Lots of Spots for Little Tots!

Hi Everyone!

What a busy week!  As always, I have put in quite a few service hours both for St. Jude and Letters from Home!  The first event I had this week was on Thursday.  Thursday, I worked with College Mentors for Kids.  The kids were learning about what it means to volunteer (sounds familiar?).  I talked with them about what Letters from Home did and why they did it.  There were 8 kids and 10 mentors.  The kids put together three packages full of snacks and hygiene products and small gifts!  They are really great packages!  They also colored pictures of turkeys and wrote little messages on the bottom!  They really seemed to enjoy the coloring and really were quite entranced by all of the candy and snacks the troops were getting.  A package of gum and a small tin of Altoids went missing from a box and I’m pretty sure they just couldn’t help it :).  These are Thanksgiving packages.  Normally, the club doesn’t send out Thanksgiving packages, we just jump into Christmas.  Given the opportunity to teach these kids and offer publicity for the organization, we graciously agreed to send a few packages.  The packages will be mailed on Monday or Tuesday.  It’s unfortunate that the packages will be late. :/  I will just mail the Christmas ones out super early to make up for it! :)

For St. Jude this weekend, I organized and participated in Spots for Tots.  By organized, I mean I took my best guess at what should be going on!  Thankfully it wasn’t too hard and it was a success!  As my previous posts said, I was supposed to go to a St. Jude Walk and volunteer in Carmel.  Not many people were signed up to partake in Spots for Tots though, this is the last game, and this is a real money maker!  All the money made from selling parking spots in our parking lot goes to St. Jude!  The best thing is that this only cost 50 cents for a piece of poster board!  We made a ton of money for St. Jude!  I was upset about having to miss the walk, but my responsibilities as philanthropy chair to my house outranked my want to go help in other ways.  In an ideal world, I would have gone to both with plenty of time leftover for other things!  I’ll just write it down for next year and work extra hard then! 

The next event I’ll be organizing is Sleigh Bell Days!  This is not so much philanthropy as it is community service!  We invite children from the Lafayette/West Lafayette area over to Tridelta for a Christmas Party!! This was a lot of fun last year and I cannot wait to put the finishing touches on all of the plans!  This will definitely be a project for me to complete over Thanksgiving break and the beginning of that week! We are planning to do it during dead week! I can’t wait!  

For the Kids,

Shannon

Pancakes, Syrup, and Orange Juice! Oh My!

Hey Everyone!

Wow! This week was so busy!  The first thing was a Letters from Home meeting.  The meeting went well, but the attendance was lower than normal.  We made Thanksgiving and Christmas cards.  This Thursday I was invited by College Mentors for Kids to do a small program.  It will be about 30-45 minutes of presentation and doing putting together packages.  I am going to have all the materials put together and the children will just have to put these things in the box and color a turkey or two!  There will be 15 kids, and five children per box.  I will then mail the packages this weekend, or the beginning of next week.  I hadn’t originally planned on doing any Thanksgiving packages, but given the circumstances, I felt this was a very good way to promote the club and also give the club positive publicity!  I will be going shopping on Wednesday and putting the materials together!  I am hoping I can talk for 30 minutes!

This Saturday is the St. Jude walk in Carmel, IN!  I am very excited to participate! I am unsure what I will be doing, but it will most likely be anything they need help with.  I am going with five other sisters!  We are going to spend some quality sister time and also help St. Jude!  I am really excited to spend time with them and to help St. Jude!  It’s bound to be really fun and rewarding.

Lastly, today was a very important day for me!  Today was FlapJack Attack!  We raised a lot of money and we had a ton of fun!  I earned 6 service hours today!  There was a comedy club that came, games like orange juice flippy cup, and maple syrup chug!  There were also representatives from different organizations like Southern Tide.  They gave out koozies and key chains and really helped support our cause!  There was a consistent flow of people always coming in through the door!  There were so many people; keeping up with pancake making was even difficult for three kitchens!  We made it through though!  The reason today was so special to me, is because today is the day I officially became philanthropy chair!  I received my binder and an official lists of to-do’s!  I am so very excited to begin planning future philanthropy events and to raise money for St. Jude!!  I’m so excited to be there for the kids!

