Three organizations have joined forces for one common mission: to decrease the number of babies born prematurely in Harlem, New York. Harlem Hospital Center, March of Dimes and Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc. will launch the Stork’s Nest Program at Harlem Hospital Center auditorium on Tuesday, February 7, 2012 from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m.

Stork’s Nest is a national program of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc. and is sponsored by March of Dimes, a leader in the fight to ensure that all babies are born healthy. The program educates pregnant women about the link between prenatal care and delivering a healthy, full-term baby. It focuses on the importance of keeping monthly medical checkups, following the most up-to-date nutritional information and the benefits of taking pregnancy supplements such as vitamins and folic acid. Participants earn points that they can trade in at the program’s culmination for useful baby products.

A Stork’s Nest will reduce the number of premature births in Harlem, which has the highest rate in Manhattan, according to a 2009 New York City Department of Health study. East Harlem has a 12.7% rate of premature births, which is the highest in Manhattan. Central Harlem has the second highest rate of premature births at 11.4%, according to the same study.

Secondly, a Stork’s Nest will strengthen Harlem Hospital’s ties to the community as a trusted, medical provider. According to Dr. Edgar Mandeville, M.D., Harlem Hospital Center Chief of Obstetrics and Gynecology, “Harlem Hospital is the hospital of choice for most Harlem residents, including women from neighboring shelters and temporary housing situations.” In addition, Harlem Hospital Center has provided a wide range of medical, surgical, diagnostic, therapeutic and family support services to the residents of Central Harlem, West Harlem, Washington Heights and Inwood since 1887. Hence, Harlem Hospital Center is the ideal location for a Stork’s Nest.

Lastly, a Stork’s Nest at Harlem Hospital Center will help to maintain Harlem’s position by serving as a model program to demonstrate how credible organizations can pool their resources to create an even stronger entity. The Harlem community is respected as a groundbreaking, thriving community and is thus an ideal location for a partnership between the three institutions that creates a new community-focused entity. Harlem Hospital Center is currently a 286-bed acute care facility and a designated Level I Trauma Center, with a full spectrum of specialty services, including a burn unit, an adult intensive care unit, a neonatal intensive care unit, a pediatric intensive care unit and a cardiac care unit. Harlem Hospital Center’s website is www.nychhc.org.

March of Dimes is the leading nonprofit organization for pregnancy and baby health. With chapters nationwide, and its premier event, March for Babies, March of Dimes works to improve the health of babies by preventing birth defects, premature birth and infant mortality. For the latest resources and information, visit marchofdimes.com/ny or nacersano.org.

Founded January 16, 1920 at Howard University, Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc. is one of the nine historically black Greek letter service organizations. A non-profit organization, its principles are Scholarship, Sisterly Love, Service and Finer Womanhood. It has also chartered sorority chapters in the Caribbean and Africa. To learn more about the sorority visit www.zphib1920.org. The Sigma Nu Zeta chapter’s website is www.zphibsnz.org.

Kencle Satchell-McKoy, 212-939-1372, kencle.satchell-mckoy@nychhc.org

Ruby Wint, 212-353-8365, RWint@marchofdimes.org

Kim Green, 347-763-6327, kimgreen@kimgeepr.com

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In the wake of a college drum major’s death in Florida, a lawmaker from the state plans to introduce anti-hazing legislation when Congress returns in mid-January.

The bill would strip financial aid from anyone sanctioned by a university for hazing or witnessing hazing and failing to report it – including the victim, said Democratic Rep. Frederica Wilson.

“Hazing is demeaning, dangerous and, sadly, deadly,” Wilson, a former school principal, told the Los Angeles Times, adding that the death of Florida A&M University drum major Robert Champion warrants a federal response.

Florida has toughened the penalties against hazing, but Wilson said in an interview that, under her proposal, if anyone witnesses hazing – “including the victim, they will tell because they don’t want to lose their federal aid.”

Florida officials have ruled Champion’s death in November a homicide. The incident has drawn national attention and generated soul-searching on college campuses throughout the country.

Wilson, who has yet to draft the legislation, said she also wants the U.S. attorney general to set up a commission to examine ways to stamp out hazing.

Florida Gov. Jeb Bush in 2005 signed legislation making hazing that results in serious injury or death a felony, punishable by up to five years in prison, even if the victim consents. The bill, the Chad Meredith Act, was named after a University of Miami freshman who drowned in a campus lake while trying to join a fraternity in 2001.

