In an attempt to recruit new brothers, the co-ed service fraternity Alpha Phi Omega held fun community service events for the past week. These events, which will continue through September 12, are open for all to enjoy and give back to their community, without having to commit to the fraternity. According to Katie Brown, co-recruitment chair, APO is the largest fraternity nationwide. Although it is commonly associated with service, APO’s core values also include leadership and friendship. With many positions on committee boards within the fraternity and various fellowship events, APO provides leadership opportunities to its members and emphasizes the importance of friendship within their community.
Although APO hosts most of its events on campus, the brothers also hold events off Stevens grounds. For example, APO is known for making sandwiches on Fridays for the Hoboken homeless shelter and more recently, cutting soles for shoes for Ugandan children out of used denim. This denim project, hosted in Jacobus Lounge on Wednesday, September 9th was brought to APO by Nicole Santos, co-recruitment chair. Members of APO were asked to donate their old denim so volunteers could stencil and cut out pieces to send to Uganda.
Once the soles reach Uganda, workers are paid fair wages to sew the pieces of denim into shoes in order to combat the spread of jiggers. Jiggers, or chigoe fleas (or Tunga penetrans for the biology majors), are parasitic insects that burrow into human feet where they lay eggs and proliferate. If left untreated, the insects can lead to serious foot deformations, and in extreme cases, foot amputations. This horrifying condition is just another one of the causes that APO brothers are happy to help with. “This is our first time doing something like this, which is really awesome. We like to look for new opportunities and new organizations to work with,” said Brown.
Services such as these are what mainly set apart APO as a Greek organization. APO is different from social Greek fraternities and sororities; it does not have a designated APO “frat house,” and brothers are still allowed to pledge to other social Greek organizations. According to the co-recruitment chairs, all sororities and six out of the thirteen fraternities are currently represented in APO. WHen asked why she enjoys APO, Nicole Santos said, “[APO] gives me an outlet to feel like I’m giving back to the community, and it makes me feel like I’m doing something good with my time.” Since APO is open to all students who wish to participate in community service, much diversity exists within the organization. Santos finds it fascinating how community service can bring people together who are otherwise so different in their personalities.
