Family Day Event                  Sunday September 28, 2008 VAAPVi and the Delta Gamma Sorority kicked off their relationship with their first annual Back to School Family Day at the University of Richmond.  Sixty-three Delta Gammas made up part of our 90 volunteers that helped to make the day a huge success. Close to one hundred people had registered for the event but due to storms in the forecast, many may have elected to stay home. Still for those that did come the day was filled with fun, great networking and lots of wonderful prizes.

We were joined by Clarity of Virginia, Hadley School for the Blind, Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic, Department for the Blind and Visually Impaired, and Dreamcatchers, a support group who’s focus is families whose lives are touched by deafblindness.

Children enjoyed many activities like building flag poles, mini football goals, and bird houses at the Home Depot Station provided by the Short Pump Home Depot coordinated by Home Depot manager, Jule Alston. The Delta Gammas assisted with various crafts from Kool Aid art, foam art and making pictures with Wikki Sticks www.wikkisticks.com . Games included basket ball with a bell ball and hoolah-hoop and popping balloons with darts. Face and hand painting was shared by all with sorority girls starting the fun. Barbara and Mike Cox (clown names: Sweethang and Bonkers) finished up the face painting for the day along with showing the kids how to make balloon characters. There was even a visit from the Ronald McDonald. There were also appearances by Richmond Fire and Rescue and  LEI Motorsports Driver Rob Jenkins.

Several door prizes were given away at the event. Kimberly Drudge won the backpack donated by Braille Gifts www.braillegifts.com. Marche Lewis was the winner of the donated Build-A-Bear Halloween Cat www.buildabear.com. Linda Crews won the donated Math Window www.mathwindow.com. Max Smith-Levin won gift cards to O’Charley’s donated by Lowl at the VCC O'Charley's. Emily King won gift cards to Chick Fillet donated by Sandy at the Stratford Hills Chick-fil-A. And Janet Shields won a trip to the Inn at Corolla Light www.corolla-inn.com.  Thank You to all sponsors that  made these door prizes possible.

Food and beverages were donated from many sources including Costco for donating a gift card which covered the cost of beverages. Melissa, Jackie and Eric at two Applebee’s locations donated a total of seven platters. Chris, Lowl and Ryan at three O’Charley’s locations donated 11 platters. Luke Carl and Phil at T.G.I. Friday’s donated 7 platters. We had just enough food and we really appreciate all of their support for this special event.

So many people jumped in to help this day be a success and we are looking forward to making this an annual fall event with each year getting bigger and better. We apologize of we missed anyone. Thank you all for making this day possible.

Picture Gallery