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Eta Eta has had an amazing year. The most prestigious accomplishment of our chapter was when we were awarded 1st in academics out of all of the UCF sororities. This was a first in chapter history, and it was all due to the hard work of our sisters. 2016 brought many wonderful opportunities to our sisterhood and helped us surpass our goals as a chapter. We have grown so much as a chapter and can’t wait to see what new opportunities and experiences this new year has to offer.
==Highlights of 2017==
The Eta Eta chapter of Kappa Kappa Gamma has thrived as an organization throughout the year of 2017. The year has brought along many learning and growth experiences for the chapter as a whole. To kick start the new year, the women of Eta Eta entered the Spring semester by getting involved with the Greek community. The weekend of January 30th, Brittany Melson and Rachel Geril attended the Greek Leadership Challenge in Cocoa Beach, FL and learned more about the 4 different Greek councils on campus and how we can work together to improve relations. The following month on the 15th at the Panhellenic meeting hosted by Kappa Alpha Theta, seven members were selected to be Rho Gammas for the upcoming fall semester and help hundreds of young women find their homes within the Greek community. To close out the month, on February 25th, we grabbed our bathing suits and sunnies and made our way to Cabana Bay for our retro sisterhood retreat, hosted by our Vice President of Standards, Paola Pineda. We had fun in the sun all day, and then laughed the night away playing some of our favorite games, including human Hungry Hungry Hippos!
On March 4th, right before spring break, the chapter enjoyed an amazing Mother/Daughter day sprinkled with gorgeous sunflowers, hosted by our public relations chair, Brittany Barnes, at The Porch. We brunched all morning and left with cute polaroids featuring our very own moms. Once we returned from our mini vacation, we started getting ready for our brand new spring philanthropy event, planned by our very own philanthropy chair, Tara Elardo. Kappa’s Key to Wingin’ It was a huge success, bringing in nearly $2,000 for our chapter philanthropy, The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. We walked away from our event with more awareness than ever before about CF, all thanks to the incredible representative from the Foundation who taught us endless fun facts and applicable demonstrations. Even our LC, Ingrid, got to join in on the fun, as she hung out with us at our event and got to see all of Eta Eta’s hard work pay off. To close out the month, we enjoyed our first grab-a-date of the semester at Boardwalk Bowl, where we teamed up and bowled to our hearts desire.
April was a very busy, yet successful month for the chapter. On the 1st of the month, our Knight Thon team, led by the trio of Hannah Starner, Gabby Bell, and Jennie Baker, made their way to the CFE arena to dance the next 20 hours away FTK. The night was full of hypnosis, Zumba, incredible miracle children’s stories, and plenty of emotions. Fundraising all year and dancing our hearts out allowed UCF to meet, and far exceed, our goal, with Kappa donating nearly $18,000 benefitting the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals. That same weekend, a few of our officers, Andrea DiMayo, Paola Pineda, Tori Louth-Ciaccio, Hannah Hoffman, and Katherine Briatico attended the Kappa Leadership Conference in Denver, Colorado. They represented the chapter well, and brought back loads of information as to how to improve our Kappa Kappa Gamma chapter as a whole. To top it all off, SEPC was also held that weekend, where Tillie Schuman, Peyton Edwards, and Emily Diez represented Eta Eta among the community of Panhellenic women, where they attended various workshops about leading with a purpose.
April 3rd-8th, was Greek Week and we were paired with Pi Kappa Phi and NPHC. Our chairs, Ingrid Onoriode and Stephanie Sharf, lead the chapter throughout the week. Kappa and our partners had an amazing time competing in all of the events and collecting cans for the Harvest Food Bank. That same Saturday, we headed out to the Lake Nona Country Club to celebrate our graduating seniors at senior wills, hosted by Colette Lowndes. We ate lots of food, listened to funny memories, and remembered that Kappa isn’t four years, it’s for life. To close out such a wonderful month, on April 20th, we danced the night away at the Omni Orlando Resort for our annual Formal event. We pigged out at the chicken wing and pasta bar, took tons of silly photo booth pictures, and sang our traditional Oh Pat song to our seniors. It was truly a night to remember.
We had so much fun participating in other philanthropies, as well as raising money for our very own. We far exceeded our goals, all the while creating endless memories. We left for our summer vacation eagerly awaiting all that was to come in the Fall semester.
