While many young people enjoyed Tuesday’s snow day warm and snug in their homes, the brothers of Phi Delta Theta formed a snow patrol and took to clearing sidewalks and driveways throughout Emporia.
Gavin Yakel, who serves as Philanthropy Chairman for Phi Delta Theta, says when they began Tuesday morning the plan was to shovel at the local sororities and then shovel the drive and sidewalks for a family.
“Part of our philanthropy is that we raise money for ALS research and we have an ALS family here in Emporia that we go and we take care of and we raise funds for them and we help them out,” Yakel said. “So we were going to go shovel their yard.”
Once they got done shoveling at one house they realized a neighbor could use some help. By then, Chris Peine, who runs social media for Phi Delta Theta, suggested putting a post on social media to see if anyone else in Emporia could use their help. Before they knew it their idea had snowballed and requests started pouring in.
“A lot of us really liked his idea,” Yakel said. “He put up the post and we went to lunch. By the time we were done at lunch, 50 people had already commented.”
The Phi Delt Snow Patrol quickly created a plan and tackled as many requests as possible.
“We went through the requests and we started marking out houses and which ones are closest to each other, and we split up into four groups, and then just went out and tackled all or as many houses as we could get,” Yakel said.
