On November 4, 2018, I participated in my fraternities big philanthropy of the semester called ‘Very Sharey’. For this event we collect canned foods or non-perishable items from neighborhoods in Upper Arlington in order to donate them to the Mid-Ohio Foodbank. Normally, we put up flyers around the selected neighborhoods beforehand so residents can set the items out on their porch the day of collection, but due to a miscommunication this year, we had to go door-to-door asking residents for any extra items they would be able to donate. During the time going from door-to-door, I had a couple notable interactions with some residents. One family I talked with joked around about how fraternities are only considered “philanthropic” so they can stay on campus while not really doing much to give back. So, he was very happy to see that a fraternity was actually out doing something to give back to the community and essentially have their running joke not be applied to us. A second cool interaction I encountered was with a judge who graduated from Ohio State in 1966 and was a part of Greek life. He was pleased to see that we were out shining a good light on the importance of fraternities. He also told me a few stories about his time while at Ohio State and some of the philanthropic events that his fraternity took part in. A final interaction was with a father of three young boys. He was hesitant to open the door at first, but when I told him what I was out doing, he was excited to talk at me and gave me the most non-perishable items of anyone that Sunday. Similar to the last resident, except more ecstatic, this father was praising what we were doing as a fraternity. He went to Cincinnati and was in a fraternity there, and he was so glad that we were out in person proving to others that fraternities do more than what they are stereotyped to do. While we had not collected as many goods as previous years, it seemed like the residents preferred that face-to-face interaction more than just leaving flyers up on their doors.

On November 12, 2018, I also took part in The Fisher College of Businesses big day of community service called ‘Fisher Impact Day’. It is an event that cover multiple different aspects of the community and over 1000 Fisher students were a part of it. For the first half of the event, I was coincidentally enough, assigned to a food packaging project were we mixed together rice and other nutrients before sealing the meals in order to donate them to the Mid-Ohio Foodbank. We were stationed in a big room in the Blackwell and everyone had a specific job they had to do in an assembly line fashion so we could be at a maximum production level. I spent my time sealing the bags with a heat presser before handing them to the boxers who packed all the finished meals away. In just an hour and a half, as a group, we were able to package over 50,000 meals for the foodbank before we transitioned to another event. For this second part of the day, I spent my time making paracord bracelets for the military. This was a surprisingly difficult thing to do that required some concentration and multiple steps to make knots and tighten them correctly. This is an event that Fisher does every year now, and I plan to make it a habit of something I attend every year while attending Ohio State. It always feels good to give back to those who could use a little more in their time of need.