Huge gift of backpacks for ABQ kids
Sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha, in Duke City for a conference, donates 4,400
More than 1,700 women, members of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, are gathering in Albuquerque for a weekend conference, armed with progressive ideas — and backpacks.
About 4,400 backpacks filled with school supplies and toiletry items will be donated to economically disadvantaged school children at Kirtland, Chelwood and Colinas Del Norte Elementary Schools, Van Buren Middle School, the APS Homeless
Project, First Fruits Christian Academy and Barrett House, to name a handful.
“We started the One Million Backpacks Initiative in 2014 because we noticed that there were a lot of kids going to school unprepared,” said Morgan Gaskin Thomas, communications chair of the AKA South Central Region, which includes Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas and New Mexico. “We want kids to be prepared from Day One, so they don’t feel different from the other students.”
With a year left on their campaign, the national sorority hopes to collect and distribute 1 million backpacks. Chapters in the South Central Region have already distributed 170,000 backpacks, Gaskin Thomas said.
Those attending the regional conference at the Albuquerque Convention Center will sit in on business sessions and undergo intensive leadership development training. They will also get updates on their backpack initiative and their Be the Voice campaign, which encourages members to get involved in the political process, keep their communities informed on issues and participate in voter registration drives.
Alpha Kappa Alpha is the first and oldest African-American sorority in the country. It was founded in 1908 at Howard University in Washington, D.C. It currently has 75,000 active members, 9,229 of them in their South Central Region — many of them sorority alumni.
Retired educator Evelyn François, 70, is one of those proud alumna. Wearing a tiara and sash proclaiming her 50-year association with the sorority, she walked the Convention Center mingling with her younger cohorts.
“I was initiated in 1968 at Grambling State University in Louisiana,” she recalled. “I was in the process of becoming a member when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. I learned of his passing while I was on an errand for one of my sorority big sisters. So it’s bittersweet because I always associate that event with my joining of AKA, but then it gave me the push and the drive to be active and involved, and strive for positive change, which I have done for the last 50 years.”
Among the newer members of the sorority was Emajae Clements, 21, who was with a contingent from Texas A&M University. A student of international policy and diplomacy, she said she joined the sorority for the sisterhood and the opportunity to perform public service.
“The most influential women in my life have been members of Alpha Kappa Alpha,” she said. “Those were the women I looked up to. I knew that one day, if I had the opportunity, I would be one of those women, so when little girls looked at me they’d see a reflection of what a woman should be, what a woman should stand for and what we need to do for our communities.”