Phi Kappa Phi
Located in Baton Rouge at the center of the Louisiana relief effort, the Phi Kappa Phi national office staff members have given of themselves--their time, money, and energy.
Perry Snyder with Cindy spent the better part of three days at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center which, it appears, will soon be decommissioned as area hospitals are able to care for more of the victims.
Sam Shaw and his family have taken in two families from Kenner in Jefferson Parish.
Molly Stauffer provided housing for 10 people and gathered a truckload of supplies, including 1,000 toothbrushes and toothpaste, 10 new sleeping bags, and 125 pairs of flip flops.
Maria Davis spent many hours caring for displaced pets.
Robyn Ravain fled Katrina with her family. Upon her return to Baton Rouge, Robyn rounded up diapers, formula, Pedialyte, and various other supplies that local shelters requested. She also spent many hours volunteering at the shelters and listening to evacuees' stories.
JoAnn Havard helped out neighbors and donated time and supplies. She's also taken under her wing a new-born squirrel that was abandoned following Katrina. Though a bit high maintenance, he's a pleasant diversion for all of us!
Stephanie Ferguson has organized the staff to provide hot home-cooked meals for police officers in New Orleans.
See picture with only some of the donated articles.
Kappa Delta Pi
A Call to Action to members and chapters identifies five concrete actions. Among them are
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A drive to collect children's books to distribute to classrooms and schools in the Gulf Coast Region through chapters. The books will be collected at the November KDP Convocation.
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Shipment of school supplies and print resources to displaced children in Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana.
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Special scholarships for Kappa Delta Pi members who were forced to drop out of school due to storm circumstances
Kappa
Delta Pi Bring-a-Book Campaign
The Bring-a-Book campaign originated at the 2003 Convocation in St. Louis,
Missouri, as a Society-wide service project. This biennium, efforts were
directed to benefit Hurricane Katrina and Rita victims.
Southeast Chapter Resource Consultant Alison Billings and Marketing and
Member Services Assistant Sharon Bergmann coordinated the book and school
supply donations. Many attendees and staff members stopped by to help count
and box the 20,000-plus books and school supplies that Kadelpians brought to
Convo in Orlando, Florida. Yes, in three days, Kadelpians from across the
nation donated more than 20,000 books.
A special thanks to the University of Central Florida’s Omicron Lambda
Chapter for working with Shurgard® Self Storage to secure a donation of 250
packing boxes. The packers and stackers of the many books and cartons are
very grateful!
Once boxed, the books were loaded onto a rental truck and driven to
Lafayette, Louisiana, by Executive Director Michael Wolfe and Chapter
Resource Specialist Lynne Haberstroh. President Jenny Couvillion and members
of the Delta Iota Chapter at the University of Louisiana–Lafayette met and
helped unload the book-laden truck.
Delta Iota Chapter members are distributing these books to schools affected
by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. In addition to this hurricane-relief service
project, Kappa Delta Pi is providing an additional year of active membership
to all members affected by the storms and unable to access member services
by phone, computer, or on campus. KDP also is providing thirteen $500
scholarships to chapters to help support their members.
Sigma Pi Sigma
Hundreds of physics majors, graduates students, post-docs, high school teachers, and college faculty were displaced by Katrina, and many in the physics community were eager to do something to help. It was a small effort and it was somewhat late but Sigma Pi Sigma leaders partnered with physics society representatives to put up a bulletin board to help match up physicists needing help with those departments, campuses, and individuals able to offer help. The website is housed within ComPADRE, the physics part of the National Science Digital Library, hosted by the same people that sponsor The Nucleus, the student sector of the physics digital library, at www.compadre.org/katrina.
Items that were posted included information about registration for classes, employment, housing, teaching, research, graduate assistantships, office space, computer facilities, etc. About 80 posts offering assistance are currently on the board.
Those needing assistance, anything from housing and employment to simple information like "Has anyone heard from my student, _______?", were also encouraged to post, although there are fewer posts requesting assistance than offering. Sigma Pi Sigma members were notified about the bulletin board by email and contributed significantly to the content on the board.
From Gary White: I was able to locate one of my own former students that I knew lived on the Mississippi coast via this board, so that was comforting. When Rita hit a few weeks after Katrina, we realized that we had all the tools in place to provide the same service the next time around.
