In October, We Think Pink

For most, October means leaves changing color, Halloween, candy,, pumpkins, and midterms. For Zetas, October is much more than that. Our philanthropy is Breast Cancer Education and Awareness, and October is Breast Cancer Awareness month. We make sure to do everything we can each October to raise money and bring awareness to this serious health issue.

Zeta Tau Alpha's Fall 2017 Think Pink Week has been a great success. We had events like a Chili Cook Off, three days of tabling for Best Chest penny wars, a scavenger hunt, and a flag football tournament. One of our most important events, however, is our Brighten Up Workshop. Zeta is partnered with Bright Pink, an organization dedicated to educating women about breast cancer. Each semester, Zeta holds an educational Bright Pink sponsored workshop to teach women how to be better prepared to prevent and fight breast cancer.

Beyond Think Pink Week, Zetas still continue to give their time throughout the month of October. This weekend is the American Cancer Society's Making Strides Against Breast Cancer Walk, and many of our members will be volunteering our time. The best part of being involved in such an amazing philanthropy is getting to meet the people affected: breast cancer survivors. This walk lets us mingle with the very women we do so much to help.

With October quickly coming to a close, North Texas ZTAs are proud of what we've accomplished, and what we will continue to accomplish for our philanthropy.

If you would like to donate to Breast Cancer Education and Awareness, click here.

Amber White, PC Fall 15

Think Pink Week

Nothing makes a Zeta more excited than the prospect of raising money for our philanthropy. We are passionate about Breast Cancer Education and Awareness and prove it with our annual Think Pink Week and golf tournament. Last week included three days of tabling in the library mall, featuring wooden ribbons decorated by members of the competing teams, pink lemonade, a (Hershey’s) Kissing Booth, and of course, passing out our iconic pink ribbons. Buffalo Wild Wings hosted a profit share, and Monday brought a photo competition on campus, in which team members had to find a Zeta and snap a picture with her. Tuesday consisted of the teams competing in a Searching for a Cure, a scavenger hunt that left team members following clues all the way to the ZTA House. On Wednesday, we hosted Queso For a Cure, featuring all-you-can-eat queso, chips, and salsa. To top it all off, our biggest event of the year, the Crown Classic Golf Tournament, was a huge success. All in all, the girls of the Gamma Phi chapter of Zeta Tau Alpha raised over $3,000 for Breast Cancer Education and Awareness.

                                                     Amber White, PC Fall 15

                                           

                   Above are images from our Think Pink photoshoot, and bellow are images from                                                                                    Queso for a Cure!

The Alternative Spring Break Project

Here’s to all the little things I wish I never took for granted. Over spring break an incredibly diverse and talented group of Greek UNT students and I were given the opportunity to travel to New Orleans to work with the St. Bernard project. The St. Bernard project is a non-profit organization that was established after Hurricane Katrina to help rebuild the homes that were lost in this tragedy. This organization has, through the use of countless volunteers and AmeriCorps employees, been an integral part in reestablishing the community in New Orleans. Working with this organization was a humbling and eye opening experience. I have often found it far too easy to forget how fortunate I am just in that I can attend college or even more simply, because I have a home. This trip really helped me to put my problems in perspective and made me realize that there are a lot of little things in my life that I do not appreciate enough. I strongly recommend this trip specifically, because one of the things that impacted me the most was the fact that it could happen to anyone. This was a natural disaster; a tornado could hit Denton tomorrow and everyone here could be in the same position as those in New Orleans. I would want someone to help my family rebuild their home if that happened and I am sure others feel the same way. Also, it was a blast, and a great way to get to know some of the students that make up this extraordinary campus.  So, if you’re looking for an unforgettable, life changing experience look no further than the Center for Leadership and Service at UNT, They sponsor the trip every year. I for one will definitely be going back so I hope to see you there.


                                                        Devin Thomas, PC Spring 16

Badge Day Everyday

Yesterday, March 6th, was the famous International Badge Day. On the surface, it is an opportunity for Zetas around the world to look our best and wear our badges proudly over our hearts for everyone to see. But Badge Day is more than that. Zetas have worn their badges for decades, and current members and even alums continue to honor this tradition, opting to pin their badges upon their chests even once they have graduated to show that Zeta truly is more than four years – it’s a lifetime. Our badge is a symbol of who we are as individuals and as sisters; it connects us to each other and to the women who came sixty years before us.

