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→Highlights of 2021
On February 3rd Beta Psi held its first fundraiser of 2020 with its 6th annual all Canadian-themed philanthropy, Kappanada. All proceeds of this event were donated to the Kappa Kappa Gamma Foundation for its efforts to support collegiate women through scholarship programs. The COVID-19 pandemic presented real challenges to executing philanthropic activities for Beta Psi, as most service efforts are reliant on in-person engagement. Aside from supporting the philanthropies of fellow Greek organizations on campus, Beta Psi held their Keep6ixwarm Give-back in December as a way to provide care packages to the city’s local vulnerable people experiencing homelessness, particularly as COVID exacerbated Toronto’s already precarious housing situation. Through a high social media presence the chapter was able to raise many donations in order to support this project.
Beta Psi celebrated Founder’s Day virtually with the Toronto Alumni Association on October 18th. The Education Chairman held a programming event to go over the history of Kappa and Beta Psi.
==Highlights of 2021==
2021 was an exciting year full of ups and downs for the wider world, and mainly ups for the Beta Psi chapter! Restrictions caused by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic had a significant impact on our chapter programming, but at every opportunity we gathered in-person (and hybrid) to bond together as sisters.
In our 110th year on campus, we were honoured to be recognized for our many achievements by the University of Toronto Panhellenic Association. Our chapter was voted Most Outstanding Chapter for the second year in a row, Outstanding President, and Panhellenic Council Officer of the Year for 2020.
Our campus returned to a formal recruitment style this year, however maintained the virtual format in compliance with provincial regulations. PNMs had the opportunity to virtually visit all the 7 houses on our campus. In the round one zoom, each PNM was placed in a series of three breakout rooms with one active Kappa where they got to chat for five minutes. Round two session followed a similar format, but included an additional philanthropy presentation where PNMs learned about our philanthropic endeavours and passion for service. Preference round included a presentation about the house and approximate dues for the upcoming year. Overall, formal recruitment was very successful as it allowed us to truly connect with PNMs, and brought us our 2021 new member class, filled with sapphire girls.
Beta Psi welcomed 21 new members to our chapter from this year’s fall recruitment, doubling our chapter size from the beginning of September, growing from 23 members to 44. We hosted a Y2Kappa hybrid bid day event on September 12th, 2021. This was an exciting outdoor event, held in the backyard of our chapter house. We all had matching bid day shirts which we paired with early two-thousands themed hairstyles, and each new member received a bag full of Kappa goodies.
Initiation was very special this year as it was the first time many of our active members experienced an in person ceremony. This year's initiation was held on November 21st, a time in which government regulations permitted in-person, masked events. We held morning and afternoon ceremonies, as our full chapter would still exceed the maximum indoor gathering limit. We were all very proud for our New Members to officially become active members, allowing for us to be fully bonded over our secret ritual.
Due to ongoing COVID restrictions, many in-person events were cancelled for the 2021 year. Beta Psi celebrated Founder’s Day virtually was unable to host Sapphire and Krush Events, however our members were able to enjoy other successful sisterhood events. We started the semester with a Virtual Galentines Night on February 12th, and finished off with a very successful end of semester games night on March 31st. During the fall semester we were able to have several in-person sisterhood events, including a pumpkin patch day at Downey’s Farm, and Christmas tree decorating. We also stayed connected with the Toronto Alumni Association Greek community, hosting online socials with UofT’s Phi Kappa Sigma, and Alpha Epsilon Pi. Public Relations remained extremely important to our chapter in 2021. PR contributed significantly to our success in recruitment, by creating informative and engaging posts about our values and sisterhood. PR also was a main point of contact between PNMs and our chapter for scheduling coffee dates and providing supplementary information and connection with Kappa. PR was central to our Winter Philanthropy. The Story Garden raffle was promoted, and winners were announced on Instagram. A short video was posted which also raised awareness about literacy-related issues in our community. Members were very engaged with PR this year; and went further promoting our philanthropy and recruitment events on October 18ththeir personal Instagram accounts. From March 21st to March 27th Beta Psi held our first philanthropy of the year in support of The Education Chairman Story Garden, a Mississauga based charity which emphasizes the importance of literacy for all stages of life. This philanthropy was a raffle, where $2 tickets bought the change to win one of four prize kits filled with items from local small businesses. In the fall, the Beta Psi chapter established a new philanthropic partnership with Jack.org, a non-profit Toronto-based organisation that is revolutionising how we tackle mental health nationwide. As a chapter, we discussed our belief that mental health should be at the forefront of our attention. Mental health awareness is an issue that is close to the hearts of many of our sisters, which motivated us in our philanthropic endeavours and helped us spread the word about this cause that we feel so strongly about. We hope our work will contribute to dismantling barriers and creating a safe space within our community for positive discussion surrounding mental health. Jack.org helps us achieve this, and that is why we are so proud to be supporting this organisation. On Monday, November 22nd we held our Kappa Kafe in support of Jack.org. Beta Psi Sisters brought in baked goods and warm drinks which we sold to the community. We also held a raffle, with popular prizes like a programming large speaker and raptors tickets. This philanthropy was also our first time including pay-to-post fundraising, where visitors could post on their personal Instagrams about our event to go over be entered in a raffle for Jack.org merchandise. This was an innovative way to spread awareness about our organisation and get others involved! This was the first year Beta Psi dedicated a position to DEI. This is something important to our chapter and a very necessary position. We especially paid attention to inclusivity on our social media. This year our PR chair worked in conjunction with our DEI chair to assure our posts were inclusive and celebrated all cultures and religions. In the winter term of 2021 our chapter had a DEI training, in which we gained knowledge on how to make Greek Life more inclusive. We had some difficult conversations that really allowed members to learn and grow. During recruitment training we spent extra time to teach members how to be equitable when speaking to PNMs. Although we have to grow more in terms of DEI, we are excited to have started the history process of Kappa implementing diversity, equity and inclusion in all that we do. Restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic continued to create challenges for our chapter this year. The winter semester faced the same restrictions as the 2020 year, with all classes and therefore all chapter meetings held online over Zoom. However, with the return to in-person classes in the fall semester, Beta Psiwas able to resume some in-person activities. Our first chapter meetings were held in-person, and gave members from our 2020 pledge class the opportunity to participate in in-person ritual for their first time. As we welcomed our lovely new members, in order to comply with provincial guidelines we limited the number of members participating in-person, and offered a hybrid option with a Zoom link for every meeting. Our big/little matching process and reveal operated differently than normal due to COVID-19. Typically, new members would meet with potential bigs in person but this year this was held fully on Zoom. It was still a memorable process and littles were able to really get to know the bigs. We also still had clues but instead of putting them in cubbies, our New Member Chair distributed them by email. This still gave the same feeling of suspension to all the littles. This year the reveal was held in a park to follow government restrictions. All littles were very excited to finally meet their bigs.
