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Scholarship Interview: Alexis Brotherton

“This is part of a series of interviews with our scholarship recipients for our 2021 Build A Better Future scholarship sponsored by Honors Graduation. We hope you will find their stories as inspiring as we do! For information on our 2022 program, click here”

Our next scholarship recipient is Alexis Brotherton. Alexis created an Agriculture Field Day for members of her community to promote agriculture awareness. This project started a few years ago for her, but because of COVID, it continued to be put off. She was finally able to carry through with her full project recently and it started off great! 

Alexis has been involved with 4H for a lot of her life, so she knows the ins and outs of ag very well. She created surveys sent to peers, teachers, and community members to gauge where the lack of information was, as well as the most needed topics to cover. Once she received this information back, she created the content for the ag field day. 

Alexis was able to pull off this event with a lot of community volunteers at each station that helped teach the information they were presenting as well as manage any hands-on activities at the event. When the community members showed up at the event they were greeted by Alexis herself at the check-in table where they were told about each of the stations and sent on their way from there to learn more. 

This event was Alexis’s trial run for bigger, future events. Currently, her focus is on starting college and succeeding in that area, but once she has more time, she wants to focus on more events, around 1-2 times a year and changing up the topics each time for repeat patrons. 

Alexis is doing great work and is doing a great job promoting ag education and bringing clarification on the subject to the residents of her community. She is attending Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University for school. 

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The Financial Responsibility of #GoingGreek

An open letter to college freshman tips and advice

Joining a sorority or fraternity comes with one big thing that often gets overlooked and sometimes comes as a surprise to a lot of new recruits during rush week, and that is finances. There are a lot of fees and dues when it comes to joining a Greek house and it’s important to know what your upfront and yearly costs will look like before committing so that you aren’t surprised later. 

Each school and each organization will have its own fees, so it is best to do your own research on the specific houses you are looking into. This is typically information they will cover during Rush Week as well. However, here is a quick overview of fees or charges you may see. 

New member fees

Initiation fees

Chapter or house dues- annually

Social dues- for social events

National dues- paid to the national headquarters of your organization

Semester dues

Rent- if living within the household 

Fines- which could be for anything from damages done to your room/the house, to missing an event or meeting 

Georgia Southern University posted this table to their website for all students looking into Greek life, this is just one of the examples you may see when it comes to the financial responsibility you hold as a fraternity or sorority member. Typically the bigger university you attend with higher tuition rates, the higher Greek fees will be as well.

Should all of this financial responsibility deter you from joining? No! But it is something to be aware of. Especially because these fees are on top of your college tuition and fees.

A few places you can turn to for help: 

Parents/family members 

Scholarships- both in and out of your University or organization

Financial aid- Loans and grants. Some organizations offer them, as well as applying directly from the government through FAFSA. 

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Scholarship Interview: Swetha, Ben, and Johnathan

This is part of a series of interviews with our scholarship recipients for our 2021 Build A Better Future scholarship sponsored by Honors Graduation. We hope you will find their stories as inspiring as we do! For information on our 2022 program, click here”. 

Introducing our next scholarship winners: a group of three working together on the same project and splitting the scholarship winnings. Swetha Palakur, Johnathan Polucha, and Ben Kim. These three high school students worked together on a project for their engineering class, where they specifically needed to come up with a solution to a problem. 

They chose to create a keyboard specifically for persons with Parkinson’s Disease and other similar, neurodegenerative diseases. The reason for choosing this group of people specifically was for two different reasons, first that they realize what vital importance of using a computer is in this day and age and they recognized the struggles those with PD have using a typical keyboard. And second, they had close family members with Parkinson’s Disease, meaning this project hit close to home for them. 

After creating their first humble prototype made of cardboard, they were able to meet with the head neurologist at the University of California Irvine. She gave them great insight into how the minds and bodies of those with PD work, as well as some feedback on their prototype. One worry Ben, Swetha, and Johnathan had was that the keyboard would be too complicated to figure out, but she reassured them that it would be a great cognitive and problem-solving practice for the PD patients. 

After more teacher and peer feedback, more prototypes, and working out some wiring issues, they were able to create a functioning keyboard! Ben, Swetha, and Johnathon hope to someday patent their keyboards and spread them to Parkinson’s Disease patients all over. 

Ben is attending Princeton University, Swetha is attending the University of California, and Johnathan is attending Oregon State University. 

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Spotlight on Omega Phi Alpha

spotlight on omega phi alpha

Omega Phi Alpha was founded in 1953 at Bowling Green State University. A handful of students at Zeta Kappa Chapter of Alpha Phi Omega National Service Fraternity wanted to start a new organization for the purpose of assisting with projects on campus that they were working on. After a group of women stepped up and wanted to fill the role, a sorority was started with a similar, but different name. Omega Phi Alpha. Originally the sorority was only open to members of Girls Scouts or Camp Fire Girls. This has since been changed. 

Their core values are service, tradition, sisterhood, diversity & inclusion, and leadership. Each separate organization is centered around service in some way. They state on their website their purpose: 

“The purpose and goals of this sorority shall be to assemble its members in the fellowship of Omega Phi Alpha, to develop friendship, leadership and cooperation by promoting service to the university community, to the community at-large, to the members of the sorority, and to the nations of the world.”

omegaphialpha.org

They truly are a sorority founded on women that stepped up to help and will continue to leave a legacy of women willing to step up to help. They are a positive influence on college campuses everywhere!

