International President’s Message

Share the Love

2021-2023

Alpha Delta Kappa

Share Your Gift. Florida’s Immediate Past State President, Nina Coe, spent a couple of weeks in the hospital in late February and early March recovering from a fall. She is doing quite well now, thankfully. In conversations with her doctors and nurses during her stay, she talked about how wonderful this organization of women educators is. Her care team noticed and commented on all of the support that was showered on Nina by her Alpha Delta Kappa sisters. One of Nina’s nursing assistants told Nina about a good friend of hers who was in a teacher preparation program. Nina gave the assistant information about our website. Two hours later, the assistant came back totally excited and said her friend had looked at the website and was very interested in joining our organization when she became a teacher. Nina said to me that this would be her message from now on: “No more excuses. If I can recruit from inside the hospital, we all can.” Each One, Reach One. Thank you, Nina, for using your gifts of passion and communication to reach one and offer the gift of membership in Alpha Delta Kappa.

As sisters in Alpha Delta Kappa, you share your gifts every day. Each of you brings your own unique gifts to your chapter and beyond. You bring gifts of time, resources, energy – and that immeasurable gift that comes from the heart, passion. In this issue you will read about many sisters’ gifts, gifts that enrich fellow sisters and communities near and far. And you will see the first in a series of articles leading up to the 2023 International Convention to be held July 13-16, 2023 in Kansas City where we will celebrate the 75th anniversary of Alpha Delta Kappa. We turn 75 officially on August 13, 2022. Many thanks to Terry Peyton, Immediate Past IVP, Gulf Region, for sharing her gift of creativity in designing the Anniversary graphic you’ll see. Sue Pelchat interviewed our oldest living Past International President, Ruth Walsh to kick off our look back at some of the history of our organization. Sue shares with us what a gift Ruth is to her Alpha Delta Kappa sisters. She is certainly an inspiration to me.

I have said before that Alpha Delta Kappa is much more than just another professional organization. We give a great deal in the way of scholarships and grants. The amount is well over $200,000 per year. We provide Disaster Relief for members and the community at large and we support our International Teacher Education (ITE) scholars from other countries

completing post-graduate studies in the United States. We have supported St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital since 1981 and last year alone raised more than $220,000 for the Alzheimer’s Association’s The Longest Day (TLD) campaign to help find a cure for Alzheimer’s and other dementia illnesses. We have raised funds to educate children in Vietnam, Peru, Haiti, on the Lakota Indian reservation in South Dakota and now in Tanzania. As an organization we give many gifts to make the world a better place. However, we are able to make that difference only through the willingness of each of YOU as individual sisters because you CHOOSE to share your gifts. It is the giving of yourself to support fellow educators and leaders within Alpha Delta Kappa that touches my heart the Mollie Acosta most. It is those of you who are retired members choosing to volunteer in a sister’s classroom and you who send love notes or care packages to those educators who have struggled under such difficult circumstances these past two years, as well as you who knit baby caps or call bingo games or quilt something beautiful to give to a fellow sister – your individual acts of sharing make Alpha Delta Kappa MORE than just another professional organization. A special gift of the heart is the gift of mentoring. Alpha Delta Kappa sisters are mentored at many levels within the organization. Ellen Roderick, MD Beta and former Chairman of the International Executive Board, started the first formal mentoring program, the Regional Mentor Program for S/P/N Presidents-Elect, in 2004. Since that time, 40 sisters have served as mentors to their region’s presidents-elect. I would like to express my deep gratitude to the 2020-2022 Regional Mentors led by Chairman Wanda McCampbell. Linda Chambers, Ivette Bender, Kerry King, Glad Loreen, Connie Cathey and Mitzi Holmes, along with Wanda, an incredible team who have continued to meet the needs of their presidents-elect throughout the pandemic. They have chosen to share their gifts of being good listeners and communicators, good leaders and learners and especially their gift of passion for Alpha Delta Kappa. It is this gift that comes from the heart for which I am most grateful. Whatever your gifts, we all know that sharing them with others enriches not only those with whom you share, but also yourself. You and your unique gifts make Alpha Delta Kappa and the world better. I thank you and your sisters thank you for sharing your gifts.