In keeping with a 17-year holiday tradition, the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) Pi Zeta chapter of the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity recently donated approximately 70,000 pounds of food and $1,000 from the city community to Worcester-based Friendly House community center.
The fraternity's 75 brothers visited more than 10,000 homes throughout Worcester earlier this month and dropped off donation bags with fliers to encourage contributions. On Nov. 14, the brothers returned to collect the bags filled with food for Worcester’s lower-income families. Everything from canned goods and pasta to baby food was collected. Monetary donations were also mailed to the fraternity by numerous city residents. The Worcester Sharks hockey team and Worcester County Sheriff Guy W. Glodis’s office also aided with garnering food donations. While the fraternity has completed its official "food-raising" for Thanksgiving, donations continue to pour in, and those will be applied toward the December holiday season. In the past 17 years the fraternity has run this drive, it has given well over 1 million pounds of food to Friendly House, thanks to generous donations. The food drive is part of the national Lambda Chi Alpha’s North American Food Drive, in which all chapters participate across the United States and Canada.
"Lambda Chi Alpha’s food drive gives each brother the opportunity to be part of something much bigger and to contribute to the city and campus community in very large way," said WPI junior Taylor North, external relations vice president of Lambda Chi Alpha’s Pi Zeta chapter. "This is essentially what the WPI fraternity experience is all about: being part of something that is stronger than the sum of all the skills and talents of its members."
Non-perishable food items or monetary donations are always welcome and can be dropped off at either Lambda Chi Alpha's chapter house at 30 Dean St., Worcester, or at Friendly House at 36 Wall St., Worcester.
Friendly House is a multi-service community center founded in 1920 to fill the educational, recreational, and social service needs of Worcester’s Grafton Hill neighborhood. Today, it offers a variety of programs for low- to moderate-income residents of Worcester County. WPI students, faculty, and staff have been involved with Friendly House for 40 years, providing volunteer services, running student mentoring programs, and organizing food drives.
