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Spring Brings Sense of Renewal

May 9th, 2019
Filed Under: Sisterhood

by Jane Madio, Gamma Omicron – Susquehanna University


Spring is slow to come to Pennsylvania, and even in the month of April there can be snowstorms. Finally as April ends and May begins, we start to see the tender shoots of tulips and daffodils bravely pushing their tender tips through the frozen earth.

Just as the spring awakens here at home, my heart begins to feel a sense of renewal to my love for Alpha Delta Pi, as I look forward to the celebration of Founders’ Day. This year on May 15, we will celebrate the 168th anniversary of our founding.

My mind always goes back to those six young women, most of whom were barely sixteen, away from home for the first time with no internet access, cell phones, or other means of contacting their parents at home. What fortitude and courage they demonstrated by creating a society for women that would endure for so many decades.

I feel certain they had no concept of what their beloved Adelphean Society would become—an international organization with chapters on 159 college campuses and a membership totaling almost 231,000—as they strode across campus that day in 1851 proudly wearing the ribbons they had carefully made.

Their concept was simple. Stay together and face whatever challenges lay ahead for them personally or as a group (We Live for Each Other), maintain high standards of study, follow their religious beliefs and have fun, (“ . . .the Objects of mental, moral and religious improvement and social enjoyment of the members thereof “), and support the colleges where chapters are located (. . .and the general welfare of those institutions of learning at which branches or chapters of the sorority may heretofore have been or hereafter may be organized and established.”).

All these years later their concepts still endure. Our history books tell us that on a May morning in 1851 as Eugenia sat in chapel meditating, she quietly repeated to herself the words “We Live for Each Other.” I have repeated these same words many times during my nearly 56 years as a member. They have calmed me following the loss of a dear sister, they have encouraged me when I have heard disappointing news from campuses where the Greek system is in turmoil, they have brought me joy when participating in the initiation of a new member, and they have brought me peace during troubled times in my life. Eugenia was wise beyond her years when she wrote them.

As we come again to honor our Founders on May 15, please join me in remembering our humble beginnings, be reminded of all that we have accomplished, and look forward to the bright future ahead.

“For a thousand, thousand suns have set and a million moons have waned

But still where sisters hands are met, her praise shall sound again.”

We Live for Each Other and for Alpha Delta Pi!



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