Shannon

Losing Hair because of Kiwi

Hi Everyone!

This past week I completed my first service hours as philanthropy chair!  It was a small presentation given to a group of third graders!  The program was college mentors for kids and was to be about diversity.  The idea was to show the students that the patients are the same as them, just sick.  The students came to Tridelta, ate a snack, made door hangers for the kids at St. Jude, and then came over to listen to me talk about St. Jude and show them a video clip!  It was a lot of fun, but I was very nervous!  I asked if they knew what cancer was and the responses were hilarious! One boy said it was when you had to shave your head, one said when you lost all your hair, and finally one said it’s when you are sick!  I then played the video.  The students were in love with the little boy Caleb in the video.  After the video played, I asked what they wanted to be.  There were lots of professional ball players and teachers.  The video talked about Chemo, but the students called it Kiwi.  It took me a few minutes to figure out what they were talking about.  They children were very excited to learn about St. Jude!  They continued to ask questions and I continued to answer in the best, most simplistic way I knew how!  It’s very hard to answer “Why do people get Cancer,” especially without using the word genetics.

                My next service hours will be this Thursday and this Sunday!  Letters from Home will have a meeting this week from 6:30-7:30 in BRNG 1230!  We will be starting on Christmas Cards and packages!  I plan on doing 25 packages!  Each package will have Christmas gifts—Books and movies, hygiene products, Christmas Candy and Christmas snacks, and several other little gifts.  All these items will be wrapped with several Christmas cards and letters.  Christmas is my favorite time to send out packages because it is the time I feel when most military personnel miss their families the most.  I will be going shopping for cardstock paper, stickers, ribbons, etc. before the meeting this Thursday.

                Also, this Sunday is FlapJack Attack, the planning is well underway and the event will be successful!  I was going to sign-up for several different committees for flapjack to be very busy and be an active member.  Instead, I will be following around the current philanthropy chair and learning how she manages the events, etc.  I think this will be very beneficial to my training and cannot wait to get another prospective on philanthropy events!  I will be able to learn a lot and after this event, I will be on my own with planning the events for the rest of the year! I am very excited but nervous at the same time!

I have attached the video link in case anyone is interested in watching little Caleb or the other patients' ideas for when they grow up!

For the Kids,

Shannon Morton

Drumroll Please...

Hi Everyone,

I’m very excited to inform you that I have become the philanthropy chair for my house!  I am very excited to step into this position as I am truly passionate about both my house and St. Jude.  I am also very nervous as the previous philanthropy chair was an outstanding person and I’m sure that she is the best person for the job!  I really hope that with her training I can do half the job that she did!  It will be a lot of work, but I am truly dedicated to the cause and I know that no matter what, my love for St. Jude will help me through it!  I have pictures of St. Jude patients all over my walls.  These little ones truly inspire me to get through my studies so I can help them when I’m older, but temporarily I will love to help them by being philanthropy chair. 

The first thing I will do is speak to kiddos tomorrow from College Mentors for Kids.  The theme is diversity and I will be speaking to them how the patients at St. Jude are like them and unlike them.  I am really nervous!  I will be speaking to fourth graders, but I will be doing this without any supervision from the previous philanthropy chair!  After this, the next event will be on November 12 from 11-2pm.  This is FlapJack Attack, our national philanthropy!  It’s a pancake breakfast/brunch!  There are games and prizes and of course unlimited breakfast food!  I am sure that it will be a success.  This has been planned and will be the former philanthropy chair’s event, but I will be assisting her in her job to get the feel for the events!  I am not nervous about this at all!  I know that as long as I have the support from her and from my sisters, that everything will be wonderful! I am so excited to accept this position and I cannot wait to begin!