Wilson said that, notwithstanding the new law, “we have had a plethora of hazing incidents,” but prosecutions have been difficult because “you can’t find any victims to talk.”

“We’ve got to take a tougher stance,” added Wilson, who said that she became known as the “haze buster” while serving as South Atlantic regional director for the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. “It’s time to stop it.”

Congress has been considering legislation aimed at bullying, including requiring states to report bulling incidents and expanding programs for teachers, administrators and counselors on strategies to prevent bullying and harassment.

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.

In November 2010, I watched “HBO’s Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel” and saw a piece on the hazing antics at several historically black colleges and fraternities. I took to Twitter to share my thoughts on the issue.

Much of the report focused on Southern University, and man, did the floodgates open as a number of students from the university angrily tweeted me back, cussing, yelling and screaming, with some defending hazing, while others were angry at the national attention focused on their university.

For hours we went round and round, and were joined in the discussion by members of several black fraternities, including my own Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc. A number of these individuals actually supported hazing, or “pledging hard” and not becoming a “paper” member who “skated” into the fraternity.

Despite the anger and vitriol, I refused to back down, making it clear that getting beaten for being in a band or fraternity was absolutely dumb.

Here was a young man who went off to college, planning to earn a college degree while leading one of the nation’s most colorful and exciting bands, only to be returned home to his parents in Georgia in a coffin.

While hazing immediately was suspected, we could only speculate about the cause of the 26-year-old’s death. That is, until Friday, when the medical examiner released details of his autopsy, concluding that Champion “collapsed and died within an hour of a hazing incident during which he suffered multiple blunt trauma blows to his body.”

News of the death has rocked the Florida A&M campus, angering its students and alumni, triggering multiple state investigations and leading Gov. Rick Scott to call for the suspension of school President James Ammons. That prompted FAMU students to march to the governor’s mansion on Friday and camp out on his lawn, demanding he rescind the resignation call.

Champion’s death isn’t the first time we have seen individuals in a band or fraternity die. It is incredible that some folks have given their lives — literally — for just being a part of a student group.

State laws have been passed, organizations have been kicked off campuses and national fraternal and sorority groups have paid millions in settlements because of hazing, but we continue to see these stories.

“Why?” is a consistent question that is asked, and at the end of the day, it boils down to power and a desire to demand others kowtow to someone else’s demands in order for them to be accepted.

A decision not to follow through means you can be ostracized, ignored and marginalized. That’s the last thing any young person wants to experience when in an organization.

Every one of these organizations is overseen by adult leaders or advisers. But in truth, fellow students run the show. Normally in a band, a drum major sits at the top of the food chain, but Champion clearly had to bend to the band’s culture to be fully accepted as a member of FAMU’s “Marching 100.”

So what you have is a bunch of students between the ages of 18 and 22 calling the shots and making it clear who is accepted and who isn’t, who gets in and who doesn’t. You aim to please them and no one else. Oftentimes they are leading based on how they were led, and it has been indoctrinated into them that this is the way of life, take it or leave it.

These are powerful forces that can only be changed by peers. Hazing will only be brought to a close when members of organizations make it clear the vile hazing traditions will not go forward. No one today can be hazed if the student leaders make it clear that it’s unacceptable. Yet because of the natural turnover in student organizations, that mindset has to be created and passed on for it to succeed.

When I was about to pledge Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc. in spring 1989, I met with my four other pledge brothers and made it clear: I’m not getting hit, I will never use alcohol and I will not agree to be hazed.

Even though my older brother pledged the same fraternity at Texas A&M two years earlier without any nonsense, I was making it clear that such shenanigans were idiotic. All five of us agreed and in the four weeks, two days, 16 hours, 38 minutes and 39 seconds I was on line (yea, having to recite such specifics was a part of our process), the behavior that we often heard was associated with pledging didn’t exist.

Yet because of that, we weren’t always as accepted by other fraternity members at other campuses. Our chapter was called soft; we were criticized as not “pledging the right way” and had to constantly defend our manhood.

Me, I didn’t give a damn. I would look others in the eye and say, “In the history of our chapter, only one brother has failed to graduate, and we do nothing with him. Are you guys on the six- or seven-year plan, and can you match our graduate rate?”

From my perspective, we were supposed to be in college to graduate, not to pledge. And if my fraternity was founded as a study group at Cornell University on December 4, 1906, why would we eschew academics?

