broaden their experiences.

The need is great. In Detroit, only 7% of black men ages 25 and older have a bachelor’s degree or higher, according to 2010 U.S. Census data. But Lewis didn’t need statistics to know the need.

“When I got to college, I realized I was one of a very select group of black males to go,” he said.

Being there made him hunger for a better life.

“You can’t envision anything else if you don’t see anything else,” Lewis said.

During college, he went on a civil rights tour that took him to the Edmund Pettis Bridge, the site of the attack on people marching peacefully for civil rights from Selma, Ala., to Montgomery, Ala. One of the marches was led by King.

Lewis began to see getting an education not as a personal feat but as a community necessity — a way to not only say thank-you to Lee, but to men and women before him who had sacrificed to create opportunities for him and others.

During his college years, he began volunteering and joining and becoming a leader in such organizations as 100 Black Men and Omega Psi Phi fraternity.

His grades and community service work earned him a full-tuition scholarship to U-M and led to a fellowship from the Max M. & Marjorie S. Fisher Foundation. The fellowship included an internship that introduced him to Brightmoor neighborhood in Detroit and Community High School.

He also volunteers at the school.

“He’s up here so much, it’s almost like he’s on staff,” said principal Aaron Williams. “He mentors our young people, helps them with college applications. He has even attended our parent-teacher conferences. He has a tremendous heart for young people. He and I share the same passion for helping young men, in particular. We know that keeping them on track in terms of getting an education can take them away from a life of crime. There’s an unspoken culture that says all we do is rob, steal and kill. We know that’s not true.”

The youngsters he works with expressed appreciation during a meeting at which he measured them for dress shirts and gave away coats and ties donated by members of his fraternity.

Aaaqi Peterson, 18, a senior, plans to go to North Carolina Central, just as Lewis did.

“His whole speech moves me to try harder and go farther,” said Peterson, who wants to study business and music.

Emmanuel Whitley, 16, a junior, said Lewis built up his self-confidence.

“I didn’t believe in myself,” Whitley said. “Now I work harder in school, and I want to be a computer engineer.”

Khari Greene, 17, also a senior, said the men can relate to Lewis because his background is similar to theirs. “It’s just good for a man who doesn’t even know us to start talking to us and saying he’ll help us get to where we want to be.”

Newport News, Va. – Most people visit ‘The Alley’ for after work socials, to celebrate birthdays or for a night out on the town with close friends, but not the ladies in the royal blue and white.

On Saturday, December 17^th the Alpha Beta Zeta Chapter of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc. helped transform the usual nightclub located at the Hampton/Newport News border into a local humanitarian capital for the Feeding 1,000 Holiday Feast and Community Celebration.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau of Labor and Statistics, there are 46.2 million Americans living below the official poverty line.

With the sorority’s motto being a community-conscious, action oriented organization they decided to battle against these statistics. They teamed up with Newport News Councilwoman Tina L. Vick, the aunt of NFL Philadelphia Eagles Quarterback Michael Vick, Andrew Shannon of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, The Alley Owner, Barry Davis, Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc and a host of other high school, social and civic organizations to help feed a thousand people in need of a meal for the holidays.

This was the Alpha Beta Zeta chapter’s second appearance at this event, which is now in its fourth year. They participated in the feeding as a part of their Z.H.O.P.E (Zeta’s Helping Other People Excel) initiative, which holds a special place in their hearts.

About 50 members of the sorority participated in the event along with their youth auxiliary groups. Most of the supplies and items needed for the feeding were donated by members of community. The menu included macaroni and cheese, stuffing, turkey and gravy, bread, punch and cake prepared by the specialty cooking staff from the Alley.

Hampton and Newport News residents were entertained by a live DJ and local marching bands. After the meal, the volunteers and residents celebrated together on the dance floor with a few line dances. Those who received a meal got an opportunity to not only take their mind off of their economic hardship, but a chance to socialize with community leaders and friends at the nightclub free of charge.

Despite the hard work that goes into an event of this size, the chapter looks forward to it every year and plans to continue participating in the future.

The Feeding 1,000 Holiday Feast and Community Celebration marks the last event of 2011 for the Alpha Beta Zeta chapter.

Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority Inc. will launch its new program, Project CRADLE Care, on Jan. 21. To address the current needs of the community, there is a partnership with the March of Dimes under the Project Reassurance, Healthy Generations program.

“Project CRADLE Care” seeks to:

• Improve pregnancy outcomes in the community among women of childbearing age through assisting with prenatal education and care.

• Increase awareness and understanding among women of childbearing age regarding infant care and child development.

• Collaborate with hospitals, managed care organizations, community-based prenatal care providers, churches and other organizations.

According to the March of Dimes, one in eight babies is born too soon in America. Since the early 1990s, the rate of premature birth has increased by 20 percent. Premature birth is the number one cause of death during the first month of life.

Teenage pregnancy and parenthood are also a growing problem in America. About 13 percent of all birth defects affect babies born to very young women. Adolescent childbearing presents health risks to both mother and baby and has serious long-term consequences for teenagers, their babies and society.

In addition, the local chapter, Lambda Epsilon Sigma, participates in the March for Babies each fall, observes Annual Prematurity Awareness Month in November and Birth Defects Awareness Month in January, and hosts a Project Reassurance Community Baby Shower each April.

Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority’s aim is to enhance the quality of life within the community. Public service, leadership development and education of youth are the hallmark of the organization’s programs and activities..

For more details about participating or volunteering, 704-904-1194, visiting the website: http://salisburysgrho.com or via email at info@salisburysgrho.com.

Jets wide receiver Braylon Edwards is a man of his word. And because he is, 100 students are going to college on his dime. In 2007, Edwards promised 100 Cleveland high school students that he would pay for their college tuition—a total value of $1 million—if they maintained grade point averages at 2.5 or higher and performed 15 hours of community service. The students lived up to their end of the bargain, and now Edwards is living up to his end, according to CBSSports.com and the Detroit Free Press.

“As the 2nd most hated man in Clev & a man of my word, today I will honor a promise made to 100 students in Cleveland years ago,” Edwards tweeted. “The last of my Advance 100 students will graduate from my program and head off to college on scholarships that I will provide them with. Guys, enjoy and embrace your new beginnings and remember your promise to me, to reach back & help someone else along the way.

Edwards, who caught 53 passes for 904 yards and seven touchdowns last season, is currently unsigned but says he would like to return to the Jets.

The Braylon Edwards Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to addressing and meeting the needs of under-served youth in the concentrated area of education. The Foundation’s goal is to emphasize the importance of education by providing scholarships and incentives to youth who demonstrate strong commitment and effort to excel in academics, conduct and community volunteerism. The Foundation also supports and contributes to organization’s whose programming includes health and hunger prevention. “It is in our service to others that we achieve true greatness.” – Unknown

http://www.braylonedwardsfoundation.org/home