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Upcoming Events
November 1st-7th,
National Service Week
Service to the Earth
November 6th-8th,
Tri-Sectionals
Alpha Beta Xi, SUNY Geneseo
December 5th,
Section Service Project
(Bell-Ringing/Caroling)
Marketplace Mall, Rochester
December 27th-30th,
Region I/II Conference
Pi Upsilon, Drew University
(Hyatt - Morristown, NJ) |
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Newsletter Notice!
For those of you who attended Sectionals at Geneseo this year, you may heard a bit about our  newsletter. We're, as always, open to suggestions and heard a lot of great ideas from everyone in attendance at the business meetings. Before you get onto the content of this particular issue, I'd like to throw out some requests for upcoming articles and website content. Please e-mail me if you can or would like to contribute to the following:
- Photos from Bid. Induction or Initiation nights!
- Photos from Sectionals
- If you would like to be a responder for our new Dear Section column, please e-mail me
- Likewise, if you have a question you'd like answered, send it in! Confidentiality guaranteed.
- Next issue's Top Ten list will be "10 Things I Learned at Sectionals in Geneseo," submit your response!
We're always looking for photos and articles of any kind, so don't let the list above limit you in your quest to make this newsletter the best it can be! I'll be taking submissions for the next issue up until November 25th.
I'm looking forward to seeing how creative this section can be!
In L, F, and S,
Linda J. Hauser
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Chi Pi in the Local News
A congratulations is in order for the brothers of Chi Pi at SUNY Fredonia. While attending the semesterly cleanup of Dunkirk Park, the brothers were caught in action by the Observer. Staff writer April Diadato was able to briefly interview the eight attending brothers of Chi Pi, as well as other volunteers at the park that day. Chi Pi effortlessly promotes an upcoming project planned for November 1st, a great way to help spread the spirit of Alpha Phi Omega. Chelsea Mink is quoted as saying, "We're actually doing something similar to this in November the day after Halloween; going down to the creek and cleaning up the bottles." Compliments to Chi Pi for their achievement!
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Regionals Conference of EPIC Proportions!
Now that Sectionals is over, do you still feel the need for brotherly love? Thankfully, Regionals is right around the corner! The 2009 Region I/II conference is being hosted by Pi Upsilon, our chapter at Drew University in New Jersey. Early registration ends November 14th, but if you need more time, the deadline for registration is December 1st. The cost of attendance for the conference itself is $35 ($40 for late registration).
The conference check-in date is December 27th, 2009 with festivities running until the 31st. The theme for Regionals is MOVIES! Be a star and walk the red carpet with your brothers in Morristown, NJ this holiday season.
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Brothers "Play" at Section Fellowship
On October 24th, 2009, brothers from all around Section 89 gathered for a play date in Rochester, New York. Well over a dozen brothers were in attendance at the Strong Museum of Play in the heart of downtown. Brothers were in attendance representing a few chapters from the section. Also in attendance were a few alumni and some of our beloved section staff. The museum was loaded with plenty of wee ones as locals gathered for a Halloween bash! APO managed to monopolize an entire table at a crafting station for  a few minutes, taking a short break from the exhibits to create Halloween headbands featuring spooky spiders, biting bats, and ghostly ghouls. Notable exhibits included the Butterfly Conservatory, an extensive collection of Barbie merchandise, the Berenstain Bears, and many others! The picture for this article was taken after a moment of inspiration came to several members of staff in the over-sized Lego area.
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APO Has Heart! Round 2: The Re-Cap
 On a crisp October day, Brothers and Pledges from Epsilon Sigma (UB) and Iota Omega (SUNY Brockport) braved the thermometer and a early morning start (7:30am!) to help out at the 15th Annual "Heart Walk; a 5k walk of solidarity put on by the American Heart Association that raised over $200,000 in much needed funds for research and advocacy of Heart-Healthy initiatives.
Hosted in HSBC Arena, Home of the Sabres (Hockey) and Bandits (Lacrosse), volunteers assisted with registering participants, marking out the city course (basically keeping traffic away from the walkers!), serving a healthy lunch to nearly a thousand participants, and then helping to pack everything up when the event was done.
Highlights of the day included "bumping elbows" with local celebs Maryalice Demler (anchor of Buffalo's WGRZ news - Channel 2) and Sabretooth (the Sabre's Mascot) as well as having a rare opportunity to go "behind the scenes" at HSBC Arena - walking through corridors and rooms that are usually cordoned off to professional athletes and officials. Needless to say, there were many "Kodak Moments" to be had!
