I am a brother of Alpha Phi Omega, a co-ed service fraternity. You may be thinking: brother? Fraternity? But you’re a girl…
Well, I am a bro and proud of it! Here is why I love APO and think everyone in college should consider joining.
1. The Three Pillars
Alpha Phi Omega sits on three pillars that help the brothers of our fraternity stay on the right path: Leadership, Friendship, and Service. These three pillars are what the organization is all about and help bring brothers together. As a bro, you must participate in friendship and service, and can attend leadership conferences and take on leadership roles within the fraternity. These concepts help make our brothers better people and bring them together under the umbrella of Alpha Phi Omega.
2. Leadership
Leadership is the first pillar of APO and is very important. Each chapter has an executive board where brothers can have different leadership roles (President, VP of Fellowship/Membership/Service, Sergeant at Arms, Treasurer, Secretary, Pledgemaster and Assistant Pledgemaster). There are also appointed positions within the chapter that brothers can apply for to participate in the chapter (PR, Spirit Chairs, Fundraising and Judicial Chair, ICR Chair). These positions allow students to develop themselves as leaders and to help make their chapter of APO what they want it to be. There are also LEADS courses that bros can participate in to develop their leadership skills even further.
3. Friendship
Friendship is a large part of Alpha Phi Omega, especially for larger chapters (such as the one at Susquehanna). We have over 100 brothers with 58 pledges (to-be bros), and it is hard to know everyone’s name. That is why we have fellowships. Fellowships are events that five or more brothers attend to hang out and get out know each other and have fun. These events can be ones that the university puts on, ones that other organizations hold, or ones that brothers do themselves. These fellowships allow brothers to hang out outside of chapter meetings and service projects.
4. Service
Since we are a service-based organization, service is a large part of what APO does. For our chapter, we have a website that has all of the previous service projects on it as well as the upcoming projects for the next two weeks. We have projects going out every single day, and the projects range from cleaning up around the community to playing bingo in a nursing home to walking dogs to dancing at YMCA with elementary school students. These projects allow bros to come together and have fun while serving the local community and helping the people around us. Service is a large part of APO and really brings our brothers together to help the local community.
5. Other Fun Events
Now, we don’t just do service all of the time. Bros also participate in fun events. In our chapter, every year this is always a formal, a date party (which is like formal, but with snack food and it is held at our on-campus night club), and we always participate in Relay for Life. There are also the pledging process events, like Induction, Welcome to the Jungle, and Initiation (I can’t tell you about any of those, sorry!). These events are more time for brothers to hang out together and have fun, which really helps to bring the chapter together. Through these events, we become a unified organization, rather than individuals who all wear the same letters.
6. Brothers
I think the most important part of Alpha Phi Omega is the brothers themselves. These are the people that care about serving their community just as much as you do. These are the people you go to service projects with, go to formal with, attend fellowship with, and become a family with. Without your bros, there would not be an Alpha Phi Omega at all. Honestly, my brothers keep me sane; they have seen me at my best and at my worst, they can always make me feel better with a hug or a chat, or they can easily make me smile and laugh. I love my family, by Big, my sibling, and my two Littles, but all of the brothers make me so happy and proud to be a part of such a great organization like APO.