The Fall 2017 semester got started in the best way possible. We all got to come back to UCF two weeks early to hang out with all of our sisters and prepare to recruit the best new member class ever. The big reunion after the long summer took place on August 7th, but was short lived because we quickly had to learn the ins and outs of everything recruitment related by our wonderful membership chairman, Hannah Hoffman. Spirit week was spent step clapping our hearts out, screaming door chants, and having quite the “house party”. We put all of our training into practice when we hit the ground running for our first day of recruitment on the 14th. Formal recruitment came to a close on the 19th, where we welcomed home the 56 new members of Omega class, as well as our well-missed Rho Gammas. We carried on our bid day festivities at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, where we spent the evening roaming the park and watching the various light shows.
Eta Eta started off the new school year strong by meeting at the house on the 28th for a planner party, hosted by the vice president of academics, Alex Shapiro. We highlighted and marked up our calendars with all of the fun events to come that semester, but making sure to pencil in time for all of our studying and homework. Unfortunately, our schedules got a little skewed when Hurricane Irma made an unwanted visit, and kept us away from school and Kappa for a couple weeks. During this time, sisters checked up on sisters, offered up their homes, and took care of one another, truly exemplifying what it means to be a Kappa woman.
The chapter made it back safe and sound on September 17th, just in time for big/little reveal. The bigs decorated and hid in boxes, patiently waiting for the very moment when their little would run into their arms. Soon after the littles got their bigs, we all enjoyed a wonderful Inspiration week, starting October 1st, planned by our marshal, Lauren Jacobs. During the week we bonded with our sisters, and got the chance to channel our inner 80’s girls and skate the night away at Semoran Skateway. The week ended with our beautiful initiation ceremony, and 54 newly initiated sisters on October 7th. The following week, we celebrated our Founder’s Day, hosted by our education chairman, Colette Lowndes, at the house as we dressed up in our trendiest fall clothing, and pied our favorite council members in the face. The very next day, our Panhellenic Delegate, Tillie Schuman, planned a new event, Owloween with our neighbors, Chi Omega. We got to spend time getting to know our fellow Panhellenic sisters, all the while getting to decorate pumpkins and eat sweet treats.
To finish out the month of October, we participated in Kappa Delta’s annual KD Shakedown benefitting the Girl Scouts of America. Our sisters worked so hard, and it truly showed on stage with the amazing performance they delivered.
The first week of November proved to be a busy one. Early in the morning on the 4th, we participated in Pack-to-Attack, packaging meals for families in the greater Orlando area, then immediately made our way over to our Sisterhood event on memory mall. We teamed up and played various Disney channel-esque games and races, and made so many fun memories. On the 7th, we hosted our annual Kickin’ It with Kappa, newly transformed into a soccer tournament by our philanthropy chairman, Emily Diez. The event raised nearly $3,000 for our philanthropy, Reading is Fundamental, and we got loads of books to donate to the children!
On November 16th, right before we left for Thanksgiving break, we all got our glam on for our annual semi-formal, hosted by our event chairman, Ali Rollins. We danced the night away at the breath-taking Orchid Garden, and closed the night out by Oh Patting our graduating seniors.
To close out the semester, the Eta Eta chapter hosted our first ever Golden Key Celebration to commemorate the 15 years that our chapter has been on UCF’s campus. It was a truly amazing event, as all of our sisters, families, and Kappa alumni joined us at the Orlando Science Center, and we raised over $10,000 for the Kappa Kappa Gamma Foundation. We spent the night bidding on raffle items, eating delicious catered food, and breaking it down on the dance floor. The highlight of our night was meeting our Fraternity President, Beth Black, and listening to a wonderful speech given by our District Director, Barb Goettelman. They are the women that we aspire to be, and we are so grateful that they could attend our event.
The Eta Eta chapter of Kappa Kappa Gamma had an incredible year. We are so proud of all of our accomplishments academically, and in the Greek community. We have grown as a chapter and a sisterhood within the year of 2017. Many new opportunities have been presented to us and we have taken advantage of them to the fullest, and can’t wait to see what the new council, led by Tillie Schumann, will bring us in the year of 2018.
==Highlights of the 2020s==
