Oh Hello and welcome to today’s episode of PR and politics podcast where we are polished and poised for greatness and impact my name is Kahala and I’m your host well as you all know we have been going through the many wonderful organizations of the divine nine for the
Last two seasons and today we are finishing the sorority side of things with the pretty poodles of Sigma gamar R and we have n other than the president of the East St Louis alumni chapter of Sigma Gamma Road Miss president Harden good morning thank you for having me yes
I’m so excited to have you here so you you rounding it out yes the pretty pools are rounding it out and we are so happy to have you you look amazing thank you thank you so do you love your approach thank you thank you so much so um first introduce yourself I
Am ktina har um president of the alpha oops line Sigma alumni chapter of Sigma gamar rose already Incorporated in the city of East St Louis Illinois um my career is I work for the state of Missouri um Department of Mental Health where I have worked for 22 years um I’ve actually done social
Work for 27 years and I’m a mother of one okay so you have a lot going on yes and it’s all really really good things we love Mental Health and mental health awareness here at Pro and politics podcast because life be lifen yes yes and um as a community of people of color
We often times have historically not taken care of our mental health or health or was taboo or well we don’t do that or we don’t go to therapy and so we are trying to break all those barriers here absolutely absolutely you have to let people know that it’s okay to take
Care of you and it’s okay to not be okay it’s okay to not be okay it’s okay because once you acknowledge that you’re not okay we can help you okay okay so now with all of that does that are you incorporating any of that into what you were doing with
Your chapter absolutely um Sigma gamaro we have Women’s Wellness and that goes with your physical health as well as your mental health so what we do is um with Alpha Upsilon Sigma I have a self-care and health health and wellness committee where we do things like um
Things of when we just did breast cancer awareness um where we had um an oncologist come on who was actually my oncologist I’m a breast cancer survivor so we had um my oncologist to come on for our Women’s Wellness to just talk to um Sor rers phos even our rers and our
Undergraduates along with the community to talk about the importance of black women taking care of themselves and early detection and things like that that is amazing and we praise God yes that you are a Cancer Survivor yes that you wed against it and that you were victorious in that battle so we are
Thankful for that thank you um and so you are obviously as the president you were able to implement those that type of programming yes so tell us about your journey to Sigma gamaro we start with the introduction because obviously we didn’t come out Greek right it was we
Were who we were yes before that and so tell us though about your journey to Sigma gamaro wow my journey is um being in class with a lot of ladies of Sigma gamar um at Lane College the alpha GMA chapter um I noticed that those ladies
Always sat at the front of the class and you know we used to be told it’s better to be seen and not heard um these ladies were singing they were not always on the party scene but when they spoke they always spoke of substance and they just commanded the attention that made
Everybody want to listen and so while these were not the ladies that I would hang out with it made aspire to want to be like that and you know as women when it’s when we it’s hard for black women to acknowledge another black women especially in the 90s like oh but they
Immediately just caught my attention with just their presence and when they spoke well I will say this and I you know I am I don’t have a hating bone in my body so I love black women I love all the Divine NES so I’mma say what I said
I went to the University of Illinois at our champagne oh wow um 95 to 2000 and you know I come from a family of alpha cap Alpha women so it was never any other option but they were not on the yard and for the greater part of that
Time that I was there and the sigma Rose were and I’m not gonna tell you no lies they ran the yard like the sigma gam Rose 95 to 2000 at the University of Illinois at orbana champagne I mean they had the best strolls I mean they were
The sweetest people like but I still remember their faces and a lot of who they were to this day yes because you know the zers were on the yard and the delts may or may not have been but the suos they were on the yard and maybe
They ran it yeah they ran it so I can totally see why you would say during your time as an undergraduate seeing them if they were anything like the women of whatever chapter that is in at the University of Illinois then I can totally see why you would gravitate and
Be inspired by them yes I was very inspired fired yes well good so with the East St Louis chapter what are you all up to so what is your prominent programming and what do you want us to know our prominent programming it aligns with our national programs which is
Annual youth Symposium okay um operation big book bag of course Women’s Wellness um project cradle care for our infancies for our infants with disabilities um and we have um I think I named all five of them yes okay so tell us about because
Of course a lot of us do book bags and a lot of us do clothing for girls and just a lot of other things but I haven’t really heard a lot about a program that deals with the with the babies yes that that aligns with our national program
Project reassurance but I do want to take a moment Kahala to acknowledge that I don’t know if you ever remember Dr Lana J Maris okay um she was an administrator in District 189 but she was also our 19th International Grand bassist and she implemented operation big Qui bag as well as annual youth
Symposium that she began in her Administration in 1996 that is still going on 27 years later um next year we were walking into our 28th year um that Dr Mars um implemented those programs into our International Authority um we wear that with pride because while we absolutely while we are of Sigma gamero
She is a East St Louis native and that is in the books that she is from East St Louis Illinois so we wear those programs with pride along with the other programs but yes our um for babies is with um we do that in January we’re going to actually
Do that um this coming January okay and what we do is we get the youth um our young um adolescent teenage mothers as well as our young mothers and we we wrap them in our arms and um we we give them gifts um it’s like a small baby shower
But we also inform them about their pregnancy stages what they need to do to take care of themselves before and after pregnancy um last year we brought in the University of Illinois’s food and Nutrition department um to talk with them on how to care for themselves that
Is outstanding because again we as a community yes and as women of color we oftentimes struggle especially in health care yes in addition to the mental health that we just discussed and prenatal care is absolutely an issue yes and um the maternal mortality rate absolutely is an issue for us so anytime
That I hear about programming that encourage black women to go to the go to the doctor to take care of their children to give them the knowledge and information that they need to be healthy for themselves and their families like that always strikes a court with me yes
