Community Service
Sigma Alpha Mu members, through their chapters, participate in service in the communities in which their respective colleges are located. Bounce for Beats, a national service project, began at Case Institute of Technology's Mu Gamma Chapter in 1965. Scores of chapters bouncing a basketball to symbolize the heartbeat—or now conducting other basketball-related events—have collected hundreds of thousands of dollars for worthy causes including the American Heart Association and Pediatric AIDS Foundation. Since 1995, proceeds from the event have benefited the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation.
In 2005, ΣΑΜ chose the Alzheimer's Association as its service and philanthropy project where they raise donations for Alzheimer's Research. Association board member Marshall Gelfand was instrumental in forging the partnership between the two organizations and received the fraternity's Certificate of Merit in 2005, which is awarded to ΣΑΜ alumni whose service and achievements in community endeavors are worthy of special recognition. Donations raised by the fraternity are part of The Judy Fund, established in 2003 on behalf of Mr. Gelfand's wife who in 1995, was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease. Mrs. Gelfand died in 2004. Alzheimer's Association's fastest growing individual named fund, The Judy Fund, has raised more than $2.5 million.
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Famous quotes containing the words community and/or service:
“When you have come into the land that the LORD your God is giving you, and have taken possession of it and settled in it, and you say, “I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me,” you may indeed set over you a king whom the LORD your God will choose. One of your own community you may set as king over you; you are not permitted to put a foreigner over you, who is not of your own community.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Deuteronomy 17:14,15.
“The socialism of our day has done good service in setting men to thinking how certain civilizing benefits, now only enjoyed by the opulent, can be enjoyed by all.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)