You can see more about Omega Phi Alpha and the overview of the sorority here in this video:

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How To Choose A Good Preschool

How to choose a good preschool

I feel bad writing this post right now because the time to choose a preschool is more in the late winter/ spring since that’s when registration typically falls. However, it’s been a subject on my mind as my daughter attends her second year of preschool and I talk with friends and neighbors about the preschools they’ve chosen for their kids. It made me realize that not all preschools are created equal and there should be a good thought process/ questioning stage before sending our kids off to them. 

First and foremost- preschool is not required. It’s not something you have to sign your child up for, especially because it can be a HUGE financial responsibility when you factor in monthly tuition for 8-9 months for one child, let alone multiple children over multiple years. There are a lot of preschool curriculums you can purchase to use at home if you’re willing. Our favorite is Playing Preschool by Suzy from Busy Toddler.  But there is also NO shame in not doing a full-on preschool curriculum at home with your child either!

If you’re looking for an in-person preschool, here are a few tips and questions you can look into before choosing the correct one for your family: 

Ask about the curriculum and look for keywords like “play” and “social interaction”. It shouldn’t just focus on letters, numbers, shapes, and strict learning. If you have to ask about playtime, that’s a red flag! Almost every preschool will have playtime built into the day, but if it’s not something they bring up without prompting, it’s not their sole focus. 

Here are multiple posts on why preschool is not just letters and numbers: 

There’s More to Preschool Than Letters and Numbers

An entire page on multiple early childhood resources focusing on play, preschool, and independent kids. 

Can you tell our previous writer, Mary, and I are incredibly passionate about this subject?! 

Another tip: tour the preschool if possible! Look at the setup, are art supplies, backpack hooks, toys, and other supplies at a child’s level? This promotes independence and gives children access to a world that often shuts them out. 

Does the space feel safe and somewhere learning can happen? Is it open and ready for play? 

Is the preschool within a reasonable distance from your home, or is there a bus/carpool system? 

Questions to ask: 

Is homework ever required? (Unless the homework is to play, paint, enjoy childhood, or only if the child wants to do it, the answer to this question should always be NO.)

How much is monthly tuition and are there any other fees on top of that? (You need to make sure it’s affordable and sustainable for your family!) 

What school supplies is my child required to have? (Again, affordable and sustainable for your family.) 

What is your goal for the children throughout the school year? (If they say something along the lines of “have them reading before kinder”, please RUN far away and do not incline your 4-5-year-old to the pressures of reading before kinder.) 

What are some daily activities they will be participating in? (Painting, play-dough, pretend play, singing, reading, and other fun activities along those lines are the answers you’ll want to hear.) 

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Scholarship Interview: Hannah Storrs

Your Voice Counts scholarship interview

This is part of a series of interviews with our scholarship recipients for our 2021 Build A Better Future scholarship sponsored by Honors Graduation. We hope you will find their stories as inspiring as we do! For information on our 2022 program, click here”. 

Hannah Storrs with her project “Your Voice Counts” was one of our scholarship winners this year and for good reason! Hannah originally started this project because she wanted to obtain her Girl Scout Gold Award, which focuses on a community project. When considering what she could do her project on, she remembered her love and interest in politics that started when she was only in 4th grade! This is what she based her project around. 

Hannah’s goal was to promote unity and understand (and hopefully abolish) voter apathy. She dedicated hours speaking to students in physical classes and on Zoom classes, both at her high school and her dual-enrolled college, Florida State University. On top of speaking with classes, she created an online platform with YouTube and Instagram to help students understand voting, the process, and feel confident they are making good voter decisions. 

You can see her YouTube platform here:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBU6GcWXAZNTDgJsLmgmNpw

Hannah’s long-term goal for Your Voice Counts is to create a student organization at her university that she is currently attending. 

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Bid Day! An Overview and Some Tips

bid day overview and tips

So you’ve gone through Rush Week, took in all of the information for each organization that you could possibly handle, and now it’s BID DAY! Here’s a quick overview of what to expect on bid day: 

At this point, you’ve submitted your preference of house that you would like to join and the houses have done the same for their recruits. If you match up, a bid is offered to you. This means you’re in! You’re invited and welcome to join! You accept the bid and join the house. The rest of the day is full of excitement and activities as everyone rallies around the new members. Some houses assign their big and littles on this day as well, while others may wait. There’s cheering and chanting and one big party! 

A few tips for bid day: 

Drop the stress! You’re in and they’ve offered you a spot. 

Look into how long you have to decline the bid if you can on bid day. Some will show up at the house and participate in the excitement of bid day, only to regret their house choice later. It’s worth it to look into if needed! 

Don’t worry about getting to know everyone all at once. There are probably people there that you didn’t even see or get to know during Rush Week because they were working behind the scenes the entire time. You’ll get to know everyone eventually, given time. 

Enjoy it. You only get one bid day! It’s a big day, so take it all in and enjoy it while it’s happening. Take pictures and videos and remember the moments that mattered the most.