City of Columbus, GA Columbus Connection, 19 May 2023

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From YouTube: Columbus Connections - Kappa Senior Week

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Columbus Connections - Kappa Senior Week

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Coming up next on Columbus connections, we are talking to an organization who has given out scholarships, mentoring, Youth and also helping senior citizens more information coming up stay tuned.

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Welcome to Columbus connections: I am your host David Brent and one thing that we do on Columbus connection is put the face of organizations who are doing great things in the community right in front of you now Columbus has many great organizations, and also many great fraternities and sororities that do more than just Collegiate stuff. They actually Gathering the community scholarships mentoring.

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So many amazing things that are needed right here in our area, and we are talking to just one of those organizations we are speaking with the men of Kappa Alpha Psi, Fraternity Incorporated, welcome, gentlemen good to have you guys here, give us your names um and tell us a little bit about what you have going on.

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Want to go first, yeah I'll go first, hey. My name is James tanksley I'm, the chairperson of the senior Capital committee, and one of my mission in life is to go ahead and make sure that the senior capitals which are 60 years and older are actively involved in the fraternity. Back and uh 2014.

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Our regional organization decided to the seniors were not being actively involved, and so we started from a regional level now up to the National level to keep the seniors involved. You're. Six and above we want you to come out and be active because most times seniors get a get cast to the side, and so we don't want senior members cast to decide because we got so much knowledge, yeah.

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We got so much experience good, like I tell folks all the time you need to put 40 years in the workforce in order to keep moving forward. Yeah.

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Know I've done that and I've retired twice and I'm a happy camper yeah moving forward, but what we've done? We had a senior Capital week, starting this week on the 15th thereabouts. We started out taking some fruit baskets to individuals that were sort of slightly homebound. Okay,.

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Make sure that they were recognized that they weren't forgotten. There were three of them, and so we we had a team of Brothers to go out and we did that and then we had the opportunity to do a Kappa luncheon and we did the Kappa luncheon at Ed's Barbecue on Woodruff Farm Road.

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You sound like a cue there, but we had something like 11 Brothers to show up and they had a good time yeah and most times when you get a group of men together with similar experiences, we talk about things and I said: I have 57 years in Kappa, so I got a little bit of experience. That I can share with the younger members and.

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Sort of gleam to some of the things I that I talk about gotcha and then further along the line. We went and did a a reading activity at Georgetown Elementary, which is our partner, Ned. Okay,.

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Tell me about that.

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Oh, we had a good time. uh I read to the kindergarteners and.

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You're talking about an active group of little people had a good time trying to listen, but at the same time they're active yeah, and here it is, you still try and bring them in, and you got the teacher saying trying to tell them be quiet, but that's okay, as a grandparent I can deal with that.

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But we had I had a good time interacting and then I had five other brothers working with other classes uh doing reading, and so that's sort of like a continuous program and give a plug for the chairman of that committee, which is Reggie Thompson Roger.

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Yeah so he made.

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The all the arrangements for us and.

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Jason, you all also do scholarships.

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Yes, we do uh cap is here in Columbus, is active in a lot of avenues as brother tanksley was speaking on um senior Capital week and senior cabin week is a celebration for senior campus for that week, but our senior capitalists are active throughout the year, but also yes, we do do scholarship.

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um Our our intent um was to increase the amount of monies that we're given to our kids in the community.

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Times are going around, you see the perils that our young people are having to be faced with in these times, so we're trying to actively combat that trying to give individuals an opportunity. So this year we are giving out thirteen thousand dollars worth of scholarship money to graduating high school seniors in the uh Muskogee County and Phoenix City area wow. That's amazing! We're trying to do something.

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um But we just feel that in our community, Kappa has to play a role and we have to reach out and touch everybody, our seniors, our high school people, our adults, and we have various committees that address different things, but we're in the season now of kids, graduating right and- and we want to just do what we can do to kind of get them a head start on their college Endeavor right.

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So this we actually had a goal of ten thousand um and we had a certain number of applicants, but our scholarship committee um and in conjunction with our foundation, our achievement Foundation. We wanted to not turn anybody down that applied, so all applicants that applied receive some money from the scholarship. That's amazing! So that's that's. What we're doing now.

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Right and tell us about some of the mentoring activities that you all do as well. Well,.

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I guess you could say, take your pick. We have. uh We have a Kappa League program and Kappa League is designed to Mentor um young individuals, young males and middle school and high school, and sometimes some Elementary, but our Capital league is founded around just trying to Mentor them. Try to educate them on certain things and and one thing about Kappa League is if the kids are at the Kappa League meeting, then we know at that time: they're not on the street right.

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So if we get them in the building, then we can do some things with them. Just talking about preparing for interviews and trying to hear what's on their mind right because I think a lot of times we as adults, we do a lot of talking and not enough listening. So we just try to listen to what those kids have going on because their world is different than ours. That's.

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An interesting part of mentoring that that you touched on mentoring, it's two-way! It's.

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Just preaching to the kids and tell them to do this: do this it's them feeling they have a safe space, correct to talk about what they're going through amongst themselves and amongst uh Elders that they respect most.