Even though we pledged the right way at Texas A&M, that peer pressure was still unbearable for some. That summer at our national convention in San Antonio, hazing was on the agenda, and I made it clear I was going to speak. Some other brothers in my chapter pulled my coattails and said, “Don’t tell the brothers you didn’t take any wood (that’s being paddled).”

I yelled, “If we pledged brothers the right way, why in the hell are we afraid to say it?”

Since those days, I’ve never wavered from my anti-hazing position. It is deplorable and shameful to think that someone would beat another person for them to prove something. Prove what? They can take a punch? No. I prefer to challenge his mind, his intellect.

Our goal as fraternity men is to take young men and mold and shape them to be better men. It is not our aim to take young men and train them to be collegiate mercenaries, hellbent on inflicting as much pain as they got onto the first person they have control over.

Is there tremendous value in fraternities, sororities, bands and student organizations? Absolutely. The leadership opportunities are tremendous, and the lifelong relationships are vital.

But what has to be preached and preached and preached to every student, whether they are white, black, Asian, Latino, male or female, is that if they love that frat, sorority, drill team or band, they shouldn’t do anything to jeopardize it for the next person.

Do we need tougher hazing laws? Yes. Do we need universities to take punitive action, including kicking students out who break the rules? Yes. Do we need national organizations to ban chapters for years for egregious behavior? Absolutely. Should fellow student leaders turn in others who break the rules and haze? Of course. There must be a zero tolerance attitude from every state official, administrator, student leader and organization member. To hell with tradition, rituals and “the way we do things.” All that must end. Now.

But we also must raise a generation of young people who have enough confidence in themselves to say, “I will not take a beating just to be accepted by you. I’d rather not have your affection or support if it means putting my life on the line.”

And if that means other students calling you out or teasing you, fine. I’d rather you talk about me like a dog today than be hazed and have my friends search to figure out what to say at my funeral.

It is time to remit dues for fiscal year (FY) 2012!  NPHC, Inc. operates on a fiscal calendar of January 1 to December 31. Annual dues are to be remitted by January 31 of a given fiscal year.

Undergraduate councils are responsible for dues in the amount of $150, Graduate councils with 1-9 Chapters in the amount of $250,  Graduate Councils with 10-19 Chapters in the amount of $300, Graduate Councils with 20-29 Chapters in the amount of  $350.00, and  Graduate Councils  with 30+ Chapters in the amount of $450.

Members remitting dues after February 15 must include a $25 late fee with annual dues. (1) If a council has not been financial in the previous fiscal year that council is responsible for remitting dues for the previous and current year, as well as a $50 reactivation fee (Ex. Undergrad councils = $350.00; Graduate Councils with 1-9 Chapters = $550.00; Graduate Councils with 10-19 Chapters = $650.00;Graduate Councils with 20-29 Chapters = $750.00;Graduate Councils  with 30+ Chapters = $850.00); and (2) if a council has not been financially active within a five year time period, that council must be re-chartered.

Again, you are advised not to wait until the last minute to remit your dues.  Should you have questions or concerns as to your council’s financial status and/or account balance, please contact NPHC National Treasurer at  treasurer@nphchq.org.

Attached is the link to the remittance form http://www.nphchq.org/docs/2012Remittanceonline.doc

Also use this link if you would like to remit payment online  http://nphccouncildues.eventbrite.com

The National Pan-Hellenic Council of Marquette University Presents The 2012 Brew City Stomp Down Step Show Sponsored By City Year Milwaukee

On Saturday, February 4, 2012, the National Pan-Hellenic Council of Marquette University once again brings you Wisconsin’s largest step show- and this time it’s BETTER THAN EVER. Featuring the organizations of the Divine Nine: Alpha Phi Alpha, Alpha Kappa Alpha, Kappa Alpha Psi, Omega Psi Phi, Delta Sigma Theta, Phi Beta Sigma, Zeta Phi Beta, Sigma Gamma Rho, and Iota Phi Theta.

With a special guest host, music by Marquette’s very own DJ Poizon Ivy, and the most talented, most LIVE step crews from across the Midwest all on the Riverside Theater stage, the 2012 Brew City Stomp Down Step Show is sure to be one show you don’t want to miss.

Tickets will be available beginning Friday, December 9, 2011 at noon. General admission tickets are $20 (+ taxes and applicable fees). Tickets can be purchased online at www.pabsttheater.org/show/2012BrewCityStompDown, in person at either the Riverside Theater box office (116 West Wisconsin Avenue) or Pabst Theater Box Office (144 E. Wells Street) Monday through Friday from noon until 6:30pm, or through the box office by calling 414-286-3663.

