PKT25: Boo at the Zoo
We've worked our way through most of the items on the schedule of the pledge program. Next up is the pledge philanthropy project, which is a fine opportunity to talk about community service in general at the fraternity.
Every national fraternity has "service to the community" as a component of their mission statement. Phi Kappa Theta actually referenced it directly in our motto, "Give Expecting Nothing Thereof." A cynical man might think that the fraternities were trying to get ahead of potential PR problems by doing lots of community service, but most fraternities did have some amount of idealism in their founding. Phi Kappa Theta, for instance, was originally founded as a Catholic fraternity back when Catholics weren't allowed in the original generation of WASP fraternities, and so of course they wanted to stress service to the community.
Pragmatically, even beyond lofty ideals, the fraternities at CWRU were required to do a certain number of hours of public service per member in a school year. This number was set at the beginning of the fall semester by taking the number of people in the Greek system and dividing into a target number of days of service. I seem to recall it was usually 100 days of total service for the entire Greek Service, but the point is that every fraternity had to do X hours of service per member in the school year. This had to be reported to Greek Life as one of many data points that were collected and judged. I have no idea what happened if a chapter had less than that number, because we always blew it out of the water. In my five years there we were perpetually at or near the top of the "hours per member of service completed" metric.
How did we complete so much service? We started by participating in the events other fraternities put on. For instance, one chapter had a 24-hour flag football tournament for charity. By having their membership attend most of those of 24 hours, they could easily complete their service quota, especially after they counted all the planning effort. If you needed 7 people to play flag football and had a full quota of substitutes, that was 14 hours of service right there, and all it cost was the entry fee that went to the donations.
Clearly, the secret to completing your service requirement was to have your own charity event that would eat up hours like crazy, preferably in a way that was as fun as possible. Our event was Boo at the Zoo at the Cleveland Zoo. We started doing it during my pledge semester in Fall of 1997 and it grew larger in scope every year.
Our role at Boo at the Zoo was to entertain visitors. The first year this was very ad-hoc, and included jumping out at trams full of kids and the like. At some point after that we became pirates. The zoo arranged to have a decrepit boat docked (more like grounded) in the duck pond, and we put on an assortment of costumes and ran around with stage swords to entertain little kids. This got gradually more and more complex, with "cannons" firing off smoke and explosions in the water via air compressors. We'd send a crew out for each night of Boo at the Zoo, which usually went for 2-3 weeks. Take ten people a night and a six hour total shift, plus all the planning and prep, and we easily completed our hour requirements for the entire school year by the end of October.
Our connection with the zoo lasted throughout my time in college. My recollection is that whomever we worked with at the zoo left after I graduated, and the chapter was presumably forced to find new ways of rack up service hours.
I realize that this description makes it seem very mercenary, which I suppose is appropriate for pirates. For as much fun as running around with swords was, providing entertainment so a non-profit could help justify what it charged for admittance to an event always seemed borderline to me in terms of "community service." I suppose it was just a variation of doing fund raising for the zoo, which is all most good community service ends up being anyway. Still, between that aspect, my issues with an arbitrary "service" requirement, and my general cynicism, I never was a big believer in philanthropy at the fraternity.
I started this off by talking about the pledge philanthropy project. In theory, this was the pledge doing some small community service effort together. Working at the food bank was always a popular option. Do I remember what my pledge class did? I do not. I assume we did something since Boo at the Zoo didn't rack up that many hours in its first iteration that semester. For me, community service at college was about 90% Boo at the Zoo and 10% participating in events other organizations set up.
On the plus side, Boo at the Zoo did give me one of my favorite stories. We usually had brothers walking along the fence line to interact more directly with the folks going by. Once there was a little boy dressed up as one of the Powerpuff Girls. When I complimented this kid on their costume, the boy, who was probably four or five at most, said "Do you have a little boy at home that you know about the Powerpuff Girls?" Since I was probably only 21 during that Boo at the Zoo and I was perpetually told I looked like I was in my late 20 or even my thirties by people who didn't know me (teachers, other students, most critically GIRLS), this was a particularly amusing moment for the other brothers who heard it.
The Ohio Alpha Beta Chapter of Phi Kappa Theta
The House Tour Outside,
Main Floor Bedrooms,
Main Floor Public Rooms,
Basement Public Areas,
Basement Private Areas,
2nd Floor Big Bedrooms,
2nd Floor Small Bedrooms,
3rd Floor First Hallway,
3rd Floor Second Hallway,
Attic & Errata,
House Tour Commentary: Joe & Laura & Astrid,
House Tour Commentary: Jackal,
House Tour Commentary: Susan,
House Tour Commentary: Assorted
The Pledge Program Schedule, Curriculum & Black Books, Big Brothers & Pledge Pins, Paddling
Semesters Fall 1996
Events Detour, Blackout, Boo at the Zoo
Other Full Series, My Rush Experience, Chapter History, Family Trees
Additional Commentary Black Books
Every national fraternity has "service to the community" as a component of their mission statement. Phi Kappa Theta actually referenced it directly in our motto, "Give Expecting Nothing Thereof." A cynical man might think that the fraternities were trying to get ahead of potential PR problems by doing lots of community service, but most fraternities did have some amount of idealism in their founding. Phi Kappa Theta, for instance, was originally founded as a Catholic fraternity back when Catholics weren't allowed in the original generation of WASP fraternities, and so of course they wanted to stress service to the community.