For the Kids,

Shannon

Time Heals All...

Hi Everyone,

This week has been quite busy! I haven’t had much time to volunteer with any of my organizations.  I had two exams and several projects, so most of my time has been pre-occupied with the numerous tasks from school.  I am taking care of some Letters from Home stuff this week.  At the next meeting, we will be making Thanksgiving Day cards and including fall/autumn decorations, items, and candy.  I am really excited for the Christmas packages.

I finally have heard back from the hospital!  I was so excited that they wanted me for an orientation program at the hospital.  I have called and am partaking in the next orientation session because the one I was scheduled for was last Wednesday.  Last Wednesday I had an exam though.  My exam was in physics and it was extremely difficult!  The orientation would have been done before my exam but I did not want to risk my grade as I was already really nervous for my exam.  I am really excited, also because I will most likely be working in the maternity ward.  I spoke with human resources and they are really nice.  I really think it will be a positive working environment and that it will be something I love.

                In the past week, I have faced many, many challenges in many ways.  I have been faced with increasing amounts of stress and have had to learn how to stand up for myself, as well as face the consequences of what that meant.  Over the past week, I feel like I have learned more about myself both bad and good.  I am hoping everything will work out for the best this week, and that many things will resolve themselves.  Mostly, I feel like I am in rough situations and I just need time to heal all of them.  Unfortunately, at the same time, I feel time is moving very slow.  I am keeping optimistic and I hope that I am able to benefit my organizations this week and I am hoping that this is just a minor speed bump on my road to success.

For the Kids,

Shannon

I Pledge...

Hi Everyone,

This week was not very exciting in the realm of service.  I unfortunately had a huge French project and an exam.  School definitely filled my schedule.  I also became a pledge mom this past Thursday to a wonderful Tridelt! J  Also, this week was Fat Talk Free Week.  Fat Talk Free Week (FTFW) is a national campaign sponsored by tridelta to promote positive self-image.  There was a booth around Class of 50 this week.  The booth had a tracing of a body on which were post-it notes.  People were invited to write something they loved about themselves and put it on the body, and then take a piece of candy.  They were also given the option to pledge to be Fat Talk Free.  It was definitely a success!!  I worked this booth for an hour.  There were a lot of really cute posts, some that were very…honest, etc.  (The best one by far was:  “All tridelts are attractive!”J)  This weekend during the football game, tridelta will be doing Spots for Tots.  Tridelta is selling parking spots for cash for St. Jude.  This has been a huge success in the past and I am sure that it will be even better tomorrow with Homecoming!  I am unable to work this weekend, as I am babysitting for a family friend.  While I’m babysitting, I intend to work on my editorial.  I have just started it, but it’s going very slow.  It’s most likely due to the fact that I’m pretty burned out from this week.  This upcoming week, I will be putting together packages for Letters from Home.  That was supposed to be this weekend, but the babysitting came up rather suddenly.  I still have to go to the store to buy supplies to mail, but my treasurer is back at school and in the state so it will be much easier and much more fun.  Someone posted a comment on my blog in regards to doing ice breakers at meetings! That’s one of the best ideas I have heard! I will definitely start doing that.  I have played ice breakers before but never thought about incorporating them into meetings!  I am really excited for the next meeting sometime in mid-November!   I will definitely keep you posted as to the time and date as always!  On another note, I still have not heard back from the hospital.  I have called several times and still haven’t heard anything back.  I really would love to volunteer there, but I am glad I have a couple back-up options because getting all the hours there might be hard, as they have filled a lot of positions and lots of people want to volunteer there.  I will just keep checking back until they tell me no.  I am hoping to put more service hours in next week working with Letters from Home by making packages!  I will start recruiting sisters and members now who want to help put the packages together! 

Have a Wonderful Weekend!

Shannon

Philanthropic Endeavors

Hi Everyone!

Whew!  This week was so busy! 

