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Greetings Brothers,
While reflecting on the chapter activities and events held during the later part of the 2021 year such as the Foundation Thanksgiving Turkey/Food drive, winning the Charles H. Wesley Award with The Alpha Eta Collegiate chapter at our District Convention, and our charter/founder’s day celebration weekend. I must say that brothers continued to embrace the overall vision of the Epsilon Lambda chapter which includes reclaiming brothers, raising revenue for both the chapter and foundation through our fundraising, grant writing efforts, and serving our local community by supporting our youth and families through food drives and Alpha Mentoring program with the partnership of The Village lead by our Alpha Brother Kennan Morrison.
The overall success of our hard work and commitment collectively have enabled the chapter to successfully transition into the first five months of our 2022 year.
In January 2022, the chapter partnered with Centennial Christian Church, Washington Montessori School, Fountaine Park community, and other local organizations to plan and execute the fourth annual MLK celebration which included a Commemorate Services, community March, COVID - 19 testing, and giving of PPE equipment to the Fountaine Park community and distributing over 50 bags of goodies and gift cards of appreciation to the teachers at Washington Montessori school. Due to the adverse weather and the resurgence of COVID, some of the planned MLK programs including a community forum and a Freedom Ride trip to visit black history museums in Memphis, Tennessee were postponed. However, through determination and commitment, the remainder of the program was completed.
In February 2022, while hosting a Super Bowl party at Hot Java Bar and Grill, we solicited donations from the guests to support the Ora Lee Smith Foundation Cancer Research which is an ongoing effort supported by the local, district, regional and national components of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc.
The month of March 2022 included: Hosting our second successful annual HBCU College Tour ( Virtual) with the participation of 7 colleges, registration of over 60 students with 40 plus students in attendance, and a dedicated committee of chapter brothers. We also held our first virtual voter registration where we helped St. Louis residents register to vote as well as learn about what their sample ballot consisted of. We also held our Spring IMDP and initiated twelve new brothers into the Epsilon Lambda chapter.
In April 2022, we had our first chapter meeting in person and virtual ( hybrid) which included guest speakers Ericka Sanders and Percy Baldwin from Big Brother Big Sisters of America ( STL). The nomination for new chapter officers ( 2022-23 years) was also held during the meeting. Epsilon Lambda chapter Neophyte presentation for the twelve new initiates was held at Westview Middle school. Special thanks to our Brother and Principal of Westview Middle
school Dominic Lenoir for allowing us to use the facility to host the presentation and the IMDP team for their hard work throughout the overall process. The month of April ended with over 30 chapter brothers registering and attending the 90th Midwestern Regional convention held in Kansas City, Missouri. A great time of meetings and fellowship included a special dinner held for the chapter members during the convention.
The Alpha train moved into May 2022 with full speed ahead with the kick-off of our second in-person Gateway Derby Party in partnership with Delta Epsilon Lambda held at the Chase Plaza Hotel in St. Louis, Missouri. This was an elegant evening with over 500 guests in attendance. Special thanks to the Derby committee for their hard work and commitment to excellence.
The chapter voting of new officers took place in May of 2022. Let’s continue to make this chapter's plans/vision a reality and move to the next level!
We are looking forward to the next half of this year's work of Alpha!
Dwight T Pollard- President
