Greek Life Joins to Bowl for Kids’ Sake

Members of ESU fraternities pose for a photo at Skylanes Saturday. Photo Courtesy / Kevin Skilton
Members of ESU fraternities pose for a photo at Skylanes Saturday.
Photo Courtesy / Kevin Skilton

BY KEVIN SKILTON
SC Staff Writer

With Spring break coming to a close, over 300 community members came together to support the Big Brothers Big Sister’s “Bowl for Kid’s Sake” program at the Skylanes bowling alley last Saturday, March 23. Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Bridge in Monroe county focuses on placing proper role models, or mentors, with 7-14 year old kids in the community. This program has proven to be a positive influence on the kids, drastically increasing positive attitudes in the participants and actively increasing attendance and better behavior in school.

For the third year in a row, the Sigma Pi chapter at East Stroudsburg University has helped coordinate the event and volunteered hours of service. As the saying goes, “the third times the charm,” and Sigma Pi decided to go big this year, trying to incorporate more students in the event.

Over the weeks leading up to the “Bowl for Kid’s Sake,” a Sigma Pi representative went to business meetings in the Greek community and petitioned to other school organizations and clubs for sponsorship and participation at the philanthropy event. Immediately, groups started jumping on board and signing up bowling teams to help support the children in the local community.

“Bowl for Kid’s Sake was such a spectacular new experience for our sorority to be apart of,” said Kiley Thornburg, the team captain of the Alpha Sigma Tau sorority.  “We had never worked with this organization prior but certainly want to continue working with them!” Working together, the Greek Life at ESU had a fun filled day giving back to the community.

“It was great, not only to help out, but to be able to do it with our fellow Greeks,” said Dave Reciniello, president of Sigma Pi. “It is amazing what can be accomplished and how rewarding it is when we come together like this. Sigma Pi was extremely grateful of the Theta Chi and Kappa Delta Rho fraternity, along with the Alpha Sigma Tau and Tri Sigma sorority for sponsoring bowling teams and showing the community that Greek life is happy to work together for a common goal of helping others. Even the new to be President Welsh, who happens to be a fantastic bowler, showed her support and tweeted her “sincere ESU thank you to [the fraternity and sorority] members who helped make the Bowling for Kids event a huge success!”

Matthew Citron, Vice-president of the Kappa Delta Rho fraternity, expressed how good it felt “to talk to younger people about what college means to me and how I enjoy being at ESU.”

“It was a great experience to get to bowl not only with other peers and organization, but to be able to get out and meet other members of the community too,” said Citron.  His fraternity, Kappa Delta Rho, not only sponsored and donated towards a five man bowling team, but also donated before the event to the Big Brothers Big Sisters program to sponsor a bowling lane for the entire event.

Lane sponsorships from groups such as Kappa Delta Rho fraternity, Delta Chi fraternity, local businesses and other organizations is what allowed this event to take place. Without groups like these going the extra mile to help out, the event would have never occurred.

Sigma Pi, Alpha Sigma Tau, and the Big Brothers Big Sisters program are looking forward to coming to the East Stroudsburg University campus in April. They plan on bringing the mentors and their “little brothers” and “little sisters” to campus for a college tour.

“Our hopes are that a program like this will be a productive way of giving these children a college experience and stress the importance of education,” explained Jeff Molinaro, Sigma Pi Community Service chairman.

Kiley Thornburg exclaimed that her sorority is “looking forward to helping Sigma Pi give a campus tour to help show these kids how bright there future can and will be.”

Email Kevin at:
kjs6192@live.esu.edu