On Badge Day, members of Zeta Tau Alpha proudly display upon our chests our commitment to our fraternity and all that it stands for. We celebrate our sisterhood and our creed that we live out every single day. Since 1997, Zetas have taken one day out of the year to wear our badges and honor our fraternity, displaying to everyone that, whether an active member or an alumna, we are all proud to be Zetas.

This is a picture from Janie Grimes, a member from the Gamma Phi Chapter's Spring Pledge class of 1963.

                   

Welcome to New York

        

                                                      

This February I got the chance to volunteer at New York Fashion Week. If you would have told me a few months ago that I would be doing so, I wouldn’t have believed you. As a fashion design major at the University of North Texas, this was the opportunity of a life time. Being a volunteer; as you can imagine, I am starting at the bottom of the totem pole in the fashion industry, but that didn’t matter. Just getting to bask in the glory of successful designers was enough for me.

My arrival started out uncertain, not only was I anxious about being in the city all alone for the first time, to top it off my flight delayed over 4 hours due to a major snow storm in the North East. After every single flight canceled, by the grace of God, I made it. I arrived in the city at 10 pm, anxiously anticipating the next day. 

For a total of 4 days and almost 20 hours of volunteer work, I worked back stage at the Couture Fashion Week. This was a new world I have never experienced so up close, I was quit nervous as I had no clue what to expect. My nerves shortly subsided once the models and other volunteers found out I was from Texas. They got at kick out of my "accent", stories of sorority life and all things Texas. When I told the girls I was a Zeta, they looked at me at me in envy, proclaiming how bad they wanted sororities in the city. 

 Besides gabbing with volunteers, my work was quite vigorous. It included steaming, prepping the designer’s collections for the show, sewing any accidental rips from heels, changing the models in and out of garments, and clean up. This was a hard couple of days, my shifts were too busy to have time to eat, go to the bath room, or hardly breathe due to the masses of people back stage, but I loved every minute of it. Over the course of 3 days, I had met a variety of young and upcoming designers in the industry, friends, and overall gained valuable experience. This opportunity gave me great insight to the industry and the people in it.  After this weekend, I realized the fashion industry isn't quite as glamorous as it appears, but it is defiantly something that I am born to do. 

During my free time I enjoyed being a tourist and exploring the city, I found delicious bakeries and eateries, such as this one bellow, Laduree Mason. They have the most delicious macaroons from Paris, I even ate a Rose flavored macaroon, yumm!

 Me in the city! It snowed the entire time I was here. P.S. I swear I have a jacket behind the camera man.

Claire Brogdon, PC Fall '14

The Great Escape

Saturday, January 14, 2017

    This past weekend was one for the books. All the members of our executive council met at the Zeta castle to plan and discuss goals for the upcoming semester. It was so great getting to reunite with my sisters and make decisions together as the new council. After hours of gabbing and planning, none of us knew what exactly was yet to come. We knew we were ending the retreat with an escape room, but none of us had ever experienced one before. We arrived at the escape room in farmers branch around 9pm where they told us we were partaking in "The Cure". They told us that two of us would have to be hand cuffed together, I was immediately hit with a wave of nerves. What were we about to walk into? Picture 10 girls, locked together in box, because that's about how big the room was. They told us a creepy story of a doctor in hiding, and we had to discover the cure to cancer. We enter a room set up to look like a doctors office, we all begin running around trying to find anything that could be a clue. We had one hour to solve the mystery, I honestly didn't think we would make it out, but surprisingly with the help of all 10 girls we found the cure in under 40 minutes, getting us out of the escape room! This was such a fun and engaging experience that all of us agreed we would love to do again. It was a great chance to learn how to all work together under a strict time limit and immense pressure. The escape room was a great way to end our EC retreat and above all, get us pumped for the upcoming semester.

The House That Built Me

There’s a time that comes in every Zeta journey when you begin to feel old. “Old” is of course relative but at some point your pledge class is the oldest one in the chapter and everyone else is younger than you. It’s an odd feeling because whenever sh*t hits the fan your first instinct is still to turn to the older girls who were seniors when you were a new member but they’re all gone and everyone is looking at you for answers (this is when you pretend you know what you’re doing and hope for the best). 

