As residents of Mission Hill, Northeastern University students Griffin Majer and Cameron Grandy are very familiar with the good work of the area’s community centers.
Now that work can go even further, as Majer and Grandy have banded their fellow students in the fraternity and sorority system together to raise $47,412 to be donated to the Tobin and Johnson community centers.
“It was a proud moment, not only as a member of my fraternity, but also as a member of Northeastern because we really did provide so much money and support for such a great cause,” says Majer, a member of Kappa Sigma fraternity. “It’s for the youth of the community that me and Cam and basically all of our sisters and brothers are part of.”
Majer and Grandy are both part of the Fraternity and Sorority Life community at Northeastern. They also served as officers on, respectively, the Interfraternity Council and the Panhellenic Council — organizations that govern fraternity and sorority life on campus.
One major aspect of fraternity and sorority life at Northeastern is philanthropy, and each fraternity and sorority has a charity its members support.
Another major aspect of fraternity and sorority life at Northeastern is a competitive, themed dance event held each semester. In the fall, the event is called “Take it to the Floor.” In the spring it is called “Greek Sing.”
For years, the event awarded any money raised through ticket sales to the competition’s winner, who would then donate it to charity.
But the students wanted to raise more money for a larger donation, Grandy says.
“There’s not that many tickets available in Blackman Auditorium,” says Grandy, a fourth-year student and member of Alpha Epsilon Phi sorority. “And we all just didn’t think it was fair that everybody worked so hard and only some people got money towards philanthropy.”
So beginning last spring, Grandy and Majer organized a joint fundraising effort among all the fraternities and sororities participating in the dance event. They raised over $24,000 for the Tobin Community Center in Mission Hill, enabling it to offer scholarships for its youth summer camp.
That will continue this year.
“For us to be able to utilize some of that funding to provide camp scholarships during the busy summer months is huge for us,” says John Jackson, director of the Tobin Community Center.
This year the students basically doubled the total amount and added Johnson Community Center, which reopened in October, as a beneficiary.
“We’re just super excited,” Jackson says, speaking for the centers. “For Northeastern and its fraternities and sororities to be able to step up like that and make that commitment to the neighborhood that needs it, we’re extremely grateful and appreciative.”