Volunteer Spotlight: Delta Gamma

Kids Vision for Life St. Louis relies heavily on volunteers to assist with screening days in many of our 155 elementary and middle schools in the area. We spoke with Charlotte of the Alpha Epsilon chapter of Delta Gamma to discuss their involvement with our program.

Delta Gamma as a national organization focuses on service in the community that has to do with visual impairments. As members, we do about 10 service hours a year in this area and as the VP Foundation I am in charge of coordinating with the organizations we work with to provide those opportunities for our members. While Kids Vision serves a wider community than just the visually impaired, we believe that bringing awareness to the issues of visual impairments benefits everyone. As well, our members love working with the kids, which makes fulfilling the service hour requirements so much more fun. The flexible hours and the regularity of the Kids Vision events also make it logistically convenient for us to volunteer.

I would estimate that about one third to a half of our 200 members will attend Kids Vision at least once during the year. Some people volunteer on a more regular basis, but most will go to one or two events.

The Alpha Epsilon Chapter of Delta Gamma at Washington University was established in 1914, though was inactive for a period in the 1980s and 90s, when it was recolonized as the chapter we have today. We have anywhere from 130 to 200 active members each year (more in the spring due to recruitment and less in the spring due to seniors graduating in May) who are involved in all aspects of campus life and student leadership as well as Delta Gamma. Most of our members are also involved in community service within St. Louis outside of the work they do with Service for Sight for Delta Gamma. While our academic paths and personal interests may be diverse, our common values and embodiment of the “Do Good” underlie all of our pursuits.