I’m Clara, the social media/PR girl (more formally known as the Historian Reporter on our chapter’s 2016 Executive Council). So basically I’m the girl who follows everyone around with a camera like a proud mom. I’ve been the voice behind our social media accounts, the one editing blog posts for this very blog, the one keeping our website up to date, and the one hoarding cute pictures of our members to post every week. Basically I have the coolest and most fun job ever that requires me to be on social media all the time (and it doesn’t count as neglecting my schoolwork -- this is the part where you’re jealous). But as all good things must come to and end, so must my term as Historian. 

                                   (Meet Claire, my successor and our fabulous 2017 Historian!)

I joined the chapter my first semester at UNT: Fall 2013.  Somehow that was three years ago and now I’m a senior, a granny in the chapter, and about to become a regular member for the first time in my Zeta career. After my new member semester I jumped right into holding a position on our programs council as the external social chair, then the social chair, and then I hopped onto EC as the VP1 in charge of programming and now I’m the Historian. It’s been a busy (and often frustrating) three years. But mixed into that list of positions and those three years are some of the most wonderful memories.

I don’t usually get emotional and cheesy but I suppose this is a good occasion if ever there was one. I’m sure you’ve heard the all classics before like “it’s not four years, it’s for life” or “from the outside looking in you can’t understand it and from the inside looking out you cant explain it” so I’ll skip over those.  But as my last act as Historian I feel the need to leave some bits of my experiences here for whoever wants to read them.

If I had to choose one piece of advice to pass down it would be to enjoy every moment (even when you wish you were napping or getting your nails done). It’s easy to be grumpy at mandatory events or complain about being cold at an intramural game but choosing to embrace those times is what makes this experience so memorable.

There are of course all the annual and semi-annual events like bid day, pink out football games, big/little reveal, initiation, Homecoming, Greek Week, Formal, etc.

                                                                  (Our LAST formal *cries for days*)

Then there are all the things you don’t plan like spending hours pomping for Homecoming (but really dancing to 90’s music), scrubbing the paint out of your clothes and hair after paint fights, spur of the moment ear piercings, or your little scaring the life out of you at the haunted house philanthropy event…

                                                (I really almost peed myself when I saw her...)

There’s the time you move into the ZTA house with your best friends (and somehow stay there for three years)…

…or always making your friends take pictures at every event no matter what (because we all know I have to have them for my scrapbook). There are the last minute costumes for mixers and sisterhood events, the time you accidentally cook the worst spaghetti squash in the history of spaghetti squash with your suitemate, and being there when your chapter wins Crown Chapter for the first time in 7 years (and crying like a child in front of hundreds of other Zetas)…

…There are the times you force each other to go to the gym and then make fun of the rude Zumba instructor, or running home after disaffiliating for recruitment, tackling your roommate to the ground and ugly crying (because a week apart was clearly too long)…

…There are hundreds (if not thousands) of attempted candid pictures that were meant to be cute but are really just a little creepy, and big milestones like 21^st birthdays and engagements…

                                                       (the newly engaged, future Mrs. Essman)

And somehow even if they aren’t all happy moments they are still the best because they are the moments that shape you; the good, the bad, and the ugly moments. They are what help you become the person you are and want to be.

Now as I step down from my last position, I want to say thank you. Thank you to everyone who has been a part of my Zeta experience, everyone who welcomed me into this chapter when I was a wide-eyed new member, everyone who encouraged me to apply for positions, everyone who helped me paint that giant banner for our Jimmy Buffet themed mixer (because gosh that was a feat), everyone I served on PC and EC with, and especially the people who I shared those unplanned and wonderful moments with.

2016 has been…quite a year for our chapter, our 2016 EC, and me personally. But I wouldn’t have survived it without all the wonderful women I call sisters.  

So just like that, my time as Historian is over. This the Gamma Phi's 2016 Historian signing off and welcoming in Claire and all of EC 2017!

And to the house, the chapter, and the girls that built me: thank you for showing me that Zeta never gives up on you and that love really is the greatest of all things.  

Clara Warner, PC Fall ‘13