Many local homeless women are unable find shelters, so the Kappa Alpha Thetas decided to do something about it.
“Helpline is opening a new women’s homeless shelter in Walla Walla. Right now they have a homeless shelter for men and one for families and one for battered women. But the battered women’s shelter is always full and it’s really hard to get into so they’ve been having to turn a lot of women away,” said sophomore Tegan Klein.
She helped organize a Theta car wash, which took place on Apr. 25. All donations went toward building the new shelter.
About halfway through the car wash, Klein said that the event was a big success so far.
“It opened at 9, but we didn’t get any cars until about 9:45. Since then it’s been going strong! We’ve been asking for $10, but most people have been giving $20, which is nice. We also got a check from one of our alumns who couldn’t come, but thought the cause was great,” she said.
Klein said that this is the Thetas’ first spring philanthropy project. Other events that they have partaken in recently were a cleanup at the Kirkman Museum with Beta Theta Pi, a Valentine’s Party at the Oddfellows senior center, and Mentees to Campus Day. In the fall they host a pancake feast called Cakes for CASA. CASA stands for Coart Appointed Special Advocates. It helps children get advocacy in the courts, and it is Thetas’ national philanthropy organization.
“We’re very dedicated to our service, and we’re girls who love to give our time,” Klein said. “We get really enthusiastic about our causes.”
Some of the customers were pretty enthusiastic, too.
“One person came up to us and was like ‘Oh I’m so excited, you guys don’t even have to was the car, just get the windshield clean!’ because her windshield was filthy and she couldn’t see through it. We still washed the car, though,” said Klein.
Most customers left their keys with the girls and then came back for the car later. First year Alexe Helmke said that she got to meet a lot of alumns who were waiting for their cars, including some talkative ones.
“One guy got really interested and intrigued by how many foreign cars there were here. So he talked about that a lot, and then after that he took like 30 minutes to come back and get his car,” she said.
Most of the cars belonged to alumni, since the event was conveniently scheduled during a reunion. Klein said that this was done on purpose, and that they had placed the event in the alumni weekend calendar.
“It was mostly alums, but there were a few students too,” first-year Kelsie Baher said. “We also had a couple bike washes. And actually a golf-cart wash.”
The Thetas raised $877 overall.
Sophomore and Theta sorority president Laura Van der Veer said, “The car wash was a huge success and I hope that we make it an annual, or maybe even biannual event.”
