Beta members help with local landscaping project We jratermty members didyardwork Saturday for low-income housing By Erin Snelgrove Oregon Daily Emerald Despite drizzling rain and an kle-deep mud, 20 members of Beta Theta Pi fraternity arrived at the construction site with shovels in hand and wheelbarrows in tow. Ready to help landscape the yards of low-income housing de velopments, the fraternity broth ers relinquished Saturday morn ing to provide their services to the Neighborhood Economic Devel opment Corporation. By planting trees, hauling dirt and performing heavy lifting, Beta members hoped their efforts would make a difference for some Eugene citi zens. “We donated our time to NED CO because we wanted to give something back to the community by helping build the communi ty,” said Patrick Carr, the presi dent of the campus chapter of Beta. Aaron Pocklington, the philan thropy chair for the fraternity, dis covered NEDCO by browsing through the phone book. After finding the program, he called its director and asked if he and his fraternity brothers could be of any assistance. “I picked this philanthropy be cause the guys prefer physical la bor,” Pocklington said. “I thought working for NEDCO was some thing they would be interested in doing.” NEDCO, a non-profit Eugene corporation, builds affordable housing for people who earn moderately low incomes. By re ceiving loans and grants, the pro gram provides approximately 14 families with new homes each year. Sandy Halonen, the executive director for NEDCO, was glad to receive the help of the fraternity men. Without their assistance, Halonen said the landscaping project would have been a lot more difficult and time consum ing. “Having these young, strong guys help us out has been great,” Halonen said. “It was nice to see them work with everyone to get things done.” besides the Beta men, owners of the nearly completed homes also helped landscape. In two weeks, when the yard work and the finishing touches on construc tion are completed, the owners can move into their new homes. “I can’t wait to live here” said Danielle Moran, a NEDCO home owner. "It’s amazing that my house payments are going to be as much as my old rent payments. Without NEDCO's program, I would not have been able to af ford owning a nice home like this one.” Debbie Hinderlie, another re cipient of a NEDCO home, is grateful for Beta’s assistance. Most of the people moving into the development are single moth ers, so Hinderlie said the physical strength of the men came in handy. “The guys have been doing all of the hard work, and that has been awesome,” Hinderlie said. "Most of us moving into these houses don’t have the strength to do a lot of the manual labor, so we really appreciate the guys helping us out.” Although not required to per form philanthropies, Beta, and all other Greek organizations, regu larly engage in acts of community service, said Shelley Sutherland, assistant director to student de velopment programs and greek advisor. “The University doesn’t require the chapters to help the commu nity," said Sutherland. “They do it anyway, on their own.” Other philanthropies being held by greek organizations in clude pool and basketball tourna ments and spaghetti feeds or fun runs to raise money for charities. Many other groups do like the Be tas and go out to do the hands-on work needed for organizations. Nate Bucholz, the vice presi dent of public relations for the in terfratemity council, said the hu manitarian efforts of fraternities and sororities helps to dissolve some of the negative connotations people may have about the greek system. “With philanthropies, the Greek system pulls together to help other people,” Bucholz said. “By helping the community, some of the stereotypical ideas about Greek systems are put to an end.” Scott Bamett/F.memld Beta Theta Pi Fraternity members Patrick Carr (left) and Ryan Comutt (right) plant a tree. The Beta house helped landscape a low-income housing development Saturday as part of a philanthropy project. TRY LEARNING A LITTLE GREEK A ALPHA B BETA X