Established in 1913
Rechartered in 2011
Theta Chapter
University of
Cincinnati
The Ability Experience
Creating Shared Experiences with People with Disabilities
Our chapter's involvement with our national philanthropy, The Ability Experience, and our campus outreach in the name and spirit of The Ability Experience's mission to build leaders of tomorrow by serving people with disabilities today, continues to grow each year.
This past year we sent brothers to what is known as an "Ability Weekend" in Toledo, Ohio where they completed construction projects at a camp that supports people with disabilities to make it more accessible for all. This past summer, we had four brothers participating in summer events cycling events across the country to raise money and awareness for people with disabilities. In past summers, we have had two brothers participate in Build America where they traveled the country doing construction projects to make camps that support people with disabilities more accessible and one brother who participated in Journey of Hope and biked from Washington state to Washington, DC raising disability awareness and funds along the way.
We have volunteered outside of The Abiility Experience by participating in the Mayhem Mansion in nearby Kentucky. Over fifteen brothers spent their evenings scaring haunted house visitors to help raise money for a local Fraternal Order of Police's big holiday Shop-With-A-Cop event. We are committed to service here at Pi Kappa Phi and are working hard to establish a formal volunteer relationship this upcoming year.
In fall semester 2013, we held our second annual No Boundaries Week consisting of five days of disability awareness programming:
On Monday, for Disability Awareness Day we handed out information on people first language as well as information for the rest of the No Boundaries Week programming. We were able to hand out 700 of the 900 shirts for Friday's Accessibility Day event.
On Tuesday at 8am we began our 30 hour bike-a-thon that lasted until 2pm on Wednesday. Tuesday's portion of Pedals for Push was held at McMicken Commons in the heart of the University of Cincinnati campus. Our event was visible to thousands of students as they walked across campus to and from class. We engaged these students by encouraging them to take a shirt for Friday's Accessibility Day and were able to hand out the remaining 200 shirts. Our bike-a-thon raised $500 for The Ability Experience. This was due large in part to our Pi Kappa Phries event. Tuesday evening we moved the bike-a-thon to our house and sold french fries for a $2-3 donation. For the remainder of the bike-a-thon, including the frigid night hours, at least one of our two bikes were occupied at all times.
We held our very first Miss Ability event on Wednesday of No Boundaries Week. We had five participants from five of the nine sororities on campus. Each participant was assigned two Pi Kapp brothers as coaches, and rounds included talent, wheelchair decorating, and a question and answer session. Our judges included Miss Ohio United States 2013 Elizabeth Steinhauer, the UC Bearcat, the Greek Life advisor, our rose queen, and our chapter advisor. In addition to the participant rounds, our Miss Ability program included a short presentation on the work brothers have done through The Abiliity Experience and brief presentations about summer events from our Build America and Journey of Hope Pi Alphas. At this event, we also presented a $736 Push America Circle of Giving grant to Sara Spins, an organization that helps mobility impaired students at UC purchase the wheelchairs they need to attend class.
For Accessibility Day, we partnered with campus organization Sara Spins to raise awareness for mobility-impaired students. Funds were secured from our Student Activities and Leadership Development office's Diversity Funding Grant as well as the Greek Alumni Endowment Fund to purchase 900 shirts that said "AccessABILITY Day #UCWheels." These shirts were distributed to students and faculty throughout the week who pledged to wear their shirt Friday and only take accessible routes through campus when doing so. We also had 70 students volunteer to ride in wheelchairs for either all or part of the day, including five members of the ROAR tour guide program and five brothers of Sigma Phi Epsilon. This event greatly increased campus awareness, especially considering there are only five students who use a wheelchair to get around campus on a daily basis. A massive social media campaign engaged participants to Tweet and post about their experiences, and even UC president Santa Ono and the University of Cincinnati tweeted about the work we did. After the event, the participants were surveyed about their experiences and the results have been given to the campus Disability Service Office and other upper administration officials, including the Vice President of Student Affairs. In addition to Accessibility Day, we had a Spread the Word to End the Word event where we encouraged students to sign a pledge to not use the "R" word and were able to engage over 100 students on campus in signing the pledge on a whiteboard we had provided.
Our brotherhood is committed to serving people with disabilities and helping this passion catch on in the hearts of the UC community. We have many events planned in the upcoming year to continue to promote diversity and inclusion here within our Bearcat family for people with disabilities and cannot wait to see the impact we will make.
Click the video below for a brief history and the renaming of our philanthropy from "Push America" to "The Ability Experience."