The power of a bouquet of flowers has a whole new meaning for the ladies of Zeta Tau Alpha at Michigan State University. For the last month, the ladies of the sorority, along with dedication from their head of philanthropy Mia Chiesa, have been collecting money for their philanthropy project.
The idea behind the project is for every bouquet bought for someone in the East Lansing area, Zeta Tau Alpha donates and delivers a bouquet of flowers to patients at Sparrow Hospital, a local East Lansing hospital. On February 11th, ZTA expected approximately 1,005 flowers to be delivered to their house on the corner of M.A.C. and Burcham Drive.
“We actually lose money on this event,” said Mia Chiesa. “But it’s one of my favorite events, especially knowing that we’re going to make people smile.”
Chiesa was nominated to be Zeta Tau Alpha’s philanthropy chairman in November of 2016. Chiesa says that the job is difficult, but worth every moment knowing that she is making a difference.
ZTA’s national philanthropy is Breast Cancer Education and Awareness. These ladies host many events on the MSU campus but are most infamously known for passing out pink breast cancer ribbons to MSU students. Many MSU students say that they can’t walk down a street without seeing a pink ribbon on someone’s backpack. Michigan State University students say “go green”, but it seems like they should be saying “go pink”.
The ZTA ladies are looking forward to hosting many more events on campus. They talked about their partnership with the NFL and how they pass out ribbons to Lions Game attendees. They host an on-campus event called “Best Chest." This event is a competition between the fraternities on Michigan State’s campus. Each fraternity house must compete to get the most donations to give towards ZTA’s national philanthropy. The boys paint their chests with well-known breast cancer sayings or the breast cancer ribbon. Nonetheless, the power of flowers event has been a real hit on MSU’s campus with Valentine’s Day quickly approaching.
According to the ladies of the sorority it is very competitive to get to deliver these bouquets of flowers. They all sit waiting at their computers until their philanthropy chairman posts their sign-up sheet online. There are only a small amount of people that are allowed to go into the hospital to actually deliver these flowers.
“It was an experience I’ll never forget,” said ZTA member Emma Avery. “I was fortunate enough to attend last year and I seriously don’t think I’ll have a more memorable moment in college,” says the MSU sophomore. “I think the best part was getting a thank you letter from a patient at the hospital who we delivered flowers to. Like what a great thing to be a part of. These events remind me why I joined a sorority in the first place.”