Robyn Walker, Volunteer Coordinator for the Heartwalk (as well as a Section 89 Staffer and Advisor to Epsilon Sigma!) was very pleased with the volunteers who came out this year, and in particular, those from APO, who have helped out at the Buffalo Heart Walk for the past three. Such an event would not be possible were it not for the dedication of many Western New Yorkers.
For those interested in helping out the American Heart Association in the future, Robyn is already spreading the word about the next big event planned: The Heart Ball! This event, held on February 6th, at one of the more "posh" hotels in Buffalo (Hyatt Regency) is a real classy event - even the gentlemen volunteers get to wear tuxedos!
If you would like more information about either of these two events, you can e-mail Robyn. Pictures from the Heart Walk to follow!
Rory Szwed
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Deadlines for Paperwork!
A friendly reminder from your Section Reps and Section Chair: 
November 15th is a big day for paperwork! If you haven't already completed your Charter Reaffirmtion, AAMDs, NSW reporting, or H. Roe Bartle Application. please do so by this date. Help with paperwork was available for all chapters at Sectionals, so everyone should be on time! However, if you still require assistance, do not hesitate to get in contact with your chapter's Section Representative or our Section 89 Chair, Becca Ward. To further clarify the submission for NSW (National Service Week), the official dates of the project are 11/1 - 11/7, however, if your chapter participated in the service portion of Sectionals, this does count! Additionally, if the chapter has done ANY project prior to 11/15 that relates to this year's theme (Service to the Earth), it can and should report this. If your chapter does not meet the requirements above, the chapter should still be reporting their non-participation.
Chapters can follow this link to submit online.
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Turkish Refugee Tutoring
Turkish Refugee Tutoring is one of the many service projects my group Mu Lambda other service groups on the University of Rochester campus take part in on a weekly basis. We come to into a house, see this kindly elderly woman with a soft smile across her face at the door, and then go about our business helping the Turkish refugees with their homework. We all refer to her as Pat, and we simply think of her as the "contact lady for TRT" or the "lady who runs TRT." It was a surprise when I arrived with my group on another service project, Mt. Hope Cemetery Cleaning, to find her greeting us and giving us directions about what to do. After we had been working for some time clearing the outgrowth, she and a team of cemetery historians took us to the grave site where Susan B. Anthony's family members lie to rest so that they can tell us about them. Right beside Susan B. Anthony's grave is her sister Mary Anthony's. We were intrigued to find Pat standing over Mary's gravestone acting the part of Mary herself, telling the story of how, despite the fact Mary was the first a principal, she was paid a teacher's salary($1.50 a week) because the school thought it would set a bad precedent to pay a woman a man's salary. Pat told us the fascinating story of how Mary fought for this salary.
When we are at her house, Pat spends little time talking about herself. Instead, she talks about the refugee children and her hopes and aspirations for them when they grow older. From her interests about the welfare of the children, nevertheless, one can glean her character bit by bit, and a side of her you did not initially expect emerges. What is it that one can see? To figure this out, I need not give you an exhaustive list of her character traits. What I will do instead is tell you about her interactions with the Turkish community in Rochester, and what she has to tell us about the children and their families. It is through this that you will get to know her and the kind of person she is.
Patricia Corcoran is a retired school teacher and she served in the Peace Corps in Turkey from 1966-1967. This is where she learned Turkish, which I had the pleasure of hearing her converse in with one of the children's parents. Many years later at the Catholic Family Center, she ran into a Turkish family. She was excited to see them and immediately felt for them a love and affection. Through the family she got to know Turkish community in Rochester's disappointment with the public school system. The parents were caught in a dilemma: the children had compulsory education, yet they did not want to give their children a bad education and expose them to negative influences, such as teens getting pregnant. Pat worked hard to get them to attend private schools with the structure and morals the parents approved of. This was the beginning of her 4-5 year relationship with the Turkish community in Rochester.
Unfortunately, the private schools do not have resources such as ESL teachers. Thus, the Turkish Refugee Tutoring program came into existence. Through this program Pat and college-age tutors are able to provide ESL and homework support for the children in her home. Here they have resources such as computers (one computer was a gift from an anonymous donor). Pat also got a grant from a teacher's organization for school supplies. What is most important, though, is that these children are smart and motivated.
When we tutors come in and see the children, they seem clean, happy, and very friendly. They are like any other children or adolescents. Despite this, they actually suffered through a lot. Going to see them week by week, we can only scratch the surface. The truth about their suffering and their families' suffering had to be pointed out to us and their teachers at school. They behave so well, act so normal, and do not complain.
