Markeshia Ricks | January 15th, 2025 The New Haven members of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc. traded their signature pink and green for the sparkle and shine of diamonds to celebrate 60 years of service in the Elm City. Fifteen women chartered the Theta Epsilon Omega Chapter of AKA in January 1965 and a crowd of well-wishers and celebrants gathered at The Woodwinds in Branford Saturday to mark the occasion, which was themed “Diamonds are Forever: Sparkling at 60.” “Did you get the theme,” Adrienne Dean-Parkmond, the 21st and current chapter president, quipped to the crowd while wearing a resplendent floor-length, shoulder-bearing, silver sequined dress. “We are celebrating 60 years of Black excellence, sprinkled with pink and green Black girl magic and service to all mankind.” Dean-Parkmond noted for the assembled that the chapter’s chartering, much like the celebration of its diamond jubilee year, happened during harrowing times nationally and internationally. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was calling for a civil rights demonstration in Selma, Ala. The year prior, King had received the Nobel Peace Prize, and then-President Lyndon B. Johnson, who had ascended to the highest office of the land after his predecessor, John F. Kennedy, had been assassinated, had signed the Civil Rights Bill of 1964. “It was a tumultuous time but they were ready and began their service in the New Haven community,” Dean-Parkmond said of the charter members. “Today as we celebrate our chapter’s historic milestone we realize that the greatest tribute we can pay is continued service to all mankind. Then and now, the members of Theta Epsilon Omega will always come together and stand in the vanguard, ready to address the issues of our current times.” One of those 15 charter members, Jean Patterson-Downing, was in the room Saturday. She is the last living Theta Epsilon Omega charter member and was among those honored for their vision and their service at the celebration. Patterson-Downing, who cheekily identified her age as “59 in reverse,” said that it made her proud to know that the chapter she had helped bring to New Haven not only lives on but also continues to serve its community with distinction. Elicia Pegues Spearman, a former Theta Epsilon Chapter president who now serves the sorority as its North Atlantic regional director while also holding down the role of CEO of Girl Scouts of Connecticut, said the chapter set a blazing course of leadership and excellence that has yet to abate. “Six decades have been spent upholding the principles and ideals of the world’s greatest sorority—sorry to everyone else that’s here,” she said, drawing a laugh from the members of other historically Black sororities and fraternities in the room. “We represent the greatest sorority while attending to the hopes, dreams, and needs of those touched by this chapter’s magic.” Many Theta Epsilon Omega Chapter members do that work and spread their magic while wearing other important hats in their community. Prominent New Haven AKAs include Greater New Haven Branch of the NAACP President Dori Dumas, newly appointed Elm City Communities Executive Director Shenae Draughn, and prominent public scholar, professor, and executive director of Wesleyan University’s Allbritton Center for the Study of Public Life, Khalilah Brown-Dean. “From our charter members to our newest initiates, the women of Theta Epsilon Omega serve Greater New Haven with passion, persistence, and pride,” said Brown-Dean who also is a former president of the chapter and the host of the award-winning Connecticut Public Radio program and podcast, “Disrupted.” “This sisterhood has never just been about pretty tea parties—although we do know how to throw a good party and our tea is always piping hot. “Our purpose is inspired by the belief that, in order to lead, you must be willing to serve,” she said. “So we serve.” From promoting awareness of the health care challenges that disproportionately impact the Black community and addressing challenges that impact the continent of Africa, Brown-Dean said AKAs prioritize service, no matter what is happening in the world and who is in the White House. “This year as the country pauses to inaugurate a new president, you will find the women of Theta Epsilon Omega not wallowing in a corner, but serving,” she said. But first, with their trademarked pinkies to the sky, and sparkling silver dresses reflecting the light, they strolled into the room to open up the dance floor chanting to Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us.” https://www.newhavenarts.org/arts-paper/articles/new-haven-akas-sparkle-at-60
The New Haven Pearls of Excellence Foundation and the Theta Epsilon Omega Chapter scholarship application is now available. The deadline to apply is March 28, 2024. Click here to read eligibility requirements and to download the application.
Monday, Jan. 15 at 10 a.m. | Wexler Grant Community School, 55 Foote St., New Haven The food drive was held to benefit the Women of the Village Food Pantry and was a collaboration of 21 organizations designed to feed 300 families. “Not everybody gets the chance to help people out,” said Sydney McEntire, a young volunteer from Prospect. “Some people are really busy. But, you always have to take a day to do whatever is needed.” “Today is a day on, not a day off,” explained Adrienne Parkmond, Esq., the President of the New Haven Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha. “It’s a day of service, and so, as he said, ‘Out of a mountain of despair, there is a stone of hope.’” The historically Black sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha is leading this MLK Day effort to try to help with all the hunger in the community. Martin Luther King Day at Wexler Grant School used to look a lot different. They used to fill classrooms with presentations and workshops. The pandemic shut that down and highlighted the food insecurity of many families. It is also something more meaningful on a day that honors a man who was all about lifting his community. “Martin Luther King had his whole speech about his dream,” said Rilee Lewis of Higher Heights. “I think we are the living dream that he spoke to us about. It’s just a really nice feeling to be able to come here and give back to our community.” https://www.wtnh.com/news/connecticut/martin-luther-king-jr-day-2024-events-honor-civil-rights-activist-across-conn/
by ALLAN APPEL | Jan 15, 2024 2:24 pm More than 200 volunteers from 23 different African-American led fraternities, sororities, and civic and service organizations gathered for a “We Are One” day of service in honor of Martin Luther King Day. The event took place Monday morning at the Wexler-Grant Community School on Foote Street in the Dixwell neighborhood. The service consisted of collecting and packing 300 bags of groceries, which were then delivered a short distance down Dixwell Avenue to the Women of the Village Community Food Pantry, at the Charles Street police substation, to be distributed to families in need beginning tomorrow. The Black fraternity Alpha Phi Alpha, to which MLK belonged, was founded in 1906. The local chapter Monday contributed 300 cans of tomato, minestrone, chicken and rice, and other healthy soups to the drive. Leading Monday’s event were the women of Theta Epsilon Omega,the local chapter of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority. Participants Cynthia Farmer Streeter and her daughter Sabrina, from one of the local chapters of the National Association of Negro Business and Professional Women’s Clubs (NANBPWC), reflected the multi-generational, follow-my-example style of the festive gathering. Youth division President Nevaeh Simon-Burroughs of Metropolitan Business Academy is following in the footsteps of her mother and grandmother, who were past presidents of the club. Simon-Burroughs said the MLK event and the club participation give her “a stronger sense of connection to my community.” The local AKA chapter has been organizing MLK Day events for more than 50 years, said the AKA chapter’s Sondi Jacksons. The restrictions on gathering pursuant to Covid in 2020 shifted the event focus from a workshop/conference/career development format to food distribution for today’s 300 families, triple the number of the first Covid day of service. “Why do we have so many hungry children?!” Rev. Antona Smith challenged her listeners in her invocational remarks, before the packers dived into their work. She’s from the Southern Connecticut State University Pi Lambda Zeta chapter of Zeta Phi Beta, yet another historic African-American sorority founded at Howard University in 1920. “Let’s pray,” she said, “that we have changes so we won’t have to have so many food drives!” https://www.newhavenindependent.org/article/mlk_day_of_service_2?fbclid=IwAR2YdmNErCht0hL5j3vhoKjatadB5bmHXwKoJ3BhUmgpGAuDfHj0MROVTmA
