Love Your Body Week

With Spring Break coming up next week, girls start to worry and become self- conscious about their bodies. Since Tri Delta is involved with a Body Image 3D program, this is the perfect time to have a “Love Your Body Week” for the whole chapter! The purpose of this week is to teach the members to love their bodies while also being healthy along side of our sisters. 

The chefs helped out with making an awesome menu for this week featuring multiple super healthy meals. Some of the favorites have been the grilled chicken kabobs and greek salad, the salmon, and the avocado toast. 

Open Chapter Monday night also went along with the “Love Your Body Week” theme. It started off with an activity where three girls from each pledge class were asked to stand in front of a blank white poster while closing their eyes. The other members of the chapter wrote nice things about them around where they were standing. After 15 minutes, the girls standing around the posters were asked to turn around and look at the nice things their sisters wrote about them. It was a cute and positive way to kick off chapter! 

After the activity, Larsyn Cross, a nutrition and body wellness expert, spoke to the chapter about loving your body. She told her story about how she had to learn to love herself after getting skin cancer when she was only a junior in college. She learned to except her scars from the surgery and decided to embrace her uniqueness because it is what set her apart from other people. She emphasized that we must embrace our bodies because we are each fearfully and wonderfully made. 

Her six tips on how to stay body positive in college are:

1.      Wear what you want to wear (not what you think you are supposed to wear).

2.      Don’t delete “ugly” pictures of yourself and say affirmations in the mirror daily. 

3.      Create meaningful relationships

4.      Stop comparing (comparison is the thief of joy)

5.      Feed your mind and soul

6.      Do it for yourself and no one else 

a.       Eat healthy foods (learn to cook), drink water, exercise daily and get adequate sleep

Larsyn’s talk was amazing and was a great way to start off the week. She left everyone feeling more confident and with some great tips on how to love your body!

On Tuesday and Thursday, there are a social media challenges for Love Your Body Week. Members are posting pictures on Instagram to show why and how they love their bodies using the hashtags #lΔΔΔveyourbody and #bodyimage3d. 

On Wednesday, there is an activity from 6-8pm at the Tri Delta house where girls are drawing body positive quotes and sayings on posters and sticky notes. Members are hanging them around the Tri Delta house and campus to spread the message of loving your body!

We have really enjoyed our "Love Your Body Week" and look forward to always staying body positive and loving ourselves. Thanks to Kendall, our Body Image Coordinator for planning such an uplifting and fun week! 

Team Tri Delta at Dance Marathon!

On Saturday, February 25, a group of our sisters joined over 1,200 other students and danced together for 14 hours with USC Dance Marathon to raise money for Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals. USC Dance Marathon is the largest student-run philanthropic organization on campus. These students are able to help children right here in Columbia by fundraising for the Child Life Program at Palmetto Health Children’s Hospital. This year, as a whole USCDM raised $703,289 surpassing their $700,000 goal. As a team, our girls raised $6,704.42 for the kids!

The main event began at 10 a.m. and went until 12 a.m, and during this time, there was no sitting or sleeping. The participants danced in support of the patients, some of which they got to meet during the event! They also heard many different Miracle family testimonies, which encouraged the participants to keep on dancing, even when it seemed impossible. 

                 

 

 

“I got involved last year with the encouragement of another Tri Delta Member, Kimmie Gower. I didn’t really know what I was getting into at first. It was not until I met a Miracle kid named Benjamin that I realized how important this event was. It makes you want to work harder and do whatever you can do to help these children and their families,” said Junior Emily Morgan.

Both Emily and Sophomore Julia Derry are members of the Dance Marathon Morale Team. They spent countless hours preparing for the event and ensuring its success. During the main event Emily and Julia motivated our team to keep going and keep fundraising.

Some of our members got to meet a fellow Tri Delta from Elon at the main event on Saturday. After bonding over sisterhood, she then proceeded to get on the stage and tell about how she was a miracle child who had a 10% chance of survival when she was 8 years old. What a special story to share and a testimony to living out your purpose!

We could not be more proud of the Tri Deltas who were so dedicated to helping an amazing cause. An event like this brings the student body together to better the lives of children and families everywhere, and we could not be happier to have the opportunity to participate while strengthening the bonds of friendship between our chapter. 

“Being able to bond with sisters from my pledge class was one of the best parts of fundraising and dancing as a Tri Delta team member!” said freshman, Mckenna Vergnolle. Being able to spend time with sisters and raising money for a good cause? How could it get any better!

Sophomore Makenna Rose also really enjoyed being a part of this event. “Hearing all of the miracle stories and then seeing the looks on everyone’s faces when we exceeded our goal was one of the best parts of the event; the pure joy that overwhelmed the room, knowing that dancing for 14 hours wasn’t just dancing but knowing that it truly was making a difference and that everyone there cared and made these children their priority for all day... that was the best,” said Makenna.

We can’t thank our team members enough, and we look forward to raising even more money next year! 

$131,132 for St. Jude!

During 2016, we worked so hard as a chapter to raise the money for St. Jude. In the end, we ended up being one of the top 5 Tri Delta fundraising chapters in the nation!! We are so honored and humbled, and we could not have done it without all of YOU! With your help, we raised $131,132!!!

To wrap up our fundraising year, we wanted to share with yall how we accomplished this incredible number as a chapter.

The 2016 year started out with our annual Sincerely Yours letter writing campaign. Members of Tri Delta were able to send letters and donation forms to their closest friends and families asking for donations and spreading the word about St. Jude. This event set a record breaking number for fundraising by raising $92,000, about $10,000 more than our chapter typically raises! This number made Sincerely Yours our most successful event of the year.

The Spring semester also included our chapter paring with Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity for a "White Out Cancer" themed USC basketball game. This event was extremely special to both chapters because a sister to one of the Pike members was actually a patient at St. Jude during that time. The basketball game was paired with online fundraising that raised thousands for St. Jude. Members of Tri Delta and Pike decked out in all white attended the game itself against Tennessee.

At the start of the Fall semester, members of Alpha Lambda traveled down to Charleston, SC for the St. Jude Walk/Run To End Childhood Cancer. This was our chapter's first time participating in the event that will definitely become an annual tradition. Prior to the 5K, members of the chapter raised money through online efforts. Each member had a goal of $150, many of whom raised much more than that.

In November, some of our members got the opportunity to take a road trip to Memphis, Tennessee to visit St. Jude and see where all of our hard work goes. It is so incredible to see what a difference we are making in so many lives and to realize that people recognize the three deltas and all that we contribute to the hospital. We even got to meet Tony Thomas, the founder of St. Jude Danny Thomas's son, during our trip to the gift shop. What a treat for him to thank our chapter for our work!

Our 2016 year ended with our annual Game Day event. Members of the school and community were able to buy a ticket that included food, a live band, raffles, and of course the screening of the Florida vs USC game. It was a great way to bring the Columbia community together to support such a worthy cause.

With 2016 being our most successful fundraising year yet, we can't wait to see what the upcoming 2017 year brings as well. We are looking forward to kicking off our fundraising year with Sincerely Yours. Our goal is to raise $100,000!!!

Follow us at sctridelta on Instagram and Delta Delta Delta at University of South Carolina on Facebook to find out about more that we are doing and why we are so passionate about our philanthropy. We are extremely appreciative to all of those who have supported our efforts to support St. Jude Children's Research Hospital!