06/05/2020
In the past week, we have witnessed the extent to which communities of color are unjustly persecuted by the police. George Floyd is only one of many Black lives that has been stolen as the result of the systematic racism present in our legal system.
In response, the Brothers of the Iota Chapter of Theta Xi at Washington University in St. Louis have created a donation matching campaign to support organizations working to combat this injustice. We will be matching donations of at least $6,000 and Brothers have been given the option to donate their refunded dues from the Spring 2020 semester to increase the amount of our matching fund. We will be contributing to a variety of organizations, spread throughout the United States and in the St. Louis area.
Organizations like our own have been a part of the problem for far too long, tolerating and perpetuating racial injustices. We acknowledge that we are in a position to address the issues that are impacting our Greek Community and must take actions to break down all remnants of institutional racism present in Greek Life and our respective chapters. To do this, we must continue these conversations regarding race into the future and ensure that barriers, including financial barriers, do not impact the ability of individuals to participate in Greek spaces. As a brotherhood, we recognize this reality and we must turn a new page to enact real change in our communities.
Nationally, we will be contributing the community and bail funds contained in the Act Blue fundraising platform. In the St. Louis area, we will contributing to the following organizations:
100 Black Men of Metropolitan St. Louis
Link: https://www.givestlday.org/100
ACLU of Missouri
Link: https://www.givestlday.org/ACLUMO
Action St. Louis
Link: https://www.givestlday.org/actionstl
STL Mutual Aid
Link: https://stlmutualaid.org/
Arch City Defenders
Link: https://www.archcitydefenders.org/
Forward Through Ferguson
Link: https://forwardthroughferguson.org
Ethical Society of Police
Link: https://esopstl.org/about-us
Close the Workhouse
Link: https://closetheworkhouse.org
There are several ways in which you can support our efforts. You can donate to our Donation Matching Campaign by venmoing our fraternity’s Venmo account (). If you would like your donation to be divided amongst all of the causes to which we are contributing, please caption your donation “Theta Xi Matching Donation Campaign”. If you would like your donation to be sent to specific organizations, please include their names in the Venmo caption along with how much of your contribution should be directed to each of you named organizations. If you would like alternative methods to support our efforts (Paypal or check), please contact [email protected]. If you would like to spread word of our campaign, please share this information with your respective networks.
Lastly, if your Chapter would like help organizing a similar campaign, we would be happy to share our resources with you. Please contact [email protected] for more information.
The fourth tenet of the Purpose of Theta Xi reads “responsibility to chapter, college, community and country”. Now is the time to stand by those words.
- The Brothers of the Iota Chapter of the Theta Xi Fraternity
The Close The Workhouse Campaign demands St. Louis city leaders shut down the Medium Security Institution jail on Hall Street. The campaign was founded by 4 partner organizations, including ArchCity Defenders, the Bail Project, Action STL, and MORE, and former people detained in the Workhouse who se