In 1944 Stalin forced Ahiska Turks from their native lands. He drafted all the young men into the army without properly training them, and thus they were annihilated in battle. The old men, women, and children were sent away on cattle cars without being told where they were going. Though they were left with nothing, they were able to restart their lives again and got to prosper; some became nurses and teachers. Getting prosperous, though, was the mistake they always made. Due to jealousy, the Uzbeks forced their Ahiskas out of the country. The Ahiskas' houses were burned down, and the women were raped. They fled to Russia, where they found land to farm (they were not allowed to practice their former professions). Pat pointed out that some of the girls being tutored in the house used to have to work in fields from sunrise to sunset less than a year ago. All the Turkish children were segregated from their Russian schoolmates, and the schools would not feed them or let them use computers. Worse of all their teachers hated them simply because of their ethnicity.
It was a shock for the children, when they came over to the United States, to see the teachers and students being kind to them. Upon seeing a textbook for the first time, one of the girls started crying because it was a huge privilege. There is one girl who went with her mom to see the principle of a private school, because they wanted entrance into it. The school was uneasy about letting her in because her English was not good. The principle asked the mom how they could help her daughter. Her mom simply replied, "The only thing I want is for someone to be nice to my child." Everyone in the room cried after that. When we tutors see the girl today, she has a tremendous sense of humor and her English is amazing. To top that off her level of math is beyond that of mine. Now you know why these children are gracious. They know how important it is to survive in school. Still, whenever Pat tells us these happy stories, she is always careful to remind us of the educational injustices in America.
The arduous journey and fight is not over. The parents want their girls to be married off when they are 16 or 18, and as a result they are reluctant to let them attend college. The opportunity they are offered is being suffocated by the prospect of early marriage. Pat urges the parents to send their children to college. She tries to expose the children to the University of Rochester, once bringing them to see the movie Up in Hoyt auditorium. Not one of them is in college, and the girl mentioned above was the only one who finished high school so far. It is so crucial that these children see college students, because they learn more than simply academics from us. Pat tells us they love to mingle with us. They see that they can interact with those of the opposite gender, realizing such an interaction can mean friendship, not necessarily love. When they talk to us, they hear about our aspirations and goals after college. They hear about how our parents are fine with us living far from home so we can attend college. They are curious to see that none of us are married! All this is a surprise to know, especially since I felt like I was just chatting with them. I did not realize the implications. The parents of these girls have done so much for them, and had preserved their culture and religion despite the adversity they encountered, but they need to know that college opens the door of opportunity much, much wider for them.
As I sat with other members of my service group listening to Pat tell us about this, I can see the frustration mounting on her face; but strangely blended in with the frustration, there was a smile and a glimmer of hope. "So long as I see one of the girls go to college," she said.
Now you can see why, while she played the part of Mary Anthony on that Saturday morning, I thought the part was perfect for her.
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Staff Spotlight
Katie VanDuzer
Mu Lambda '06
Nicknames: Ducky, Duze Missile
Hometown: Rochester, NY
Degree(s): BA in Political Science
Dream Job: Lawyer (if I don't go bankrupt first!)
Previous Positions Held in APO: President, pledgemaster x2, alumni secretary, historian x2, fellowship chair x2, UMOC Chair, Road Rally chair x2 (i think thats all of them...)
Random Fact #1: 'Moose' is my pure bred golden retriever whose real name is Princess Fiona after the character in the movies Shrek
Random Fact #2: I love ducks!
What is your best memory of APO? Going to nationals in Boston and seeing brothers from all over the country!
What is one goal (personal or otherwise) you would like to accomplish this year? Get a job!!!
If you had $1,000,000 what would you do with it? Pay off my bills and start a business!
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Membership Academy Comes to Buffalo
 What exactly is the Membership Academy, you ask? Well, I have an answer for you. The National APO website describes the Membership Academy as "a weekend long skills training course designed to educate APO brothers in the basics of chapter membership operations. Participants will receive hands-on training from volunteer staff, network with brothers and alumni from around the country, and leave the course with tangible skills, ideas, information, and membership action plans that they can bring back and use immediately in their home chapters."
This course is only offered in a few select cities every year and we're excited to see that next year boasts a session right here in our own Section 89! While all brothers are invited to attend, priority registration is given to actives and petitioning/interest group members. If you are interested in attending, save the date (7/23/2010)! You can register online here. Back to Top |
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Service in the Snow?
With the unfortunate cancellation of our Section Service project with the BSA, don't think we're done for the semester yet! Mark your calendars for caroling and bell-ringing at the  Marketplace Mall in Henrietta (Rochester), NY on December 5th. Warm up by singing songs, staying active and bell-ringing for charity at arguably the most popular shopping center in Rochester. More details to follow. Be sure to check out our website for a ride board forthis project in the near future! Back to Top | |
Questions, Comments, Suggestions? Send us a message, we love feedback!
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