Northeastern University sorority members volunteer at Yawkee Family Inn

Today’s guest post is from Elizabeth Bailey, a sophomore English major at Northeastern University in Boston and contributing writer for BostInnovation. She is the Vice President of Scholarship for Sigma Delta Tau and her interests include: law, ballroom dancing, and chess. Follow her on Twitter @EABailes!

When I went through sorority recruitment last fall, doing community service did not exactly top my list of things to look forward to. I had already done a ton of it in high school, and I thought to myself, what could possibly be new about volunteering at another library or raising money for another charity? Those were things that I had always enjoyed doing, but I never really got to see the way my work was benefiting others. So why were all of these women telling me about how thrilled they were to be able to do various community service events, whether these were kickball tournaments to raise money for a philanthropy, or just doing a cleanup of an area in Boston? It seemed that I heard the same canned story several times during recruitment, and I was looking for something more.

Fast forward through the end of recruitment, Bid Day, and a couple weeks of my New Member program as a future sister of Sigma Delta Tau. With all of the information I was receiving about the sorority and how it operated, I hadn’t thought much about the community service we were all required to do every semester. However, we had just started up a new initiative that would involve sending sisters to hold a “game night” each Wednesday for the residents of the Children’s Hospital Yawkee Family Inn, a temporary home for the families of hospitalized children who have traveled to Boston for its noted medical care. I distinctly remember running into two of the girls from my New Member class as they were coming back from Yawkee and being a little surprised when one of them told me, “You have to go next week! It was one of the best experiences of my life. The kids are precious.” Giving up a Wednesday night to do community service for a couple of hours didn’t seem so daunting anymore!