The Florida Chapter took its 3rd annual Spring Break trip to Key West to work with the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, cleaning up beaches and islands of plastic debris.

Las week the pledge class of the Florida Chapter Alpha Zeta wanted to show our love and graditue to the previous brothers and our campus by cleaning and polishing our AZ plaque. We gathered together and washed, scrubbed and polished the gold plaque on campus. While getting wet and dirty, we put in a lot of elbow grease in order for our history to shine into the future. We are planning on doing this again this semester, allowing it to shine even more. - Olivia Scruggs, Pledge Class Service Chair

The Florida Chapter’s final service event of the semester occurred on Saturday, December 6^th with Habitat for Humanity.  To build homes for families in need, Alachua Habitat relies on the generosity of community members in the form of donations and volunteer labor.  For our service event, we spent the day on a Habitat for Humanity build site helping complete various construction tasks for a house in progress.  Knowing that our efforts of the day contributed to helping provide for a family in our community was very rewarding and well worth the sweat!  

 

At our chapter meeting the week before Thanksgiving, the Florida Chapter held a donation drive to benefit the St. Francis House.  St. Francis House offers aid to those in our community who are less fortunate or without homes, whether it be through their soup kitchen, transitional housing program, or job placement services.  In just one chapter meeting, our brothers donated almost 100 canned goods and non-perishable food items, which we were able to deliver to the St. Francis House just in time for Thanksgiving!

The road that the Florida Chapter adopted through Gainesville’s Adopt-A-Street program got quite a few visits from us this semester, and we plan to continue that routine in the new year!  Our last road clean up was held on November 13^th, and we had a great time getting to know each other better while helping to keep the road and shoulder clean and safer for pedestrians.

On October 12, 2014, the Cook Chapter of Alpha Zeta held its New Member Project, a service project held every pledge semester to help the community while promoting brotherhood bonding with the new members. It was held at Rutgers Gardens, the philanthropy project of the chapter. Together the brothers and new members helped clean up the bamboo forest. It gave the chance for the new members to experience a big part of what the Cook Chapter’s commitment to service and fellowship.

The first installment ritual for the Cook Chapter is a truly meaningful moment when the potential new members finally pledge their commitment to the Fraternity of Alpha Zeta and begin their journey of becoming a part of our chapter. Just like every semester, we held our first installment ritual at the Rutgers Gardens, which is our current philanthropy project. In accordance with the traditions of Alpha Zeta, we welcomed the new members by exposing them to the entire chapter as well as our active Cook Alumni Association. After meeting the entire Cook Chapter Family, the new members were introduced to their big brothers, who would guide them through the pledging process and help them feel welcomed into our organization. At the end, we welcomed with open arms the Omega Class!

Last Friday, 15 of our Brothers helped serve our community through the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle Mobile Market.  The Mobile Market is a direct distribution of fresh produce and groceries in a low income neighborhood.  A refrigerated truck was brought to the center, and our Brothers helped sort and bag groceries that people could pick up for free.  This set up allows families to “shop” for foods they enjoy. Not only did this Service Event help us assist our local community, but it also put ...

On September 27, the Florida Chapter had its first service event of the semester at the Alachua County Humane Society.  Because we've had great experiences working with the ACHS in the past, we decided to volunteer with them three times this semester to allow as many brothers as possible to participate.  Although the morning consisted of hard work cleaning cages and bathing dogs, we had a great time playing with all of the animals and showing them some love!

The North Carolina Chapter completed its first service project of the new year. Last weekend, we met at CORRAL Riding Academy. CORRAL is a non-profit organization that helps at-risk girls by providing riding lessons, therapy, tutoring, and bonding experiences with horses. Sixteen of our Brothers spent part of their Sunday clearing a trail to ride horses, mucking stalls, and mowing lawns. It was a humbling experience, and we were all grateful to be around each other and the beautiful ...