AXO Convention Recap 2 (Foundation Luncheon)

The Alpha Chi Omega Convention Foundation Luncheon (previewed here) was a wonderful event. The highlight was the guest speaker, author Leslie Morgan Steiner, who shared her personal story of domestic violence. Jennifer brought her copy of Crazy Love and Susan bought one; the author signed them both. This would definitely be the downside of me owning the kindle version!

I highly recommend it. Steiner is so brave to share her story; she is really changing lives through her courage. It was amazing to hear her speak in person, and to see the impact her story had on everyone in attendance.

There were lots of other highlights to the event:

• Our CWRU AXO alumnae chapter won the inaugural Domestic Violence Outreach Award! In 2009, for six months we held a #CharityTuesday social media project where each week we shared facts and news about domestic violence awareness via Twitter, facebook and our blog. Read more about it here.

• Our Alpha Chi Omega chapter at FSU was honored for reaching $50,000 in cumulative giving to Alpha Chi Omega Foundation:

• and FSU AXO alumna Tracy was featured as a Scholarship recipient via this great table tent:

(See more about both on the FSU AXO blog post on the luncheon here.)

And, as always, all the little details of the event added extra polish. For example, the great cut-out program:

and the beautiful table, complete with a star-shaped candle floating in water in a star-shaped bowl!

Volunteer of the Month

Since I am the volunteer of the month at DeSoto Trail Elementary School for the month of May I thought I'd share a little bit about the things I do at school and share the fun prizes that go along with the bragging rights.

There are 4 main things I do at school: Mile Club, Monday Mom, Popcorn and chaperoning field trips.

Mile Club is from 8-8:30am each morning before school. Before school, kids who want to can walk laps around the soccer field. Each lap is 1/6 of a mile. Each child has a big index card that's marked each time he/she completes a lap. When they complete 30 laps (5 miles), they get a little prize; then another at 15 miles. At 26 miles they earn a Marathon t-shirt, then another prize at 35 miles and at 50 miles. Every day, weather permitting, Thomas and I pick up two kids from the ESE classroom and take them with us to Mile Club. We walk for half an hour, take the kids back to class, and then I sort all the kids' cards back into the box for the PE coaches. I feel like they are giving up their time each morning to make this great activity available at the school, and it's the least I can do to help out.

Almost every class at school has a Monday Mom (or parent) who sorts all the work the kids did in the last week and then puts it in each child's Monday folder along with any handouts that need to go home that week.

Every fourth Wednesday I help the Red and Gold Club with their popcorn sales. Mostly this involves supervising the kids (while they make, bag and sell the popcorn) and then cleaning up the popcorn machines and the whole area. It's a pretty messy enterprise!

Chaperoning field trips is always fun, even if it is a little exhausting. This year the 4th grade has had 3 trips - in February we went to Goodwood Museum & Gardens and the Riley House Museum as part of the Blended Lives program; in April to St. Augustine; and this Thursday we're going to the Florida Historic Capitol and the Museum of Florida History. I also help out at school functions, like manning a booth at the Book Character Festival, helping out at the Book Fair, etc.

Prizes: In honor of my service, the PTO donated this book to the school's Media Center. It's great because I love baseball. Louis Sockalexis was the first Native American to play major league baseball - and he played for the Cleveland Spiders. Enjoyed it a lot.

I also got this pretty plant and a nice certificate! 

Friday morning, as long as T cooperates, he and I will be on WDTS, the school TV station, during morning announcements when Ms. Kelly, the Media Specialist announces the PTO's book donation to library. She wants the kids to all understand why some books have special stickers inside their covers, which is great.