Alpha Beta Gamma's Blog
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Mike Schroeder
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Kate McManus
President: Amanda Lee
VPS: Hannah Fidoten
VPM: Kate Mackin & Drew Diaz
Treasurer: Grant Deam & Tyler Buddell
Secretary: Brynne Downum
Alumni Relations: Mike Schroeder
Pledge Marshal: Dan Johnson
Chairs:
Sergeant-at-Arms: Ryan Hansen
Risk Management: Mike Carr
Historian: Rup Sarkar
PR: Mike O'Connell
Recruitment: Carrie Danner & Justin Steele
Blood Drive: Andrea Proctor
Book Co-Op: Tiffani Yeoman
Formal: Jackie Stillmaker & Stephanie Fore
Boys & Girls Club: Alyssa Gill & Maddie Davis
All-you-can-eat chocolate buffet, what better way to celebrate Valentine’s Day? On February 12th and 13th, the Galesburg Historic Society held its 25th annual Chocolate Festival at the Antique Mall. Tables were overflowing with an assortment of food: pies, cakes, chocolate covered bacon, Velveeta Fudge, ice cream, chocolate waffles, pinto bean walnut fudge, just to name a few. During the two days, there were over 800 visitors.
It has become a tradition for Alpha Phi Omega to volunteer at this event. This was my third year helping, and each year it gets bigger and better. While preparing food for the chocolate fountain, I was amused with stories of the past. I worked with a gentleman who was quite the history-buff. He shared stories about Galesburg and even his family. The second day, I was kept busy preparing trays. Every few minutes the servers would come into the kitchen and ask for another tray because the guests had finished the chocolate treats on one of the trays. It was a fantastic event and I can't wait until next year!
-Hannah Fidoten
-Akiko Rutledge
-Amanda Lee
Knox College sent two voting delegates to represent our chapter at the 41st Biennial National Convention held in Atlanta, Georgia from December 27th to 30th. Due to the snowstorm on the East Coast, some brothers were unable to attend, including one from our chapter.
During the conference, we were recognized with two awards. The Joe
Scanlon Membership Award recognizes chapters for outstanding efforts in
attaining new members and the H. Roe Bartle Chapter Award recognizes chapters
for outstanding achievement in chapter administration and program.
While the voting delegates were not in legislative session, they were able to attend some of the workshops that were offered including: How to Plan a Long Term Service Project, Chutes & Ladders of Service, and Chapter Drama. Our chapter is really excited to use the new knowledge gained from these workshops.
The goal for the upcoming years is to improve inter-chapter
relations. With this new goal in mind, we have already made plans to visit some
of the chapters in our region; our chapter has been invited to the initiation
and chartering ceremony at Parkland College in Champaign, IL on February 5.
See you in California for the 42nd Biennial National Convention.
After months of planning, homecoming is finally here. Like all homecoming weekends, this one was crazy and busy. Campus was filled with alumni from a variety of graduation years. Some came alone, others brought the whole family. To start off homecoming week, students had the opportunity to show off their best purple and gold outfits in the Prairie Fire Spirit Competition. There were other events throughout the week planned for the students, which included a pie eating contest, Tug-of-War, and a bonfire. It was a great week leading up to an even better weekend.
Alpha Phi Omega hosted an Open House at the Wilson House. Though the event did not follow our initial plan, everyone had a wonderful time. Pledges had an opportunity to meet the alumni and listen to them reminisce with current actives. Alumni came from across the continent, including someone who flew in from Mexico. Thank you to everyone who stopped by and we hope to see you next year for another great event!
On October 8th, 2010 Alpha Beta Gamma chapter of
Alpha Phi Omega enjoyed a wonderful night at our advisor’s house for a Weenie
Roast. This was the first ever APO
weenie roast and it was a fantastic time.
About 20 members if not more showed up to enjoy roasting hot dogs on the
fire, toasting marshmallows and making s’mores, eating delicious brownies that
our advisor’s wife Jan made for us, and of course taking part in delightful
conversation among all of our members.
