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|Image= [[File:Zeta_Chi.jpg|200px]]
|Founded= {{start date and years ago|1993|11|20}}
|College= [httphttps://www.marist.edu/ Marist College]
|Location= Poughkeepsie, NY
|Homepage= [httphttps://clubsmarist.maristkappa.edu/kkgammaorg/ Zeta Chi Homepage]|Media= [httphttps://wiki.kappakappagammakkg.org/index.php?title=Category:Zeta_Chi Media related to Zeta Chi Chapter]}}
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Zeta Chi had 50 charter members and was a local sorority which petitioned KKG for colonization.
'''546 571 initiates (as of January 2017June 2018)'''
We chose these organizations to support because we want to help our local community. We love to help the surrounding city of Poughkeepsie, our campus community, and organizations that are fundamental to Kappa Kappa Gamma. We also decided to participate in St. Jude’s Up Til Dawn to support our fellow sister who belong to this club.
==Highlights of 2018==
Zeta Chi started off the year with Spring Recruitment! We welcomed 35 new members to the chapter! This has been one of the biggest new member classes, the Alpha Phis. We had many sisterhood events that united the chapter as a whole, including a sisterhood hike, apple picking, movie night, flower pot decorating, an ice cream social and a holiday party. We also supported our sisters that were in the Marist College Dance Ensemble shows in the spring and fall. The chapter has participated in many philanthropy events, such as the Polar Plunge, St. Jude's Up Till Dawn, and bi-‐weekly reading buddies at the Poughkeepsie Children's Home. We also held our annual RIF events which included a movie night, a newlywed game and the RIF Carinval. The chapter also donated money from the loose change jars to the Kappa Kappa Gamma Foundation. Zeta Chi also celebrated 25 years with a special Founder's Day event. We ended the year by celebrating our chapter with the annual Sapphire Ball!
==Highlights of 2019==
[[File:Zeta Chi 2019.jpg|thumb|Zeta Chi new member class 2019.]]
Zeta Chi began the year with our Spring recruitment! We welcomed 35 new members into the chapter! The new pledge pledge class is named the Alpha Chis.
We had many bonding experiences this year including the sister events such as apple picking, board game night, a picnic by the Hudson river and many more. Additionally, we supported our sisters that are in Singers as well as Dance Ensemble. On April 6th, the Alpha Chis were initiated as official sisters of Kappa Kappa Gamma.
At the end of the Spring semester, we had a Senior Send off brunch for all of the graduating sisters in our chapter.
For Philanthropy, we raised money for RIF by donating children's books as well as creating a hot cocoa sale to donate to Reading is Fundamental. We also had reading buddies throughout the Spring semester. In January, we had a karaoke RIF event where each sorority and fraternity donated children's books to the local library.
This past year we had a few sisters attend the Leadership Conference as well as a sister attend the Leadership Academy.
In the Fall semester, we had our 150th Founders Day. Our chapter celebrated by holding a brunch for the chapter with photos and tokens of our chapters history.
For our 2020 celebration of Founders Day, we will hopefully have a larger group of attendance and welcome more alumni who can come to next year's Founders Day! The Zeta Chi Chapter ended the year with their annual Sapphire Ball!
==Highlights of 2020==
The Zeta Chi chapter of Kappa Kappa Gamma has had yet another amazing year, despite the circumstances, showcasing the graciousness and resiliency of our sisterhood. This year, we learned that being sisters is more than weekly meetings or bi-monthly events. We showed up for each other in multiple ways - both virtually and in person. Guiding our newest (33) members that were initiated virtually in the Spring, sending off our graduating seniors even though their time on campus was cut short, and maintaining the bonds of sisterhood throughout the rest of the school year were no small feats. Zeta Chi persevered, got a little creative, and worked our way through to make the best of this year!
[[File:Zeta Chi CH 2020.png|thumb|A Zeta Chi, Marist, chapter event in 2020, before Covid hit and everything went virtual.]]
Jessica Gardinier won the Kay Beasley Martin 2020 Scholarship on behalf of the Kappa Kappa Gamma Foundation in February for excellence in academics. Our chapter was awarded the Rosa Parks Raising the Village Award by REAL Skills Network in Poughkeepsie in February 2020. This award was given to us for our bi-weekly Reading Buddies program and book donations. There is an annual gala held to celebrate the recipients of the Rosa Parks awards, as they all honor community icons. Both the 2020 and former Philanthropy chairs were invited to attend. Kappa Kappa Gamma Zeta Chi was lucky enough to be included!
