Is Unity within the Greek Community Feasible?

Lately due to a series of events, I have been wondering if it is even possible to unite the Greek community as a whole. Sadly, more often than not, the answer I come to is no. We claim to aspire to attain the best for ourselves; however, when it comes to attaining the best for our community, I believe a schism occurs. Yes, we belong to separate chapter. I am a Delta Zeta, you might be an XYZ, or a ABC, but at the end of the day, who understands what our letters mean? Sure, we all do since we had to learn them to be initiated. But, Non-Greeks probably don't. When they look at our lettered sweatshirts (yes, they are cute, I know) all they see are "sororities" and "frats". Disclaimer-I abhor the word frat in relation to a fraternity. They see only Greek life as a whole.

So, if all that someone might see is a Greek-lettered organization, why is it that we can never seem to get it together, to unite and work towards an amazing Greek-wide philanthropy event? I am frustrated often by this community's lack of effort, or if not lack of effort then definitely a lack of enthusiasm. If we have a great philanthropy, then why can't we join behind an event to benefit an amazing cause?

That is my challenge to this community: come together and support each other. But more than that, come together and support PHILANTHROPY.

So, let's talk about the ways in which we support our philanthropies as chapters. More often than not, we host events where we sell food late at night on a Thursday, Friday, or Saturday. From 11pm-3am typically, drunks from around campus convene on a house's front lawn and eat delicious drunk food. How is this a good stereotype for our philanthropy events? Answer: it's not. That being said, money is still being raised for great causes, so houses continue to host events. Let's challenge ourselves though to look outside of the box, to think of new and better ways to raise money for our individual causes. Better yet, let's challenge ourselves to look outside of the box, to think of new and better ways to raise money for our community cause!

I believe that when that is accomplished, even if the event admittedly has some flaws, that great things can be done within our community. No event is perfect. We can make great strides towards Greek unity if we move forward and simply say, "Okay, we will go ahead and try this event. If it does not work, then we can always come up with a better idea next time." We need to try and achieve unity or else we will fall apart.