In the spirit of Beta Mu’s 50th anniversary, please consider making a donation in honor or memory of a loved one, a class, or the chapter. If you can do more than $50, please do so. The money raised will benefit the collegiate chapter’s total for the year. For it to count towards the collegiate chapter, it will need to go through the Tri Delta Foundation portal (see below). Once we have the total donation, one check will be written to St. Jude from the alumnae. Your donation is 100% tax deductible.
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“Be the First DDDomino” –
How the Partnership between Tri Delta and St. Jude Began
by Cora Beth Hartfield ‘96
I pledged Tri Delta in 1996. The Beta Mu chapter at Mississippi State had so many wonderful things to offer me as a collegiate member, but the one thing I remember most are the philanthropic events that we participated in and put together to raise money for children’s cancer charities. Back then, we hosted an event called Dolphin Daze, where the fraternities signed up to compete in intramural games and other events. We also put on a Pancake Breakfast at the house. At the most, we probably raised $10,000 and that was a lot back then! We were proud and rightfully so.
However, I always remember putting a lot of effort into the Fraternity charity events. It was important to us to be competitive among other sororities, so we helped raise a lot of money for Kappa Sigma Charity Bowl and Sigma Chi Derby Days, just to name a few. How was it that the boys were bringing in $40,000 annually for their charities? What could
we do better as a sorority?
This is where it only takes one domino, or three, for the rest of the dominoes to fall and that’s exactly what happened in 1998.
By now, my sister, Meade Hartfield had pledged Beta Mu (class of ’97) and together with our Beta Mu sisters, we had a passion to be the best, OUR best on the MSU campus.
Meade was nominated to serve as the Philanthropy Chairwoman for the year. A 19-year old college student, she was tasked with raising money for our philanthropy which historically benefited children’s cancer charities. Meade and her fearless team of sorority sisters put together “Frats at Bat,” a Greek softball tournament among sororities and fraternities, the first of its kind on the Mississippi State campus. Meade looked down Fraternity Row and said of their past fundraising event successes, “If they can do it, so can we.”
The chapter sold ads in the softball booklet and asked fraternities to pay to play. When it was all said and done, Beta Mu raised a whopping $40,000 in its first year with this event! Wow, the little chapter that could, DID! Back then, the chapter size was maybe 140 women, compared to its 250-300 women these days.
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee was the recipient of the $40,000 check, and they took notice of this little sorority chapter at Mississippi State. The executives at St. Jude saw an opportunity to utilize other sorority chapters in its effort to raise money for St. Jude, where no child pays for his or her treatment when under the care of the hospital.
In 1999, Meade was asked to make the introduction to the executives at Tri Delta’s national office in Texas, and to write a manual for St. Jude with details on how to put together a fundraiser like Frats at Bat, two events which quickly led to the formalized national partnership between Tri Delta and St. Jude. Prior to that time, Tri Delta’s national philanthropy was “Curing Childhood Cancer,” through which collegiate and alumni chapters chose to support local hospitals and organizations. However, some chapters had no strong philanthropic ties to local beneficiaries, at a time when philanthropy was becoming an integral part of the recruitment process and the sorority experience. In Meade’s mind, the partnership was a natural fit to expand Tri Delta’s collective philanthropic efforts, and would put Tri Delta at the forefront of its original mission, pairing a national sorority powerhouse with the undisputed leading children’s cancer research facility in the world.
Meade attended the first meetings between St. Jude and Tri Delta in Memphis, where the team brainstormed on the ways in which Tri Delta could benefit the hospital long term. The team chose to create the Tri Delta “teen room,” given that most of the play areas at the time were geared towards younger patients. The sorority first committed to raise $3 million in ten years. From there, the sorority would work towards dedicating an entire floor, raising over $10 million in less than three years, and eventually a dedicated building on St. Jude’s campus.
For her efforts as the architect of the highest to-date collegiate fundraiser benefiting St. Jude, and her efforts to liaison and persuade the Tri Delta organization to consider a dedicated national philanthropic recipient in St. Jude, in 2000, Meade was awarded the St. Jude “Jerry Nicholson” Young Volunteer of the Year Award, a proud honor personally and a positive reflection on Beta Mu.
Since then, the Beta Mu chapter at Mississippi State University has raised more than $1,500,000 for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, through letter writing campaigns, pancake breakfasts, and their signature softball tournament, now named “Swinging for St. Jude.”
Tri Delta has met and exceeded every goal it has set, and the dominoes just keep falling. In 2014, Tri Delta committed to raising $60 million in 10 years for St. Jude, which is the single largest commitment by a St. Jude partner since the hospital opened more than 50 years ago. In honor of this momentous pledge, the hospital recognized Tri Delta on the St. Jude campus with the naming of its short-term housing facility, Tri Delta
Place. The organization has already met more than half of this commitment in just five years, with $41 million raised toward the $60 million pledge.
The national partnership is now in its 20th year and has raised more than $68 million nationwide to support the hospital’s mission: “Finding cures. Saving children lives. Partnerships like this help ensure families never receive a bill from St. Jude for treatment, travel, housing or food – because all a family should worry about is helping their child live.”
To all of my fellow Beta Mu sisters, those before me, and those after me, thank you for putting your heart into saving children’s lives! The Beta Mu chapter at Mississippi State has created a legacy that will last a lifetime. We have made a difference! As Meade once challenged the Beta Mu chapter during recruitment, upon reflection of just how far we have come on campus and beyond, “Be the first DDDomino!”