Mortar Board
The delegates of the recent National Conference circulated a massive e-mail encouraging every chapter to take leadership on campus and collect money to give to the local Red Cross chapter. Thirteen of the Mortar Board institutions have taken in refugees from the hurricane area. Mortar Board members from LSU spent a week in registering transfer students from the New Orleans area and in keeping track of all the people evacuated to their campus. It is anticipated that the Mortar Board "Reading is Leading" national project will help rebuild and resupply libraries.
National Society of Collegiate Scholars
NSCS is
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Collecting money for the Red Cross at Induction Convocations across the country.
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Posting a Web link for direct donations to the red Cross.
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Launching Operation Backpack with the NSCS chapter at Louisiana State University. Officers, members, parents, alumni, and advisors at all 220 chapters are being asked to buy a backpack, fill it with school supplies for both college students and K-8 students and send it to LSU no later than October 15. NSCS members on campus will then distribute the supplies to almost 10,000 displaced students.
Chi Sigma Iota
Chi Sigma Iota is composed of professional counselors and counselors in training. Upon learning of Hurricane Katrina's devastation, we immediately networked with other counseling associations including the American Counseling Association, National Board of Certified Counselors, the association for counselor Education and Supervision, and the Council for the Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs. We worked with them to ensure continuity and coherent messages to our common memberships.
We contacted our chapters through emails and posted notices on our website. We encouraged our members to volunteer as disaster mental health workers and for all members to donate to the relief efforts through the Red Cross, Salvation Army, or related organizations. We have many reports of members doing both.
Many were prepared to be mental health volunteers as they had had experience and training after the 9/11 attacks. CSI has urged and reminded its members that such training can be invaluable within their local communities during times of both large community and individual crises as after the loss of a home through fire.
We have received notice of specific instances of many efforts by individuals as well as chapters in providing money, services, and support to the victims for both Katrina and Rita. Our chapter in the Philippines sent its condolences and reported on its members’ efforts to assist victims of recent typhoons in their islands. They similarly provided mental health assistance after the tsunami last year.
Golden Key International Honour Society
A message to the Golden Key community offers the opportunity to donate to the Red Cross through a Golden Key/American Red Cross partnership. Chapters are encouraged to lend support or organize members in some way to benefit the relief efforts.
Tau Beta Pi
Tau Beta Pi extends sincere condolences to all the victims of Hurricane Katrina, especially those in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Cash donations are best received by one of the charitable organizations listed at www.fema.gov. On-site volunteer assistance can also be offered through some of those organizations, including the American Red Cross at www.redcross.org. Many NSPE engineers have volunteered to provide engineering assistance in such matters as structural safety assessment, damage assessment, water supply, sanitation, power supply, and communicable disease prevention and control. In coordination with several federal and state agencies, NSPE is partnering with our sister engineering societies to match volunteer resources to the needs in the hurricane-affected areas. You are encouraged to monitor www.nspe.org for detailed information.
Beta Kappa Chi
The Southern University chapter has contributed to the relief effort. They provided a red bean and rice dinner and a spaghetti and meatball dinner in a nearby church for displaced families.
Alpha Beta Gamma
The Gamma Gamma Chapter conducted a 50/50 raffle to benefit hurricane victims. Money will be donated to a local bank, which is matching all contriubtions.
Phi Alpha Theta
Chapters have been encouraged to accept eligible displaced students and induct them as members their original chapter. Faculty are authorized to submit displaced students as candidates but their certificates will indicated.
Pi Theta Epsilon
For two years PTE has been sponsoring the theme, "Taking it to the Streets: Occupational Therapy Practitioners in Disaster Response." It is expected that chapters have responded literally to the Katrina disaster.
Upsilon Pi Epsilon
The national society contributed $1,000 to the relief effort.
Pi Gamma Mu
The Salisbury University chapter is collecting food and needed supplies to be sent to the stricken area.
The North Georgia College & State University chapter responded by donating $150 to Sarah's House of Pasadena, TX. Sarah's House serves at-risk unemployed or underemployed women and/or women with children to achieve self-sufficiency. Other organizations at NGCSU participated so that a total of $600 was contributed.