The Alpha Alpha Rho Zeta Chapter of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority Inc. celebrated the first year of its inception.
Members of the chapter gathered Sunday in the New Haven home of Alpha Alpha Rho Zeta President Lisa McDowell-Kellman to celebrate the milestone anniversary.
Though the chapter is based in Norwalk, 12 sorority members from both cities chartered the chapter. The gathering was a time also to celebrate Women’s History Month and commemorate what members of the 96-year-old sorority calls “Finer Womanhood,” which is celebrated during the last full week of February and throughout the month of March, according to the sorority’s national Website.
“Service, scholarship, sisterly love and finer womanhood are the ideals of Zeta Phi Beta,” according to sorority member Carla Morrison.
The gathering drew not only several of the chapter’s charter members, who now live throughout the state. It also attracted members who have restored their local connections to the sorority who wanted “to celebrate and reclaim their pledge to this illustrious sisterhood,” Morrison added.
Zeta Phi Beta Sorority Inc. is the first member of the National Pan-Hellenic Council—the collaborative organization of the nine, historically black greek letter organizations — to charter a graduate chapter on the African continent.
Alpha Alpha Rho Zeta President Lisa McDowell-Kellman presented the chapter with a gift of the chartering members names etched in a wooden frame during the festivities.