A lot of times, people assume girls join sororities for various superficial reasons. Comments such as "you're just buying your friends" or "why do you have to pay to be apart of a club" flew my way once I joined my sorority, Chi Omega. Nobody really understood the real reason I became a Chi O, and to be honest, at first, I didn't either. I couldn't quite figure out what was so special about Chi O and my new sisters. Of course, it were a group of wonderfully kind, compassionate and fun young women, but the bond between the older girls seemed unbreakable and unlike anything I had seen before.
But as soon as I visited Make A Wish of North Texas, I completely understood why I chose Chi O and why Chi O chose me.
Make A Wish, Chi Omega's national philanthropy, grants the wish of a child diagnosed with a life-threatening medical condition every 38 minutes. To put that in perspective, while you're sitting on the couch at night watching The Bachelor or Scandal, Make A Wish has granted a wish that will change a child's life.
Make A Wish grants four types of wishes: to be, to have, to meet and to go. For example, children can wish to be a prince or princess for a day, to have a tree house, to go to Disney World or to meet their favorite celebrity like Michael Jordan or Selena Gomez, and according to wish manager Abby Storms, "Make A Wish gives these kids a part of their childhood back." After all, Make A Wish's mantra is "to enrich the human experience with hope, strength, and joy."
Visiting the Make A Wish Factory with my pledge class made it obvious why Chi Os have such a special bond. In our sisterhood, we make our philanthropy a focus, allowing it to be the bond that ties us together. We use our love for one another and our community to pay it forward. We recognize how blessed we all are, and use those blessings to better the lives of children who have often times lost their quality of life.
Last Thursday, I witnessed my very first wish-granting for a little boy named Trey who turned 9 on Sunday. Trey wished for a playhouse, so he and his many brothers and sisters could have a place to play after school and on the weekend. Seeing a little boy, whose sickness took away such a huge piece of his childhood, so happy about his new treehouse, something so simple and yet so special, reminded me just what Make A Wish and Chi O is all about.
In April, our annual auction, Bid For Wishes, the Iota Alpha chapter of Chi Omega raised $129,032.84, helping Make A Wish grant the wishes of 16 children with life-threatening medical conditions.
Who wouldn't want to be apart of a sisterhood that can do something like that in just one night?
