When 125 Theta Phi Alpha members gathered last June for a national leadership conference in Dayton, Ohio, the schedule invited participants to “Gather at the Mess Hall” (the student union at the University of Dayton), to “Take a Hike” (occasional 15-minute breaks in a busy program teaching skills about how to build stronger local chapters), and to share “Camp Fire Stories” as part of their ongoing effort to deepen the bonds of sisterhood. This summer camp theme was also an effort to emphasize and strengthen the bond this group of women has forged with Glenmary’s summer camp in Mississippi.

Theta Phi Alpha is a women’s social organization (technically called a fraternity rather than a sorority) that can be found on 38 college campuses—mostly in the Northeast and Midwest, but there are a few chapters in Florida and Louisiana. Their national membership totals 20,000—19,000 alumnae members and 1,000 collegians.

It started as a Catholic organization in the days when most national sororities and fraternaties did not admit Catholics. And Glenmary was adopted early on as its “national philanthropy partner.” Today, Theta Phi Alpha’s membership is open to women of all faiths and none. And their connection to Glenmary’s mission lives on.

At the recent summer leadership conference at the University of Dayton, representatives from each of the organization’s 38 chapters sported backpacks with a Glenmary logo as they moved from workshop to workshop learning skills for strengthening their individual chapters. The Glenmary logo was part of a graphic designed by a member to capture Theta Phi Alpha’s special relationship to Camp Friendship, the two-week summer camp in Mississippi run by Glenmary Father Tim Murphy. (Campers come from low-income families, mostly African-American, and from varied faith traditions.)

At Theta Phi Alpha’s Founder’s Foundation banquet, Glenmary Father Dominic Duggins delivered a message about Glenmary’s mission today and was presented with a check for $2,600 to help support Camp Friendship. The group hoped to have Father Tim on hand, but he could not attend since camp was in full swing in Mississippi at the time of the Dayton meeting.

Theta Phi Alpha turned its focus to the Mississippi camp about five years ago. Their annual contribution is what made it possible for Father Tim and his team in Mississippi to add a second week of Camp Friendship, thereby allowing even more kids to experience its program which promotes interracial understanding, respect for nature and a deepened awareness of relationship with God. (For more about Glenmary’s Mississippi camp, see “Camp Glenmary: Four Weeks of Summer Magic."

But the connections between Theta Phi Alpha and Glenmary don’t stop with the national meeting and the once-a-year donation to the camp. Every local chapter is encouraged to find ways to support Glenmary.

Three young women from Ramapo College in New Jersey were bursting with pride as they told the story of how their chapter raised over $500 in a sorority/fraternity “penny toss.” And a group from Northern Kentucky University spoke about how their chapter has participated in the Appalachian Group Volunteer Program at the Glenmary Farm.

It is the quality of Glenmary’s service to the spiritually and materially poor in rural America that attracts even non-Catholic members to continue to embrace Glenmary as their national philanthropy, says Ellen Csikai, a member of Theta Phi Alpha’s Founder’s Foundation board and its primary contact to Camp Friendship.

Glenmary Father Richard Kreimer, “chaplain” at Theta Phi Alpha’s leadership conference in Dayton, says Glenmary welcomes groups such as Theta Phi Alpha to share in the task of passing along a sense of Glenmary’s mission to a new generation of mission partners.