Zeta Chi was also awarded a Convention award this year. We were a recipient of the Gracious Living Award (Unhoused). Our amazing visit with LC Emma brought us all closer as a chapter. We consistently provide a warm and inviting environment for both sisters and guests both in and outside of campus.Kappa events quickly shifted to virtual events during the mid-spring semester and into the fall.
Virtual events were implemented to ensure everyone’s safety and included but are not limited to, meditation workshops, Netflix parties, virtual trivia, virtual Founder’s Day, and mental health checks with Behind Happy Faces. We made sure that events were accessible to everyone and would be enjoyed by all sisters. Mental health events were our top priority this semester because many of our sisters felt stressed and anxious due to the pandemic. Sisterhood involvement was supported and engagement was increased with trivia nights which allowed sisters to win a Kappa water bottle. Polls and Google Forms were sent out to gauge our chapter’s interests related to events.
[[File:Zeta Chi CH 2020 2.png|thumb|Zeta Chi, Marist, transitioned to virtual events after Covid hit in March 2020.]]
This year we supported the KKG Foundation, RIF, and St. Judes. For the KKG Foundation, we participated in the founders day giving challenge by reaching out to friends,family, and alumni and posting Instagram bingo boards on our stories and we raised $783. For RIF, we partnered with Everrow and did an online fundraiser where people who used our code at their website gave us 10% back to donate to our philanthropy. Through this, we raised $31.60 and we also created more read-aloud videos that were sent to the Poughkeepsie Children’s Homeand Real Skills Poughkeepsie to replace the reading carnival we usually have in-person. For St. Judes, we created Kappa teams to help fundraising in preparation for the Marist event in the spring.
This past semester the DEI committee was able to implement in-person and online learning with our Student Government DEI committee. We were able to let the chapter know about a Black Lives Matter Vigil run by the Student Government where we could take a moment as a community to mourn the lives lost not only over the past year but over the course of many years. Our committee made all of our sisters aware of where they could mail in their absentee ballots for the presidential election this year. We promoted DEI education for our Zeta Chi Chapter through Minerva, and also through our Marist’s Professors. The Student Government held a series of lectures over zoom addressing social justice, our college's history, reconciliation, and healing. We were able to inform our sisters about how Zeta Chi could raise money for a local organization called Nobody Leaves Mid-Hudson. This organization helps people in the Mid-Hudson area with affordable housing, immigrant justice, climate and energy justice, and more civic engagement. Lastly, we made our chapter aware of the MISA petition, which raised awareness for international students who were having issues with winter housing at Marist.
In the future, we hope to permanently implement DEI learning for new member education as well as already initiated members. As a committee, we think our whole chapter could benefit from a sensitivity talk regarding diversity, equity, and inclusion before 2021recruitment. During recruitment, we would like to ask our sisters if they would feel comfortable sharing their pronouns in person or over zoom to encourage potential new members to share their pronouns.
To celebrate the traditions of Founder’s Day while maintaining COVID safety guidelines, we held our sesquicentennial celebration virtually through zoom this year. All active members, alumnae, advisory board members, and district team members were sent an invitation.We opened the ceremony with the virtual version of the Founder’s Day ritual provided by our district specialist. We also had two guest speakers that are Zeta Chi Chapter Alumnae, one of whom is a founding member of our chapter, and the other a former advisory board member.Following this, members who submitted their own “What Kappa Means to Me” shared how Kappa has affected their life and were able to ask questions to the Alumni who spoke to their own experiences. We wrapped up the event with an interactive trivia game that focused on the chapter’s members and the accomplishments we’ve achieved as a whole.
==Highlights of 2021==
The Zeta Chi chapter of Kappa Kappa Gamma has had a fantastic year! We have begun to make our way out of the virtual environment and back to socially distanced, in person meetings and events. Although the transition has been slow, we are so glad to see everyone’s beautiful faces and truly experience the bonds of our sisterhood to the greatest extent. Through the ups and downs of the pandemic and Marist going on lockdowns, we now, more than ever, appreciate the gifts of friendship and love that Kappa has brought to all of us. As we welcomed 34 new, amazing, members, we also said goodbye to our senior class who has guided the chapter through their time at Marist.
[[File:Zeta Chi 2021.jpg|thumb|Zeta Chi hosts an online chapter event 2021.]]
