#BLM: Fundraising Campaign

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Sigma Delta stands with the Black Lives Matter campaign, because Black lives matter today, and every day. We mourn the lives of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Ahmaud Arbury, Mike Brown, Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland, Eric Garner, and countless other Black people whose lives were cut short by police brutality. However, mourning is not enough; nor is it enough to uplift Black voices, educational resources, and tangible action items. Sigma Delta recognizes our privilege on Dartmouth’s campus, and we’re committed to putting our money where our mouth is.

Today we kick off a matching fundraising campaign to the Loveland Foundation, National Bailout, and Homeless Black Trans Women’s Fund. We’ve chosen these three organizations because they support the Black Lives Matter movement in ways that are near and dear to our sisters’ hearts:

  1. Loveland Foundation - "The Loveland Foundation was established in 2018 by Rachel Cargle in response to her widely successful birthday wish fundraiser, Therapy for Black Women and Girls … The Loveland Foundation is the official continuation of this effort to bring opportunity and healing to communities of color, and especially to Black women and girls. Through fellowships, residency programs, listening tours, and more, ultimately we hope to contribute to both the empowerment and the liberation of the communities we serve."

  2. National Bailout - "National Bail Out is a Black-led and Black-centered collective of abolitionist organizers, lawyers and activists building a community-based movement to support our folks and end systems of pretrial detention and ultimately mass incarceration. The National Bail Out Collective coordinates the Mama’s Day Bail Outs … provides fellowship and employment opportunities for those we bail out … and work with groups across the country to support ongoing bail reform efforts and create resources for organizers and advocates interested in ending pretrial detention.”

  3. Homeless Black Trans Women's Fund - "This fund is for the community of Black Trans women that live in Atlanta and are sex workers and/or homeless … These girls have been discarded and abandoned by society. But their strength lies not in their struggles, but in their survival in the face of adversity and their existence in the face of oppression. While creating this body of work I walked the stroll with them, not only in order to walk in their shoes, but also because as a Trans woman myself, I realized this: while the rest the world wants us to not exist, we are here, we have always been here, and we’re not going anywhere.”

Donations made to any of these organizations will be matched by Sigma Delta up to $2,655. This amount has been fundraised from SD sisters, as well as the leftovers from our 20W house budget. Anyone who wishes to contribute can send their receipts from the above organizations via email (sigmadeltadartmouth@gmail.com) or Instagram DM (@sigmadeltadartmouth), and we will directly match your contributions. Please feel free to contact us with any questions, comments or concerns. Thank you!

#BlackLivesMatter

Sigma Delta Sorority stands in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, and we support the protestors fighting for justice against racism and police brutality toward the Black community.

We hope to use our visible platform to uplift Black voices, spread educational resources, and promote tangible actions that we as an organization and as individuals can take in the fight against anti-Black racism in our communities, country, and world. It is not the responsibility of Black and BIPOC people to educate us; we must be active in learning and confronting our history and actions in order to dismantle systemic violence.

As a historically and majority white institution, we recognize that this house is an inherently exclusive space that benefits from the racism and classism that exists within the Dartmouth Greek system, and we acknowledge that we can, will, and must do better. Many sisters have and are trying to push our organization forward, but that can only happen when we all commit to doing the important work of confronting and unlearning our own biases. We want to affirm this space as uplifting and inclusive for our sisters of color specifically, but we recognize and deeply regret that in the past, Sigma Delt as an organization has not done enough to combat systemic racism and anti-Blackness.

It is not enough to simply say that we are inclusive and take piecemeal steps to that end. We cannot, and we will not, ignore the persistent inequalities in our systems, even as we wrestle with what that means as an inherently exclusive space. We’ve identified a task force of sisters within our house who will help guide and shape the conversations, programs, and initiatives Sigma Delta will undertake in this effort.

Our website now has a list of petitions, funds, organizations, educational resources, and articles that we will be using internally to prompt discussion and action. We encourage all to utilize those resources, and those we’ll share in the coming days, to learn, have conversations with your communities on how to be actively anti-racist, and donate to protest efforts in your own community and nationwide as you are able.

Video from BlackLivesMatter.com - “REST IN POWER, BEAUTIFUL”

Alumni Meetings TONIGHT!

Calling all Sigma Delta alumni! We are having open meetings on Zoom tonight, 5/20/20, at 10pm EDT. Looking forward to seeing sisters from all classes, from ‘78 to ‘19!

Here is the link for Meetings (and full Zoom invitation copied below)!

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Sigma Delta Dartmouth is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting. Topic: SD Alumni Meetings. Time: May 20, 2020 10:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting: https://dartmouth.zoom.us/j/98086029903

Meeting ID: 980 8602 9903

Dial by your location

        +1 301 715 8592 US (Germantown)

        +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)

        +1 646 558 8656 US (New York)

        +1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)

        +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)

        +1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)

Find your local number: https://dartmouth.zoom.us/u/acTrSbVfh

Join by SIP: 98086029903@zoomcrc.com

Welcome!

Welcome to our new website! We are so excited to launch this site as a way to strengthen our connection with our incredible alums. Sigma Delt is the oldest sorority on campus and we are so proud of our history. Take some time to look through our photo album and see if you can spot yourself. Additionally, if you have photos from your time in SD, please feel free to share them and we will add them to the website.

We are also launching a new program for alums to sponsor a sister and pay her house dues during her time at Dartmouth. This will allow alums to have a personal connection to a sister and guide her through her time Sigma Delt experience. If you are interested in this program, please email sigmadeltadartmouth@gmail.com and Laura, our president, will reach out to you.

We hope this website will bring back all of your wonderful memories of our amazing house!

Ellie Mitchell Dartmouth ‘20 Scholarship and Alumni Executive