It always strikes a court with me so you all are a chapter of how many at this time we are a chapter of like 86 right now wow yes that is tremendous and so as a result of having such a large chapter then you all are obviously able to do a
Great deal of programming yes and Outreach into into the the East St Louis Community is there anything else that you want us to know that you have coming up we actually going to have our Tiara cotillon that we have every year and that is where we take our young High
School young ladies and we introduce them to society and this is such a grand Affair for not only our sorority but the young ladies and their families as well as the escorts you know we tell this is your moment in time you know we want them to have a memorable moment when
They go off to college that you participated in a cotillon and you had your escort you had your beautiful gown you went to your um your women’s Workshop you know charm clinics and things like that so we are very excited about our cotan and that’s going to be
Actually next month on um December the 30th that is awesome I remember being in fashionetta growing up and I remember it was a huge deal like you looked forward your whole High School career to that junior or senior year and I know a lot of young ladies do it in their junior
Year but when I 90 what 9495 you did it your senior year you were a senior Pearl and you did it your senior year and that you got your dress and your escort and your dad dance with you and your mom and dad walked you down the aisle like that
Was huge yes so I I look forward to seeing all the pictures and you know anything that I can do you know whether it’s an ad or whatever that’s going on with that I would love to do I would love to do wonderful wonderful thank you
So much so we’ve got the catian so 2024 is breathing down our next yes and guess what our central region conference is going to be here in St Louis congratulations awesome that’s a huge deal it is a very huge deal and I know you’re busy very busy because it’s
Tomorrow yes tomorrow okay so tell us about that um well what we’re gonna actually do um we’re going to have our public meeting um is going to be from the SE March 7th through the 10th the public meeting will be I want to say March the 9th um and that is where we
Will have the opportunity to not only have St Louis nphc we’re going to have e St Louis nphc you know we want to make sure e St Louis is at the table that’s right absolutely and that’s where we talk Kahala where sometimes our Greek letters are bigger than us um we have
The responsibility of representing our city so this is going to be a keen opportunity to to rep you know represent the city of Champions you know and I want Sigma gamaro to see we understand there’s the show me state but there’s also the city of Champions that’s right
That’s right it being from East St Louis it’s it’s a a love and you know it’s a pleasure and it’s an honor to represent but it’s also an obligation very much so I don’t care what anybody says you know it’s also an obligation because again there’s the perception yes that we up
With there’s perception that still there even though we are just things that folks are like oh I guess it’s not what it used it was never what you thought it was let’s be clear it was never what you thought it was but it is an obligation
That we have to say we are excellent we are the city of Champions here we are like we know that you know you got all the wonderfulness that goes on in St Lewis and other parts of the country but we are equally excellent right so that is awesome that it’s coming to this
Area and that you all have a seat at the table that’s right we have the king opportunity to represent our city with such class and Grace absolutely well I ask everyone at the end you know getting close to the end of the episode because we all feel that obviously our
Organization is the best and that there’s no other way yes so I always ask everyone whether it’s the Frets or whether it’s the sor you have a young lady that may or may not have been in your castian that is at the University of wherever and she has all these options
She may not be a legacy and so she’s thinking and so why Sigma Garo the first thing I would do is tell her my story and what made me interested in Sigma gamaro and I tried to be very genuine about who I was before became a m um I was the the young
Lady who was kind of loud who was always in the crowd but these women who I saw you know not approach me I just saw them and The Way They Carried themselves and when they spoke and how they commanded the attention and it made me to Aspire
To be better it gave me a goal you know where I wanted to go in life because I didn’t where I was I didn’t see that in my vision until I saw them but I would definitely tell the if they events go to the events you
Learn go see what’s going not just step not just the strolling but the service events you know what are they doing to impact ask questions I think we don’t do enough of that ask questions you know um I would definitely tell them because I’m very confident in Sigma gamaro I had someone
Tell me the same thing ask questions because she was confident that I would come back and I took note of her confidence as well so I would just tell them ask questions go to the events and definitely would share my story it’s a Sisterhood for me I have a brother and I
Love him to life he’s the most amazing brother in the history of Brothers but I don’t have sisters so when I was able to go through the membership intake process and acquire over 20 sisters and when I tell you Um we are there for each other yes thick thin up down left right um we support each other no matter what is going on now we going to tell you when you wrong yes but we’re going to tell you in love and we going to tell you after the fact
Because if we got to address this first whatever’s coming against you absolutely we’re 27 together and we gonna address it so for me of course like you said ask questions and it’s a service and it’s the the but it’s a scholarship but for me in addition to all those things it
Was The Sisterhood and when I tell you you are wearing that pretty poodle honey you are wearing it and I absolutely love it and I’m so excited about everything that your chapter is doing I’m so excited for your Regional Conference that’s coming up and I just can’t wait I
Just want to sit and watch and look at all the pictures and and you know oh you’re invited oh okay absolutely we this is the city of Champions you’re invited okay okay well I’m gonna keep that in mind I will be there okay we will be in touch and I will be there
Absolutely thank you thank you so we we had a a conversation not going to release what the conversation was yet but she’ll be back I don’t even have to ask she coming back and it’s going to be some stuff that y’all ain’t seen so absolutely so yes well thank you so much
For your time today and um girl if if anybody ever thought about being sgro if they saw this episode baby they are there okay they are all in with you thank you so much they are all in with you so thank you so much for being with
Us today and thank you for having me thank you of course of course and thank you for tuning in today to PR politics podcast where we are polished and poised for greatness and impact thank you for joining us today and we hope you’ll join us again next week and in the meantime
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