Area Deltas known for tutoring, health projects and scholarships

Founded in 1913 by 22 students at Howard University in Washington, D.C., the celebrated sorority has more than 900 chapters in at least eight countries.

Edyth Cole, a Delta member for almost 50 years who credits her parents for instilling a passion for helping others, said that the sorority’s community involvement attracted her to the organization.

Before going to college she became impressed with the sorority when a friend’s mother and sister, who were Delta members, started taking her with them to various service projects sponsored by the group.

“So when I went to Wilberforce University (in Ohio) I knew that I wanted to be a Delta,” Cole confirmed. She joined the sorority in December 1966.

Clemmie Webster, who initially attended the University of Louisville but received her degrees from the University of Illinois, said that Delta members seem friendly and “more like me.”

“I’m a Delta from the beginning to the end,” boasted Webster, a sorority member since 1943.

Both Norma Holland and LaVon Wilson attended Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri, when they pledged Delta two years apart.

Holland, who joined the sorority in 1951, said that after observing members of different sororities she liked the attitude of the Delta women best. “The Delta ladies seem freer and more outgoing and didn’t seem stuck up,” she said. “And I liked the Delta colors.”

Similar to Cole, Wilson too felt a connection with the Delta group because of its community outreach services.

When she came on board, the sorority was actively helping the local community with a mental health initiative and subsequently moved to help other civic organizations in the local area, explained Wilson, who became a Delta member in 1953.

These four women, along with 14 others, officially formed the Springfield-Decatur Area Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority. Four of those charter members are deceased, according to the group’s historian, Yvonne Singley.

Wilson said that Delta members who resided in Springfield became weary driving to St. Louis once a month to meet with the alumnae chapter there.

Consequently, someone suggested forming a Springfield chapter and, because of number requirements for an alumnae chapter, the local group merged with the Decatur members, she explained.

Also, members thought that a local chapter could help fulfill a potential need caused by the steady growth of the college community in Springfield, Holland said.

The group became a chartered alumnae chapter on Jan. 10, 1976.

Now 80 members make up the 40-year-old chapter, with Carolyn Farrar currently serving as its president, said Singley.

Delta is a public service sorority.

The chapter promptly started tutoring kindergartern through 12 th -grade students and sponsoring health initiatives, which they continue to do to this day, Cole explained.

The chapter conducts several programs each year such as La Petite, an enrichment seminar for eighth-grade African-American girls, and diabetes and cancer awareness, an educational program that focuses on these illnesses in the African-American community. Also, the group has awarded more than $100,000 to high school graduates.

Curtis Mann, Sangamon Valley Collection manager at Lincoln Public Library, has put together an exhibit honoring the 40 th anniversary of the Delta alumnae group that will be displayed until the end of March at the library at Seventh and Capitol streets in Springfield.

LaVern McNeese of Springfield is a wife, mother and grandmother who writes to inform and to improve. She may be contacted at [email protected].