I’ll start with today.  Today was Delta Delta Delta’s Game Day!  It was such a success! A lot of people from around campus came!  I was in charge of set up and clean up.  It was a lot of work, but I loved it.  As part of my job, I had to vacuum the carpets before and after, rearrange the furniture, put up decorations, and make sure everything was in order for our guests.  At half time a St. Jude family came and talked.  I spoke with the former patient for about 45 minutes.  I really clicked with her and enjoyed talking to her very much.  She had such a positive outlook on life.  The first words she said to me, as I extended my hand to shake hers, were “I spent two months in physical therapy to learn how to hug again. I only hug now.”  It was truly one of the best hugs I have ever gotten.  I am amazed at her courage and strength and cannot wait to do what those doctors did for her.  We raised a ton of money for St. Jude and I am super excited that we were able to start a Game Day tradition this year.  The service hours I put in didn’t even feel like service hours. (Pictures to come!)

Secondly, this week there was a Letters from Home meeting.  It went very well.  There were a lot of cards made for Halloween packages and I am truly excited to put the packages together in the upcoming days (probably this upcoming weekend).  I have spoken with my PR team again.  I really feel like they are not as into the organization as I am, and therefore hesitate to complete their job.  Its okay, but I just wish they cared about it as much as I do.  Hopefully, this situation will be corrected before the next meeting in November.  Another thing, I am trying to find a better way to open up meetings.  Right now, I feel like the meetings are not cohesive.  At the end, most people are talking and having a good time, but at the beginning, I feel it is awkward .  I am trying to devise a plan  to correct this for the next meeting next month as well.  Any Ideas?

I hope everyone’s week is not too busy! I know mine will be, but it’s For the Kids!

Shannon

Boiler Up for St. Jude's!

Hey Boilermakers!

This past week was really busy and I was not able to do much for Letters from Home, but I was busy with registering and organizing things for St. Jude’s!  This upcoming week, will definitely be for Letters from Home as there is a meeting this upcoming Thursday and at some point, shopping for Halloween package supplies will be necessary. (Especially now that I have my car back!!)

One of the best parts of college life is football games!  Of course the best ones are home games; however, this weekend, while it’s an away game, there is a ton of room for fun!  This weekend, Tridelta will be hosting Game Day!  This is an event held at the Tridelt house!  There will be games, prizes, food, and entertainment, including Purdue’s away game on a projection screen!  All of the proceeds will go to benefit cancer research for children!  The tickets are 7.00 at the door, but if you buy them early from me, it’s only 5.00!  This is a great way to support our football team at Purdue and St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital!  I am logistics chair for the Game Day committee so I am obviously very excited about this philanthropy event.  I am responsible for making sure everything is in place and planning where everything will go.  This has been really fun, but really stressful.  I sat down with our philanthropy chair for an hour and had to plan out where everything would go, where we would put all the furniture, etc.  While that portion of my job is over until the day of the event when I have to set-up; I have been doing sponsorship as well.  I dropped off all those letters to businesses around campus.  Happily, we got a good response back and many of the businesses have agreed to donate.  Some have donated food and supplies (Thanks Hungry Boiler!!!), spirit gear, and some have gone as far as donating prizes for the games and raffles.  This is a huge help.  The less money we have to spend out of our budget, the more we have to work towards raising money for St. Jude!  Right now, the committees are currently on the hunt for people with tailgating games and footballs, etc.  We want to provide these things to participants during the day!  I am hopeful for a good turnout!

                I have also officially registered to volunteer at the St. Jude’s Walk in Carmel, Indiana on November 19^th! I am very excited for this walk!  I have not figured out what I am going to be doing, but I am happy helping anywhere I am needed!! J

FTK,

Shannon

What a Busy, Service-Oriented, Wonderful Week!

Hi Everyone!

