2,350
edits
Changes
→Highlights of 2017
The chapter house, located at 238 E. Maxwell, began renovations and expansion in May 2017. Due to construction, the house was left vacant for the 2017-2018 school year. Over 40 sisters elected to live together in a local apartment complex off campus to keep the feeling of the house. For weekly meetings we utilized campus classrooms and lecture halls. Sisterhood events were held on campus, and off campus in homes, apartments and at local parks.
==Highlights of 2018==
The Beta Chi chapter of Kappa Kappa Gamma at the University of Kentucky has seen
tremendous growth in the past year. Our chapter house was under construction for renovations
during the 2017-2018 school year causing us to be without a central location for girls to come to,
having to hold chapter meetings in classroom lecture halls, and a recruitment done in another
chapter’s house. In August 2018, the house re-opened and we did the new “delayed recruitment”
style in our new house. Recruitment is the first two weekends of school, rather than the whole
week before. This was a big change for the Panhellenic community as we have done early
recruitment for many, many years at UK. It went well, and we will be doing recruitment this way
for years to come. Recruitment went very well this year, we love our new fall ’18 pledge class!
Sisterhood is a top priority to our chapter. Maintaining friendships is very important to
the members of Kappa and we encourage it in many ways. Ways that we encourage
strengthening friendships in our chapter are by holding sisterhood events. A few we had this year
are a roller-skating event at Champs Roller dome, movie night in the new house, and a trip to
Boyd’s Orchard. Another aspect that is very important to the members in Kappa is academics.
We promote studying by holding study hours and having academic events, such as study nights
with other chapters. Now that we have the house again, sisterhood will be promoted in a whole
new way with having sisterhood events.
Chapter Philanthropy
Kappa is very involved in the Panhellenic and UK community. We love getting to know
our fellow Greek organizations and helping raise money for other causes. DanceBlue is a 24-hr
dance marathon that raises money for UK DanceBlue Kentucky Children’s Hospital
Hematology/Oncology Clinic. Kappa typically has a team of about 30 girls dancing. Each year,
UK students raise over $1.5 million. Greek Sing is a philanthropy event held by Chi Omega at
UK. It is a big dance competition. It is a lot of fun to watch all the chapters perform their routines because so much work goes into it. This past Greek Sing, our theme was “Apps,” so our dances
included Twitter, Weather, Find My Friends, Uber, and Snapchat.
Kappa supports Reading Is Fundamental (RIF), GIRLS Academy, and the Kappa Kappa
Gamma Foundation. We work the closest with RIF. Each semester, we are paired with an
elementary school where we work closely with the teachers and students. Our spring 2018 events
were Kappa Bowl, Kappa Kindness, and Reading is Key events. Kappa Bowl is our biggest
event – all organizations on campus are invited to make teams to participate. The participants are
dressed in orb suits and play soccer. It is a tournament style game and the winning team receives
money that will be donated to a philanthropy of their choice. Kappa Kindness typically takes
place during midterms in the spring semester. Typically, we set up a table somewhere around
campus and give out free coffee donuts and other motivational things to add a little brightness to
people’s difficult exam week. Reading is Key events are events we hold where we go into the
elementary school we are paired with for that semester and have a carnival for the students.
There are different reading stations, such as speed reading, storytelling, puppets, bookmarks,
snacks, and other fun carnival games. The children really enjoy the events and we have gotten a
lot of positive feedback with previous events from the teachers and parents. Spring semester
2018, our theme of the Reading is Key event was Dr. Seuss Oh the Places You’ll Go and all the
active members of Kappa wore crazy, mismatch socks, which the students thought was silly and
fun. This past semester, fall 2018, our theme for the Reading is Key event was superheroes. All
the active members of Kappa wore superhero masks during the event, again which allowed a
light, funny, silly atmosphere with the kids. Each time we hold Reading is Key events, each
student gets to go home with a new book, and we are able to donate over 2,000 books to the
school library.
Our fall philanthropy events this semester were: the Reading is Key event, a Bake Sale,
and The Amazing Race. As previously mentioned, the Reading is Key events are themed events
that are held at the elementary school were paired with and is a carnival-like event. There are
reading stations, games, and snacks. The Bake Sale was new this semester, it was a success!
Active members made baked goods and each item was sold for $1. The bake sale had two
locations, one station was set up at our chapter house and another was outside of a classroom
building on campus. We had girls tell their friends and post on their social media to get the word
out. The Amazing Race is our fall philanthropy event based off the TV show “The Amazing
Race.” Teams of four must finish a certain number of challenges the fastest to win a monetary
prize of about $100 and they get to choose a philanthropy to donate money to, as well.
Chapter Facility
Chapter meetings are held in our chapter room in our newly renovated chapter house. In
the old house, the chapter room was way too small to hold every member, so we had meeting in
the dining room. But now, our chapter room seats 300 people, comfortably, which is more than
enough room for the entire chapter.
Beta Chi Chapter Room – White fold up chairs are set up for meetings.
The History/Ritual and Treasury Advisor helped us out a lot this past year with the financial
aspect of the new house. She also planned our Founders Day celebration at the new house with
other members of our House Board. They did an amazing job of showcasing the new house to
the alumnae and set up a nice program to thank everyone for their help with the house. She helped
our chapter tremendously over the past year. She attended chapter council meetings and
always let the CC members know that she would be there if they needed anything.
Photographs
Photo of the front of the house decorated for Christmas!