This event was a tremendous way to spend an Autumn Friday with the
members we care ever so much about. The
weather was great, the conversations were even better and we all can’t wait for
the spring so we can have another Weenie Roast at our advisor’s amazing
backyard.
-Jackie Stillmaker
We had a very successful recruitment this fall. We had 28 people who were interested in APO that came over the course of the three nights. They included first years, upperclassmen and transfers. On the first night, we decorated cupcakes for the maintenance staff in appreciation of everything that they do around the campus. On our second night, we got to know each other by finishing a human bingo sheet and speed dating, which was really fun to get to know the members on a one to one basis. The last night we made friendship bracelets for the children in the local hospitals, just as something to brighten up their day. We ended up with 15 great pledges who we are all very excited to get to know and to become a part of our chapter.
-Akiko RutledgeAPO’s fall blood drive acquired 54 useable units of blood for the Red Cross. This term had an unusually high amount of deferred volunteer donors due to a large amount of uncommon conditions, such as heart arrhythmias. This led to not being able to reach the goal of 65 units, but it was still an overall successful drive. The members of APO contributed in many ways to make this drive as successful as possible. The members helped with publicizing, greeting, helping donors after giving blood, helping the Red Cross set up, and helping take down after the drive. APO is dedicated to increasing the amount of donors that come to donate blood each term. Each donor has the potential to save three lives with their donation so it is very important that the maximum amount of donors come out to help the Red Cross. The next drive is scheduled for February 2nd and the goal is 65 units. We are confident that we will reach our goal for the winter blood drive.
-David Fundakowski
This year, APO joined forces with the Knox student group
ABLE (Allied Blacks for Liberty and Equality) to create a unique fundraising
event- a Pajama party! The party was held on Friday, October 1st in
the ABLE house on campus. We had a great turn out and a large number of the
campus came dressed in their best pajama outfits; there were even a number of
people in footed PJs! We raised $82 through tabling and door collections. Our
chapter also decided to contribute $60 from the book co-op funds. Donating a total
of $142 to the local charity Safe Harbor!
-Emma Beyer
This year the Book Co-op has gone through a few critical
stages in the re-vamping process. First and foremost, we finally switched the
virtual inventory database to Microsoft Excel! This change has been talked
about for years, and now that it has finally happened, the efficiency,
reliability, and speed of the co-op has sky-rocketed more than we could have
imagined. This could not have come at a better time because for the first time,
APO started advertising on a large scale before school even started, which
included making the new freshman class aware of this amazing service right
away. Besides making the book co-op extra
busy this term, making freshmen aware of the co-op also allowed us to sell
intro books that have been sitting on the shelves for years. This in return
freed up a lot of the much needed space and is making re-organizing the shelf
categories less of a hassle. We are also continuing to donate books to Better
World Books and will hopefully be able to donate books to Knox’s Jail Literacy
Program. As for the $333 collected this fall and at the end of last spring, the
chapter decided to donate the money to Rainbow Riders, which is located in
Monmouth, Illinois. Rainbow Riders is a therapeutic horse-back riding facility
for children with physical and mental disabilities. A few of our members are
active volunteers there, so it was touching to be able to help a program that
is very close to the hearts of some of our brothers. We are looking forward to
continuing to re-vamp the book co-op and are expecting another success at the
end of fall term.
