Chapter Philanthropy
Lambda Gamma is super passionate about our national philanthropy, Children's Miracle Network Hospitals (CMNH), especially having so many sisters studying nursing and other medicine-related fields at VCU. We are also extremely fortunate to have a Children's Miracle Network Hospital right down the road from us with the Children's Hospital of Richmond at VCU! This allows us to volunteer directly with our philanthropy as well as be able to actually see where our donations are going. We often go on hospital tours throughout the semester, participate in parties that the hospital throws for the kids, and hand-deliver cards we make for the kids. Along with these visits, we also have a number of philanthropic events on campus to raise money and educate other people about CMNH:
Bake Sale: During the fall semester, we encourage our newest members to hold a bake sale on campus. Each sister brings baked goods to sell in exchange for donations. All the proceeds go towards the Children's Miracle Network Hospitals (CMNH), our national philanthropy, and it's a great way to get our newest sisters excited about philanthropy!
Book Drive: This past fall, our new sisters participated in collecting children's books to donate to CMNH. We thought this was a fun opportunity to not just raise money, but to be able to give them actual supplies!
Miracle Man: During November of 2019, we held our first ever Miracle Man, a week of events and competition between VCU's fraternities that raised money for CMNH. Each fraternity picked one of their brothers to represent their chapter as their "Miracle Man" for the week. They were first encouraged to share a donation link and donate/have other people donate in their name as well as purchase shirts designed for the event, both of which were open throughout the week. As far as daily challenges, Monday held two competitions, first of which was "Find a Phi Mu," where the fraternity men would find one of our sisters wearing hard letters on campus and upload pictures with them to Instagram. Whoever had the most pictures posted that day won the challenge. Also, each fraternity submitted a picture of their Miracle Man dressed as a superhero of their choosing, which was then posted to our Instagram account. The fraternity that received the most likes on their hero's picture won. Tuesday, we held "Penny Wars," where the men would come and donate their change for CMNH in their designated jug as well as "check in" for attendance. Points were awarded for the amount of money in their jug as well as attendance. We then had a fundraiser at Little Mexico on Wednesday night with 15% of the earnings going toward CMNH, and whichever fraternity bought the most food won that challenge. Thursday allotted time for them to record their "hype videos," which were then played at the Miracle Man Pageant on Friday. The pageant consisted first of showing these videos, which featured each Miracle Man dressed as their superhero doing something heroic. Next, the men came out and sat on a panel, where they were asked a series of questions relating to philanthropy. Lastly, each Miracle Man performed in a talent show. At the end of the night, one man was crowned as being our official Miracle Man and one of the fraternity's won, receiving a portion of the money raised for a philanthropic organization of their choice. We were fortunate enough to pass our goal of $5,000, and we look forward to making this an annual event!
Kissing Booth: Around Valentine's Day, we hold our annual “kissing booth," where we hand out Hershey Kisses in exchange for donations to CMNH. It's a fun way for us to give out candy to people on campus while also supporting our philanthropy.
Ramthon: Ramthon is an annual VCU event that Phi Mu participates in each year. Volunteers participate in an 8 hour dance marathon in support of the kids who might not always get to dance. We get our own miracle child who we support during the event, and some of the kids even come and dance with us!
Other philanthropy and community service events arise throughout the year and we are always looking for more opportunities to lend our helping hand, such as helping out other organizations raise money for philanthropies of their own!
