Pumpkins and Stepping and Headbands, oh my!

October has been an incredibly busy month for the sororities at UNA. This month, the four Panhellenic organizations have participated in Step Show and are looking forward to the Pumpkin Palooza event on October 28th and the Headbands for Hope event on November 13th.

This past weekend on October 17th, Greeks and other RSOs came together for a cause and stepped for United Way. Phi Mu won the overall and women’s division with their performance of the ”Phi Mu Circus.” Coming in a close second, Alpha Gamma Delta took home second place in the women’s division with their theme of “The Heist.” Zeta Tau Alpha saved the day with their inner “Adventures of Wonder Woman” to help raise money for United Way, and Alpha Delta Pi pleaded guilty to charges of philanthropic involvement with their theme of “Alphatraz.” At the beginning of the show, change buckets are placed at the door and money is collected for United Way in addition to proceeds raised by ticket sales. Phi Mu raised the most money in their bucket and won the award for that competition. Each participant in the show gave an awesome performance and was an fun way to raise awareness for a great charity.

Mark your calendars! Just three days before Halloween, the Panhellenic Council at UNA will be hosting Pumpkin Palooza. This is a community wide event that benefits Circle of Sisterhood and is free to attend. The main goal of this philanthropic event is to increase interaction between college students and the community. At this event there will be a pumpkin carving contest, and a costume contest among other events. Also, there will be free t-shirts to the first 200 people at this event.

Looking forward to November, the Panhellenic Council will be hosting a speaker on November 13th. This event is titled, “Headbands for Hope” and the speaker will talk about the importance of philanthropy in college. This is also a mandatory event for each sorority and will be a great time for NPC to come together and share ideas for community wide service events.

This fall has been off to a busy, but fabulous, start for UNA’s Panhellenic Council. Since August, the National Panhellenic Council has came together multiple times to stress the importance of upholding not only the values of each sorority, but the fundamental ideals of Greek life that strengthen us all.

Homecoming 2014

The homecoming festivities have come and gone for the University of North Alabama this year, but not without a week full of festivities to keep us all entertained!

The first event for the week was the homecoming window painting! All four sororities competed in this event and we would like to congratulate Alpha Delta Pi for coming in second in this event and Alpha Gamma Delta for coming in first place!

Another event for the week was the homecoming bonfire, Ignite the Pride! This was the inaugural year for the bonfire and all our Panhellenic ladies had a blast spending time with each other and with other students!

We also had the Homecoming Pep Rally where all four of our Panhellenic sororities competed in the Homecoming Pep Rally Spirit Competition where each sorority performed a short skit/cheer for the student body. The second place in this competition was Alpha Delta Pi and the winner of this was Alpha Gamma Delta.

For the Homecoming Parade, each sorority decorated their floats in accordance with the Homecoming theme and rode through downtown Florence to pep up the community for the big game! Second Place in this competition was Alpha Delta Pi and the first place winners were Alpha Gamma Delta and Phi Mu.

We are also proud to announce that the 2014 Homecoming Queen is Ms. Kekoria Greer of Phi Mu Fraternity. Keke is a fabulous representative for the University of North Alabama, Panhellenic Council, and Phi Mu! Congratulations Keke!

We would also like the congratulate Nick Lang, brother of Sigma Chi Fraternity on being named Homecoming King!

NPC Back In Full Swing!

This past week was National Hazing Prevention week. UNA’s Greek life has an absolutely no hazing policy. Our sororities do just the opposite of hazing. The sororities shower their pledges with love and gifts. Our fraternities also do not haze their pledges. We love our new members and happily welcome them into our chapters without hazing. As as effort to stress our intolerance of hazing, the Greek community launched a social media campaign to show that we will not stand for hazing! Here are some of the pics from this fun week!

Also, this past week Alpha Gamma Delta hosted a Skate with the Sororities activity to promote Greek unity among our Panhellenic community and raised money towards their philanthropy! 

This upcoming week is homecoming!! We have lots of events coming up for this festive week. We have the window painting competition on Monday, September 29th, the inaugural Homecoming bonfire on Thursday, October 2nd from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m., the homecoming pep rally Friday, October 3rd at 9 p.m., and the parade Saturday October 4th at 11 a.m.  Then, kick-off for the big homecoming game Saturday is at 6 p.m. versus Western Oregon. 

This Friday is also Zeta Tau Alpha’s pink party philanthropy event featuring the Midnighters on Mobile Plaza at First Friday. This event will begin at 6pm! This is before the homecoming pep rally so everyone make it out to support ZTA!

Inaugural Vera Bradley Bingo!

This Monday, April 21st, UNA's Panhellenic Council will be hosting the inaugural Vera Bradley Bingo Philanthropy Event! 

At this event, participants will be able to purchase a ticket for $10 and play 10 rounds of traditional bingo! Bingo winners will win one of the Vera Bradley bags that have been donated by the 4 Panhellenic chapter among other prizes! Prizes are valued at $50 or more so the $10 ticket is worth much, much more if your bingo cards bring you luck! 

Tickets can be purchased at the door or the GUC Banquet Halls! The event will be from 6-8 p.m. at the Gulliot University Center on the UNA Campus! Proceed for this event will be benefitting the Sydney Safe Foundation. 

Sarah Thompson founded Sydney Safe in honor of her sister who struggled with depression as a result of abuse. The foundation offers children in similar situations meals and a support system to prevent the same results as her sister. They also provide Christmas gifts to children during the holiday season who may not receive any. All the proceeds from Vera Bradley bingo will help Sarah and the foundation continue their efforts! 

Hope to see you all on Monday! 

It's okay to be proud, but not too proud!

Welcome to the new Panhellenic blog! To kick everything off with our new initiative, we thought it would be good start off on the right foot with a little inspiration about unity, especially in the light of Greek Week! 

We all have our own individual chapters that we hold so dear and are quick to lend our service to or jump to defend when duty calls, but sometimes we forget that we are apart of something so much more than ourselves and our chapters. We are all greek women. We all have a different air about us. 

We are the (very) few that get this experience and occasionally we take it for granted. 

Did you know that less than 7 percent of people in the world have a college degree? And of that less than 7%, not even 1% are Greek. Crazy. 

We are privileged. We are the ones who have sisters there to hold us up and support us and be there for us to make the memories that we will cherish for the rest of our lives. But not everyone gets that. 

We also must remember that when our founders created our organizations, they weren't focused on winning Step Show or Step Sing, intramural championships, philanthropy events, or Greek Week. They were focused on building a lifelong sisterhood with one another and building the relationships with other women in a time when women had to fight to go to college, couldn't vote or even own property. They were simply forming a strong, giving, and value-driven community of women who knew that they could change the lives of other women and the community where they were placed. 

We get to be the few and the proud. We have something that no greek bill can accurately price. We have a network of strong sisters in our own organizations and an even stronger sisterhood of Pahellenic women!