fbpx

Many Flowers Make a Garden, Many Violets Change a Life

June 2nd, 2018
Filed Under: Foundation

You’re sitting in the front seat of a red metal canoe. The water all around you is a dull gray, the color of concrete. In the distance, you see a stop sign. The water is so high, only a few inches of the support pole is visible. You are floating in the middle of the street that you’ve called home for years. In front of you is a house. It’s your house, with its cheerful yellow siding on the second floor. You can just barely see the brick of the first floor peeking up over the flood line. As you paddle closer, your breath catches and you hope that the water didn’t make it to the upstairs bedrooms – that maybe your daughter’s toys and son’s crib have survived the hurricane unscathed.

This is a real story, from an ADPi sister whose home was destroyed following Hurricane Harvey and who received an emergency grant from the Clasped Hands Fund. 

In the 21 years since it’s endowment by Deen Day Sanders, Beta Sigma-Mercer University, 154 alumnae members have been awarded more than $460,000 to alumnae through the Clasped Hands Fund. This fund is almost entirely funded through the Violets for My Sisters program.  

Violets for My Sister is a tradition during both Grand Convention and Leadership Seminar where alumnae and guests have the opportunity to make a gift to the Foundation while simultaneously honoring a sister with a violet appliqué. At Grand Convention in 2017, the generous contributions of sisters and guests raised more than $50,000 for the Clasped Hands Fund. Sisters who had a gift made in their honor proudly displayed their violets on their nametags. An astonishing 10,000 Violets were gifted last year.

 

With a gift of $5 to the Alpha Delta Pi Foundation, anyone can participate in the “Violets for My Sister” program, even in they’re not attending Leadership Seminar. Violets in honor of sisters not attending will be mailed following Leadership Seminar. To make your gift in honor of a sister whose hand of friendship has been special to you, please visit www.VioletsForMySisters.org or contact the Foundation office at (404) 378-3164. Gifts to the Alpha Delta Pi Foundation are tax-deductible as allowed by law, and all gifts received through the “Violets For My Sister” program benefit the Foundation’s Clasped Hands Fund.