-Priya Sharma
President- Audrey Savage
VP Service- Sierra Knechtel/Kim Cozzi
VP Membership- Adam Iona
Treasurer- Amanda Mitchell
Secretary- Casey Patrick
Alumni Relations- Hannah Fidoten
Pledge Marshall- Kate McManus
Sergeant At Arms- SPECIAL ELECTION
Risk Management- Amanda White
Historian- Dan Johnson
PR (Public Relations)- Katie Harte and Maddie Davis
Recruitment- Akiko Rutledge
Book Co-Op- SPECIAL ELECTION
Blood Drive- David Fundakowski
Run-A-Thon- Rozie Smith and Aimee Pepple
Formal- Claire Turner
President- Adam Iona, Audrey Savage, Hannah Fidoten
VP Service- Chloe Bohm, Hannah Fidoten, Sierra Knechtel/Kim Cozzi
VP Membership- Adam Iona, Hannah Fidoten, Priya Sharma
Treasurer- Amanda Mitchell, Audrey Savage, Danny Kizior
Secretary- Casey Patrick, Emma Beyer, Rup Sarkar
Alumni Relations- Adam Iona, Hannah Fidoten, Kate McManus
Pledge Marshall- Amanda White, Chloe Bohm, Edel Vaca, Kate McManus
Sergeant At Arms- Hannah Fidoten
Risk Management- Amanda White
Historian- Amanda Mitchell, Dan Johnson
PR (Public Relations)- Emma Beyer, Katie Harte, Maddie Davis
Recruitment- Akiko Rutledge, Akiko Rutledge/Jackie Stillmaker, Maddie Davis
Book Co-Op- Adam Iona, Amanda Lee
Blood Drive- David Fundakowski
Run-A-Thon-
Formal- Akiko Rutledge/Jackie Stillmaker, Claire Turner, Emma
Beyer, Erin Majewski, Jackie Stillmaker, Maddie Davis
As Former Blood Drive
Chair for Alpha Phi
Omega, I helped plan and coordinate the blood drive that we hold each
term. It is one of our biggest philanthropy events every
term,
and we usually get an excellent turnout, as many people on campus seem
to look forward to it. My Red Cross contact Amy Simmons is
incredibly helpful and supportive. She coordinates with the Red Cross
about arrival times, talks to Papa John’s to get pizza
provided
for people to eat after they’ve donated, and checks in with
me
after every drive to see if there are any improvements that can be
made. This past term she even raised our goal because we had so many
people sign up to donate originally. When
the numbers were in, we had 89 total donors, including five people who
did double-red cell donations.
-Casey Patrick
As many of you know, I am not at Knox this term. I am in Hawaii right now, doing a “study abroad” at a school called University of the Nations. University of the Nations is a school operated by Youth With A Mission, a worldwide Christian missions organization dedicated to using abundant resources in the world to care for and empower people and nations that are under resourced.
The program I’m doing here – called PhotoGenX/Voice for the Voiceless – is focused on two things: coming alongside people in the world who cannot speak out against injustice for themselves, and using photography to be a Voice for the Voiceless people of the world. For 12 weeks this summer, I will be with the PhotoGenX team serving and photographing people who have been marginalized. We will probably be in Central and South America, but this has yet to be finalized.
The Voiceless people we are advocating for include children forced into prostitution, people with HIV/AIDS, refugees, women who have suffered genital mutilation, and victims of war and rape. Working against injustices and coming alongside the Voiceless in partnership is wonderful and everything. But allowing these precious people to have a face is radical. No one profiting from prostitution or slavery or war wants the victims to have a face for the world to see. No one trying to keep a woman in a place of powerlessness wants anyone who can do something to see the pain in her eyes and speak up for her.
So caring for the Voiceless of the world, giving mercy, pouring out generosity, allowing the broken to share their pain with us, and then telling their stories through pictures and writing, just might start to change the world and bring justice and restitution - if individuals and communities will make the choice to use freedom of speech for people who are Voiceless and to do the possible, then the impossible will follow.
Alpha Phi Omega is
founded on the
principles of Leadership, Friendship, and Service. I am so happy and
grateful I get to be part of PhotoGenX, a program that exemplifies the
values of APO. I believe it is extremely important for us as Brothers
in Alpha Phi Omega to keep seeking jobs, schools, training, and lives
that build on the foundation of Leadership, Friendship and Service. I
can barely believe I have this amazing privilege to use my freedom and
voice for something greater than myself. I want to encourage you all,
whether seniors going on to something new, or those considering what to
do with your life, to ask how you can be a leader, friend, and servant.
-Chris Wolf
-Colleen Larsen