Although we have struggled through these many changes in the ways that we are allowed to meet and gather, we, as a chapter, have pushed on and made the best of it! Our sisters have excelled in every aspect as young women and bring great empowerment to the chapter. We were able to not only empower our chapter, but many organizations around us. As a chapter, we hosted many Instagram bingo board fundraisers for organizations such as the KKG foundation and National Brain Tumor Society. We also held a book drive for REAL Skills Poughkeepsie and sent videos of sisters reading children’s books to the Poughkeepsie Children’s Home and REAL Skills.
It is our mission this year to continually bring a loving and caring environment to not only the sisters of our chapter, but to all we interact with. This is something that we pride ourselves on and hope to continue to do as a sorority, getting better and better each year. In order for us to do this in the virtual environment, before being back in person, we created many opportunities for the chapter to stay in contact and have fun. Some of the ways we did this was by hosting Netflix parties, meditation workshops, themed Kahoot parties, and virtual hangouts. As we slowly began to meet in person, our sisterhood events followed, such as pumpkin picking at our local farm, socially distanced big-little reveal, our annual picnic at the Vanderbilt Mansion and Sapphire Ball. We also made sure to offer both in-person and virtual events as the transition started, making sure that none of our members felt pressured to go outside of their comfort zone in terms of Covid-19, although all guidelines were properly met. We hope, as we move forward into the new year, that we are able to continue to strengthen the bonds between us and cherish the time that we have together as a chapter.
This year we supported the KKG Foundation and St. Judes. We also raised awareness about the new philanthropy, focusing on mental health and well-being. For St.Judes, we, as a chapter, made multiple teams to compete to raise money for the foundation. These teams have not only helped to raise money, but also promote awareness about St.Judes’ cause and how people outside of the Marist community can show their support and make contributions. Additionally, we, as a chapter, sent cards to patients at St. Judes and connected with other organizations at the school to do the same. In regards to our philanthropy on mental health and well-being, we publicly made a statement addressing our support to those struggling with mental health issues and abuse, giving out resources to local and national helplines, as well as Marist resources, including the Title IX office. We have also promoted the use of Talkspace to our sisters and brought back mental health groups. These groups bring together the members of our chapter and give them a comfortable place for them to share what they might be going through and get the support they need. We also had a private session with Christi Lukasiak, who spoke on the importance of mental health, confidence, and the strength in being a young woman. Lastly, every week at our in-person chapter meetings, we passed around spare change jars, which raised money for both the KKG Foundation and Mental Health and Well-Being through NAMI.
This year, we have been able to fully implement the DEI committee and chair as a permanent role! This has been a great experience for the chapter and has allowed us to connect more with other organizations as the school. Through this new role, we have worked hand-in-hand with the African Student Association of Marist, Marist Multicultural Affairs, as well as Marist Asian Alliance, among other groups that have hosted DEI events. As the committee grows, we plan to bring as much awareness to our sisters as possible, highlighting the areas for improvement and education among us.
As a part of making our sisters more aware, the DEI committee consistently brought social issues to light during meetings and gave out many resources to get involved. The chapter also celebrated many important holidays and cultural events, such as Black History Month. Aside from social justice awareness, the committee also made the chapter away of absentee ballot eligibility and voter registration for their specific states and how important it is not vote in smaller elections, not just the presidential election. In order to not only help the members of our chapter become more involved and aware, but the entire Marist community, the committee submitted ample resources to be posted to our Instagram page, which reaches over 1,300 followers. In addition, our Instagram was used to promote various causes and important events and spread our message of acceptance of all people, regardless of their race, gender, or sexual orientation. We also promoted DEI education for our Zeta Chi Chapter through Minerva and through Marist’s Professors.
As this committee has grown immensely from last year, we are proud to be leaders in Greek life at Marist in this role. We hope to continue to grow in this area and become more aware as a chapter in the coming years. Overall, the DEI position has greatly benefited our chapter and the Marist community as a whole, bring the school together in a positive way to focus on what is important.
To celebrate the traditions of Founder’s Day while maintaining COVID safety guidelines, we held our celebration socially distanced, with masks this year. All active members, alumni, advisory board members, and district team members were sent an invitation and invited to also join virtually. We opened the ceremony with a brief history of the founding sisters of Kappa Kappa Gamma, highlighting their amazing achievements and life stories. We also showed a video from Kappa Kappa Gamma headquarters, explaining the importance of our rich history as a sisterhood. Additionally, we had the senior class share their personal “What Kappa Means to Me.” We also served light refreshments and closed the ceremony with story sharing and fun facts about the fraternity, celebrating its inspiring history.