                This week, I have been doing several service-related tasks! My first task was calling the hospital.  This is my third follow-up with the hospital.  The person in charge of human resources said I should FOR SURE know something by next week!  She said that most of the spots in the pediatric ward are full now; however, she said there are still opportunities for the maternity ward! I am very excited to hopefully start my volunteer work at the hospital!! This will be wonderful experience for my pre-medicine major and will hopefully give me an educational advantage when applying for medical school over the next couple years! 

                Secondly, I have been working for philanthropy for Tridelta!  We have an upcoming philanthropy event that is new and hopefully will raise a ton of money for child cancer research!  I am in charge of the logistics of the event!  As part of my duties, I have to write sponsor letters and drop off these letters to potential donators.  This week I had to drop off six forms.  Writing the letter was fun because I got to talk about how much I love St. Jude and why the organization should want to sponsor the event.  Another of my duties comes tomorrow.  This will surely be more trying.  Tomorrow I have to map out the whole of the event.  The event will take place at the Tridelt house.  My co-chair and I have to determine where everyone will watch the game, where the snacks and food will be, where the games will be played, and where the halftime entertainment (a St. Jude family and possibly the Purdue Glee Club) will be hosted.  This will be trying because this is the first time the event will ever be set up.  The entire set up of the house will need to be changed to accommodate all of the plans and ideas hosted within this event.  I am working under a wonderful philanthropy chair and have a wonderful co-chair and I have no doubt that we will get through it.

                Finally, I have been working on planning October/Halloween packages for the troops, as well as meetings, and excess activities.  I have been very busy this past week and next week is looking to be the same way.  This has made everything very, very difficult to plan.  I am in love with my lily planner; I would honestly be lost without it!  I am very excited to announce that there should be 8-10 packages going out hopefully on the 18^th of October and am even more excited to announce that the next meeting date will be on Oct.13 in BRNG 1230!  I am hoping attendance will be up as there is plenty of notice and I have a new public relations chair that will be planning the flyers and posting them throughout campus! 

I hope everyone is having a good week! I can’t wait for Friday!

Shannon

For The Kids

Hi Everyone!

                As part of English 108, I must complete 30 service hours this semester.  For my service project this semester, I am going to be participating with multiple community service partners.  My first is Letters from Home.  This is a Purdue student organization in which I am the president.  This is an extraordinary opportunity.  The purpose of the organization is to make cards, write letters, and send packages to troops who are deployed overseas, predominantly in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Last year, the organization sent out over 75 packages and was successful at increasing the morale and spirits of those spending holidays away from home.  My parents are both Air Force veterans and I am extremely passionate about Letters from Home. 

This past week, we had our first meeting.  It was on Tuesday in Armstrong Hall.  There were lots of familiar faces and a few new faces.  One thing I am trying to initiate this year to improve the success of the organization is to employ a Public Relations team.  I feel that the clubs meetings are only advertised minimally through Facebook and a mailing list.  I really feel there are many people who are just as passionate about the service the organization does; however, there has not been proper publicity in the past.  Another, idea I am hoping to initiate will be the club members’ interaction with veterans in the community.  The purpose of the organization to show those who have served that we care about them and appreciate their sacrifice.  I was considering doing a service day at the veteran’s home in West Lafayette.  The club and I are currently making Halloween themed packages filled with candies, hygiene products, and small gifts for the troops.  The 8-9 packages will most likely go out at the end of September.

As my blog title implies, I am a Pre-Med student.  I am also hoping to get involved volunteering at a Pediatric ward at a local hospital.  I adore children and would love to get experience that will be applicable to my prospective career.  On this note, I am also in a sorority.  As a national organization, we have chosen St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital as our philanthropy.  I am currently serving on two different philanthropy committees Game Day for St. Jude and Flap Jack Attack and am participating in setup of the Carmel St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital Walk on November 19, 2011.  This has been extremely fun and I am so excited to see all the hard work I have put into the philanthropies on the day of the events! 

If anyone has any ideas for Letters from Home or questions about dates of events, please let me know!! I would love to see familiar faces!

Have a Wonderful Weekend!

Shannon