Like in previous years, this event is guaranteed to sellout- plan to get your tickets early! For the latest updates on the show be sure to follow us on twitter: @brewcitystomp.

Please direct any questions or concerns to brewcitystompdown@gmail.com.

Velveeta Reid-Hairston, President and Owner of Family Training and Assessment Services, LLC, has been selected as an Honored Member of the Biltmore Who’s Who Executive and Professional Registry. The selection recognizes Velveeta Reid-Hairston’s commitment to excellence in Community Social Work and Networking.

Reid-Hairston, who received her undergraduate degree from Livingstone College and a Master’s Degree in Clinical Social Work from Norfolk State University, is a certified clinical sexual offender treatment specialist.

As owner and president of Family Training and Assessment Services, Reid-Hairston is a contract trainer specialist, specializing in MAPP-GPS, Deciding Together, Shared Parenting, Support Group Development, Family/Individual Assessments and Treatment of Offenders. She has experience in child welfare/foster care & adoption services with tenure in these two areas spanning over 15 years.

Reid-Hairston is founder of the non-profit, The Shepherd’s Heart Ministry, which provides financial resource assistance to seniors, as well as empowerment opportunities/strategies to meet basic daily needs for survival.

Employed with the Department of Health and Human Services-Division of Services for the Blind in Greensboro, Reid-Hairston provides holistic case management services to the blind and visually impaired. She is a 2011 graduate of the Department of Health and Human Services DHHS-Excels Leadership Program and is a member of Alpha Alpha Zeta Chapter of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc. of Salisbury. She attends Jerusalem Baptist Church in East Spencer, NC. A native of Elizabeth City, NC, she is a daughter of the late James and Maggie Eggleston Riddick. Reid-Hairston is also the administrative assistant to her husband, Tommy H. Hairston, Sr., of Hairston Funeral Home, Inc. in Salisbury, NC. She and her husband have four adult children and six grandchildren.

Photos: Sigma Frater Kevin Davis/ Crush Media Group

Hot on the heels of the release of “Chapter V: Underrated,” Soror Syleena Johnson, a member of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc.,  hit the road on tour promoting her latest masterpiece. On Thursday, Syleena performed before a packed house full of supporters in her home town at The Shrine in Chicago’s South Loop district.

Many members of the Greek community showed up in support of Syleena, and shouted their organization’s calls as she displayed her sorority hand sign,  the “Kitty” during a thank you session between songs.

Legendary musicians such as Norman Connors and the king of R&B, R Kelly were in attendance as fans were treated to new releases as well as classic titles.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE PHOTOS

In hundreds of congregations throughout America, including in Lake County, the weekends of Nov. 5-6 and 12-13, worshippers will learn about premature birth, an infant health crisis that nearly half a million families cope with each year, thanks to Zeta Phi Beta Sorority Inc. Members of the sorority will join congregational leaders in sending a message of hope for premature babies and their families.

Premature birth is the number one killer of newborns. In the last 20 years, the problem has become worse. Premature birth affects one in every eight babies in America. The rate is even higher among African-Americans, for whom one baby in every six is affected. It’s a major cause of serious health problems and costs billions of dollars every year.

That’s why the March of Dimes is leading a national effort to save babies from premature birth by funding research to find the causes and by supporting local programs that offer hope and help to families with a baby in intensive care. As part of that effort, November is designated as Prematurity Awareness Month to remind the community that premature birth is a crisis and to bring people together to help give all babies their nine months.

As a leading March of Dimes community partner Zeta Phi Beta Sorority Inc. was among the first organizations to raise awareness about the consequences of premature birth. They held their first Prematurity Awareness Sunday in 2003 and participation has been growing ever since. This year they’ll be sharing information about the problem, about how women can reduce their risks, and about how to support this effort, from wearing pink and blue to sending letters and raising funds. Resources are available by visiting marchofdimes.com during November, Prematurity Awareness Month, or any time.

The March of Dimes is a national voluntary health agency whose mission is to improve the health of babies by preventing birth defects, premature birth and infant mortality. Founded in 1938, the March of Dimes funds programs of research, community services, education, and advocacy to save babies and in 2003 launched a campaign to address the increasing rate of premature birth. For more information, visit the March of Dimes website at marchofdimes.com or its Spanish language website at nacersano.org.