Pragmatically, even beyond lofty ideals, the fraternities at CWRU were required to do a certain number of hours of public service per member in a school year. This number was set at the beginning of the fall semester by taking the number of people in the Greek system and dividing into a target number of days of service. I seem to recall it was usually 100 days of total service for the entire Greek Service, but the point is that every fraternity had to do X hours of service per member in the school year. This had to be reported to Greek Life as one of many data points that were collected and judged. I have no idea what happened if a chapter had less than that number, because we always blew it out of the water. In my five years there we were perpetually at or near the top of the "hours per member of service completed" metric.
How did we complete so much service? We started by participating in the events other fraternities put on. For instance, one chapter had a 24-hour flag football tournament for charity. By having their membership attend most of those of 24 hours, they could easily complete their service quota, especially after they counted all the planning effort. If you needed 7 people to play flag football and had a full quota of substitutes, that was 14 hours of service right there, and all it cost was the entry fee that went to the donations.
Clearly, the secret to completing your service requirement was to have your own charity event that would eat up hours like crazy, preferably in a way that was as fun as possible. Our event was Boo at the Zoo at the Cleveland Zoo. We started doing it during my pledge semester in Fall of 1997 and it grew larger in scope every year.
Our role at Boo at the Zoo was to entertain visitors. The first year this was very ad-hoc, and included jumping out at trams full of kids and the like. At some point after that we became pirates. The zoo arranged to have a decrepit boat docked (more like grounded) in the duck pond, and we put on an assortment of costumes and ran around with stage swords to entertain little kids. This got gradually more and more complex, with "cannons" firing off smoke and explosions in the water via air compressors. We'd send a crew out for each night of Boo at the Zoo, which usually went for 2-3 weeks. Take ten people a night and a six hour total shift, plus all the planning and prep, and we easily completed our hour requirements for the entire school year by the end of October.
Our connection with the zoo lasted throughout my time in college. My recollection is that whomever we worked with at the zoo left after I graduated, and the chapter was presumably forced to find new ways of rack up service hours.
I realize that this description makes it seem very mercenary, which I suppose is appropriate for pirates. For as much fun as running around with swords was, providing entertainment so a non-profit could help justify what it charged for admittance to an event always seemed borderline to me in terms of "community service." I suppose it was just a variation of doing fund raising for the zoo, which is all most good community service ends up being anyway. Still, between that aspect, my issues with an arbitrary "service" requirement, and my general cynicism, I never was a big believer in philanthropy at the fraternity.
I started this off by talking about the pledge philanthropy project. In theory, this was the pledge doing some small community service effort together. Working at the food bank was always a popular option. Do I remember what my pledge class did? I do not. I assume we did something since Boo at the Zoo didn't rack up that many hours in its first iteration that semester. For me, community service at college was about 90% Boo at the Zoo and 10% participating in events other organizations set up.
On the plus side, Boo at the Zoo did give me one of my favorite stories. We usually had brothers walking along the fence line to interact more directly with the folks going by. Once there was a little boy dressed up as one of the Powerpuff Girls. When I complimented this kid on their costume, the boy, who was probably four or five at most, said "Do you have a little boy at home that you know about the Powerpuff Girls?" Since I was probably only 21 during that Boo at the Zoo and I was perpetually told I looked like I was in my late 20 or even my thirties by people who didn't know me (teachers, other students, most critically GIRLS), this was a particularly amusing moment for the other brothers who heard it.
The Ohio Alpha Beta Chapter of Phi Kappa Theta
The House Tour Outside,
Main Floor Bedrooms,
Main Floor Public Rooms,
Basement Public Areas,
Basement Private Areas,
2nd Floor Big Bedrooms,
2nd Floor Small Bedrooms,
3rd Floor First Hallway,
3rd Floor Second Hallway,
Attic & Errata,
House Tour Commentary: Joe & Laura & Astrid,
House Tour Commentary: Jackal,
House Tour Commentary: Susan,
House Tour Commentary: Assorted
The Pledge Program Schedule, Curriculum & Black Books, Big Brothers & Pledge Pins, Paddling
Semesters Fall 1996
Events Detour, Blackout, Boo at the Zoo
Other Full Series, My Rush Experience, Chapter History, Family Trees
Additional Commentary Black Books