IDEAS FOR SERVICE AND OTHER PROJECTS, INTERESTING PROGRAMS, AND FUND-RAISERS

The purpose of this Web page is to provide chapter officers and sponsors with ideas for chapter programs and service projects.  This Web page contains four sections:

1. Actual service projects that specific chapters have undertaken.
2. More ideas for projects.
3. Ideas for interesting programs.
4. Ideas for fund-raisers.

1. ACTUAL SERVICE PROJECTS THAT SPECIFIC CHAPTERS HAVE UNDERTAKEN

2. MORE IDEAS FOR PROJECTS

• Take a road trip to:  a Pi Gamma Mu international triennial convention, colonial Williamsburg (Va.), the United Nations, a nearby prison, or a nuclear power plant.
• Formulate a chapter award such as Distinguished Citizen, Professor of the Month, Advisor of the Year, or Student Leader of the Year.
• Host a Pi Gamma Mu state, regional, or international meeting.
• Get a chapter picture taken for the school yearbook.
• Award a Pi Gamma Mu scholarship medal at Awards Day or commencement.
• Write a chapter history.
• Publish a newsletter for members and alumni.
• Order Pi Gamma Mu T-shirts or sweatshirts.
• Contact nearby chapters and establish a joint project.
• Take a road trip to:  a Pi Gamma Mu international triennial convention, colonial Williamsburg (Va.), the United Nations, a nearby prison, or a nuclear power plant.
• Design a bulletin-board display highlighting your chapter.
• Construct a homecoming float; nominate king and queen candidates.
• Perform a skit in the homecoming show.
• Hold a Favorite Faculty Brunch:  each member invites a faculty or staff person influential in his or her life.

Service Projects

• Cooperate with or start a recycling project.
• Help with orientation and registration of freshmen.
• Donate to the school library.
• Establish a book or tuition scholarship.
• Fingerprint children for Operation Child Find.
• Tutor students.
• Befriend foreign students.
• Participate in the Big Brother/Big Sister organization.
• Publish a university undergraduate journal.
• Give a study party during finals.
• Usher at school functions.
• Adopt a highway:  boost your chapter name and manners.
• Collect textbooks for a college in a Third World country.
• Participate in the college phone-a-thon.
• As students are moving out, collect items for a battered-women's or homeless shelter.
• Buy a Thanksgiving food basket and Christmas gifts.
• Honor retired faculty members at a dinner or reception.
• Register voters.
• Do something big:  sponsor a statewide conference or get a grant.
• Adopt a nursing home:  sing Christmas carols, write letters for patients, decorate for Christmas, pick a resident as a pal.
• Clean a Ronald McDonald House; contribute books.
• Give support to a medical clinic for the disadvantaged.
• Plant a tree.
• Assist in VITA (Volunteer Income Tax Assistance).
• Prepare an alcohol-awareness booklet.
• Volunteer to help with Special Olympics.
• Print study tips in the school newspaper.
• Provide an escort service for women's safety on campus.
• Clean a city park.
• Work at a food-distribution warehouse or collect food for it.
• Assist and fold flyers for the honors program.
• Assist at blood drives.
• Co-sponsor local meetings such as Colonial Dames Day, European Studies Conference, Conference on the Third World, State Sociological Symposium, Conference on Women, Black History Month, World Population Day, or Spring Seminar for Community College Students.

If your school selects a Club of the Year--go for it!

3. IDEAS FOR INTERESTING PROGRAMS

• Build camaraderie:  Have fun.
         - Get acquainted.
         - Play ball.
         - Play Trivial Pursuit.
• Sharpen minds with monthly brainstormers:  "If you had your own time machine and could go anywhere, where would you go and why?"
• Offer workshops on résumé writing, graduate school, and social-science careers.
• Discuss current "hot" topics as a one-shot deal or for regular monthly meetings.
• Slate election debates for campus, state, and local candidates.
• Analyze the political situation at an election-night party.
• Feature nationally known speakers and visiting scholars as well as local faculty members.
• Hold an alumni forum with speakers from each decade on what campus life and the world were like when they were in school.
• Show films that provoke discussion.
• Co-sponsor events with other honor societies and clubs:
       - Hold a mock trial with the pre-law club.
       - Cooperate with the debate club in a demonstration debate.
• Conduct luncheon business and executive-committee meetings.
• Provide an opportunity for students to question school administrators about campus issues.
• Review books.
• Hear foreign students, exchange students, or honors candidates.
• Schedule a Trivia Bowl, Heritage Bowl, or Black History Quiz Bowl.
• Meet over breakfast, brown-bag lunches, or a covered-dish meal.
• Establish a professors' Last Lectures Series.
• "Pig-out" at Baskin-Robbins on a movie night for members.
• Eat pizza with professors.
• Apple polishing:  Each member secretly gives a professor an apple with a poem attached.  At a luncheon for these professors, the donors are identified.
• Hold an ethnic festival.
• Honor the Instructor of the Year.
• Host an alumni picnic or breakfast.
• Adopt a program theme, such as environmental awareness, for the year.
• Coordinate an annual honors banquet.
• Stage Pi Gamma Mu Week to increase awareness of the society.
• On Pi Gamma Mu night, hold a "roast" and recognize accomplishments of divisional persons.
• Become aware of the crack problem and how to curb it.
• Provide opportunities for students to practice presenting papers to a group.

Read the Pi Gamma Mu Newsletter for additional ideas.


4. IDEAS FOR FUND-RAISERS

• Used-book sale.
• Bake sale.
• Sidewalk and garage sales.
• Homecoming mum sale.
• Valentine's Day flower sale.
• Care-package sale during final exams.
• Sandwich and hamburger sales at athletic events.
• Hallowe'en-candy and caramel-apple sale.
• Christmas-stocking and Christmas-tree-ornament sale.
• Car bash.
• Donation party.
• Movies.
• Pie throw during finals week--relieves stress and makes money.
• Fair or fair booth:  sell hats and paints to decorate them.
• Raffle:  ask merchants to donate items.
• President for a Day raffle:  winner spends day with university president, then president spends day going to student's classes and taking notes.
• Watermelon booth at street fair.
• Doughnut sale.
• Hallowe'en bash.
• Flea market.
• Car wash.
• Dance.
• Concert.
• Newspaper drive.
• Theme party.
• Bike-a-thon or see-saw-a-thon.
• 1-mile, 4-mile, or 10K runs.
• Rat race with rats named after professors.
• Thanksgiving raffle for "stuffiest person," with winner getting turkey.
• Solicit alumni for funds.
• Clean up after large events.
• Roast a pig for the Renaissance Faire.
• Recycle beverage cans.
• Work on lawns and gardens.
• Slaves for a day.
• Stuff ads in newspapers.
• Assist candidates for election.
• Request assistance from student government.
• Seek grants for special projects.