The FSU Alpha Sigma chapter of Delta Zeta sorority has pledged $10,000 per year for the next five years toward the School of Communication Science & Disorder’s planned Integrated Pre-School Program. The news comes following the chapter’s early completion of a five-year, $25,000 endowment for the L.L. Schendel Clinic through their Hamburgers for Hearing program.

“When we reached our funding goal by earning almost $10,000 during 2012, Phyllis asked us if we thought we could challenge ourselves to raise $50,000 in five years,” said Haylie Collins, Alpha Sigma president and former philanthropy chairman for Hamburgers for Hearing.

“Each year we got better and better at fundraising,” Delta Zeta faculty advisor Phyllis Underwood said. “We learned to network, to reach out to the community and to use creative ways of marketing to get more people to attend.”

Collins and Underwood also credited the assistance of more than 20 highly engaged local Delta Zeta alumnae who worked helping in the kitchen and who donated bottled water and baked cookies that generated funds for the endowment.

Delta Zeta’s national philanthropic partnerships focus on speech- and hearing-related causes. The school’s Integrated Pre-School program will bring together typically developing children and those with communication impairments. In addition to building out space on the first floor of the Warren Building, it will require increased security equipment, a playground and handicap accessibility.