Greeks mobilize to aid fire victims
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Sororities, fraternities plan fundraising efforts including cookouts, ribbon sale
By Katey Clark
For Cox News Service
OXFORD — In the wake of the recent tragedy, the Miami University Greek community, who lost one of its own —
Julia Turnbull, a member of the
Pi Beta Phi sorority — has immediately started fundraising events in honor of Turnbull,
Stephen Smith and
Kathryn Welling, who all died in Sunday morning’s fire.
The Greek community is combining forces with all of the chapters to not only honor the three victims, but to also help the eight men who lived in the house.
The original plan was to attempt to raise enough money to buy the eight men new computers. On Tuesday morning, Lindy Mejia, a member of the
Alpha Phi sorority who has been working with the Dell Computer Company, received the news that Dell had offered to donate eight computers. “I was hoping that Dell would agree to donate the computers,” Mejia said. “Now that the computers will be donated, we can use the fundraising money to help the students even more. I’m very happy to realize we can help them out in more than one way.”
According to
Zeta Tau Alpha President Maggie Lewis, every chapter on campus has agreed they need to help these victims in any way possible. Zeta had a social event planned for Thursday evening with the
Kappa Alpha Order fraternity which they cancelled in order to do something more beneficial.
“We are going to hold a cookout and bake sale for the fire victims located at the
FIJI house from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m.,” Lewis said. “The entire Greek community will be helping out and bringing food to sell.”
Now that Dell has agreed to donate the computers, all of the fund-raising money can be used for another cause to help the victims. An additional idea was to hold a session in awareness about fire coding and students’ rights as tenants.
Alpha Phi President Nina Dadlez has been working with other Greek presidents, including Lewis, to come up with other ways to help.
According to Dadlez, each sorority and fraternity will pass around a bucket for donations at their chapter meetings. There also will be two more fundraising cookouts on April 21 and 22 held at the
Phi Delta Theta gates. Dadlez encouraged people from the Miami and Oxford community to stop by and grab a bite to eat and help the men in the house who lost everything.
Greek members will also have a fundraising table set up at Bell Tower where students can donate money during lunch every day next week.
“We will meet with all of the chapters’ presidents and brainstorm ideas on what to do with our raised money,” Dadlez said. “We are thinking about holding a memorial service, or perhaps setting up a scholarship in the victims’ names.” Dadlez said they also will purchase other items for the students who lived in the house like household items, TVs and DVD players. “These guys tragically lost friends, but they lost all of their belongings,” Dadlez said. “They are all seniors and will be moving out on their own next year, so we want to provide them practical things they can use.”
Shannon Sherry, the
Phi Mu sorority delegate in the Panhellenic office, said black ribbons would be passed out in the middle of campus yesterday to honor the three lives lost. According to Sherry, the Oxford Flower Shop, and the Alpha House donated 2,500 ribbons, and the Gaskill printing center donated the flier that will accompany the ribbon. The flier reads, “Love and honor to Miami, Forever and a day. On behalf of Miami’s fraternity and sorority community, to the victims’ friends and families of the tragic event on April 10, 2005, our thoughts and prayers are with you. Please wear this ribbon in honor of Stephen Smith, Julia Turnbull and Kathryn Welling.”
“I know the Greek community immediately wanted to get together and help all those affected by the tragedy,” Dadlez said. “We hope to help out as much as possible.”