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Definitely um I think it's it's a non-judgmental, Zone, yeah um and and kids are faced with so much um having a space for them to be able to talk out their issues um in a setting that they feel comfortable um in a setting where they have people that look like them uh that have gone through some of the things that they may be going through, maybe in a different way.

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That's impactful um and and Kappa.

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The misconception is that if you're in Kappa League, you know uh is For Children of Kappa or you're supposed to be a captain, there are other organizations such as ours have mentoring programs too right um and it's not a competition um all of the Greek organizations collectively. If we can reach as many kids as possible, then.

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Can have an impact right right, so that's that's what we have going on right now, so.

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We're impacting everybody from the youth to adults to the seniors. Everybody tell us about some of the more some of the additional activities that you all do.

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um Well, in this year, uh we've we've done quite a few things. We gave out some. uh We we do a annual turkey giveaway. We do a. uh We did a Christmas toy giveaway at the hospital on the um pediatric cancer unit. On this Christmas um we hosted a provincial conference on the campus of Columbus State University.

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Wow so that bought some sales tax into the community as.

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Well, it did yeah, they brought some sales.

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And brought some work too yeah.

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The uh our fraternity on the um Columbus State University campus Ada Theta, is the undergraduate chapter that we supervise.

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um So it was also good to have our provincial section of our fraternity on our college campus to see our campus, because we have a beautiful campus here in Columbus Georgia.

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um That that was one of the things we did um I mean we've just had our hands in in everything. Even.

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Clean up yes, yeah clean up Habitat for Humanity.

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Yes, okay yeah, we did some Habitat for Humanity yeah, a.

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Lot we reach out all right. How can someone who's looking to either be a part of Kappa or looking to take advantage of some of the areas that you all meet, find out about the things that you all do find out more information well,.

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The easiest one of the easiest ways is, you can see. Our website is columbusganews.com and I'll, say it again: Columbus GA noobs.com, um which and I'm gonna take a minute to toot our own horn. We did have a. We did, get an award this year for a website of the year.

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We defended this award for a couple of years going going on consecutively now you can also send us an email at Columbus, GA, noops gmail.com, and once you send the email with your question, we will divot out to the to the right uh to the right area. Gotcha. That's amazing.

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Now tell me more about the seniors, how much you do with as far as showing senior appreciation. Why was that? Because that can't think that can be a very untouched area. There are so many needs with our youth, so many needs Without. You oftentimes as seniors can be ignored.

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Well, that's true, and that's one of the reasons why they came up with the senior Capital, because, though we do this Beyond senior Capital week, good example, uh I myself, I go out and I pick up one of the senior members that's no longer driving and I make sure that he make it to the meetings and also taking two appointments, and so that way he has some kind of a connection rather than being isolated at home. Yeah.

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You cannot drive you.

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Don't have a car and then also take him to church, and so what we try to do is make sure that if they have a need, we provide that need. And since we have some younger brothers, you know I can't go out and cut grass anymore.

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You can coordinate, who I can direct I've been trained by the.

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Best, and so we have, you know, divvy up resources to make things happen, but we want the senior members to be involved and not be neglected, just like uh grandfathers or whatever. Sometimes they feel neglected, because nobody come by to see them, they don't get visited, don't get no telephone calls you know, and so what we want to do is recognize those individuals that they've already made a contribution. So.

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You're you're in nursing homes.

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In fact, we should do the bingo at the nursing home over at Oak, Manor nursing home did that for about 20 plus years yeah, then the pandemic hit and so we're working on another thing we got the younger members that just went over in Kappa doing some uh bingo activities at a senior citizens assistant living right and so yeah. We're trying to do those things right.

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Give us the information again of how people can get in touch with you and find out more stuff.

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uh Again, they can check out our website. It's Columbus, GA, noops, Columbus, GA noobs at uh excuse me, our email address is columbusganews gmail.com. Our website is columbusganews.com. uh If you check our website out, you'll see all of the activities that we have going on um you also. We have a continuous stream of things that we post on our website that you will see every time. Kappa is doing something you'll see something that we post and we also try to highlight our brothers too.

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So you'll see things if we have brothers that have some achievement outside of Kappa. Even if occupational, a birthday things of that nature, you'll see that on our website um and then also from the email like I said earlier, is Columbus GA noobs gmail.com. If you send an email with a question, we'll get your question answered.

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Yeah absolutely thank you, gentlemen, for joining look forward to having you back with so much and again, thank you for all that you are doing in the community. We have so many organizations doing great things. There are so many needs in our community, but we are thankful that there are organizations that are right here feet on the ground looking to meet. Those needs you'll be hearing from more from these gentlemen, because they're going to be coming back, telling us more and more stuff that they're doing so again follow those links to find out.

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If you needed me, if you need a if you have a need to be met, reach out to those links. But again we want to thank these organizations, particularly Kappa Alpha, Psi, Fraternity Incorporated for being on the ground, Meeting those needs for our community and thanks for watching this is Columbus connection.

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