Alpha Phi hosts High Heel Walk for women’s heart health awareness

By: Heather Scheweiss, staff writer

Alpha Phi hosted its spring philanthropy event, the High Heel Walk, promoting Women’s Heart Health Feb. 23.

The mile-long walk and 5K around campus helped raise money for the Alpha Phi Foundation.

“Heart health should be important to any woman because heart disease happens to be the number one killer of woman,” Bailey Huckins, vice president of marketing and sophomore in psychology, said. “So it’s important to take all the precautions you can to prevent heart disease. Putting on the event is just a way to recognize the risk of heart disease.”

Not only is heart disease the number one killer of women in the United States, according to Jordan Smith, vice president of risk management, senior in vocal performance said, but it’s also the number one most often misdiagnosed disease in women because women show different symptoms than men.

“Women’s heart health should be important to everyone, not just female students or our sisters, because everyone has female family members, girlfriends, wives and best friends, who can be impacted by heart disease,” Smith said. “It is very important to our sorority because almost everyone has a family member or friend who has been impacted by heart disease.”

For the past six years, the Alpha Phi’s have held the High Heel Walk. Alpha Phi raised $3,000 and had around 200 people participate in the event. New this year to the High Heel Walk was the “Pie a Phi,” held the Thursday before the walk.

According to Smith, “for a small donation, people were able to throw a “pie” (a plate of whipped cream) at any of [Alpha Phi’s] members.”

Alpha Phi wasn’t the only Greek organization to help out. The members received help from other Greek organizations, along with the Student Nursing Association.

“Philanthropy is so important to not only Alpha Phi but to the other Greek organizations on campus. We always try to uphold the value of community service to the best of our ability,” Huckins said. “Everyone needs everyone in this world and if we can’t come together to try to make this world a better place then why are we here. I just hope that this event opened the eyes of many out there that a group so small can make a big difference.”

According to Smith, “putting together the event by going out and getting sponsors, asking our friends, family, and fellow students to participate in the walk, and setting up for the event as well as seeing the final product put together really strike home with our members how influential an event like this can be.”

Planning for the event starts all over almost as soon as the event ends.

The chapter is in charge of getting the word out there and getting people to the event.

The girls are also responsible for asking local businesses to sponsor Alpha Phi, as well as getting fellow students, family and friends to join in on the High Heel Walk.

“The preparation for this event isn’t the easiest thing to do! As the vice president of marketing, you have to spend a lot of time getting everything ready as well as all the little details,” Huckins said. “It’s a long process but worth every minute of it.”

“I hope my fellow sisters take away the crucial importance of helping others from this event. We can’t just be about ourselves,” Huckins said. “Everyone is having a good time walking and running and talking to others around them. It’s something so simple as walking but it makes an impact.”

Junior Michelle Tomeï, director of finance, said she hoped newly initiated members learned the importance of philanthropy with the High Heel Walk.

“They also learned teamwork,” Tomeï said. “This could not have been pulled off with only a few girls. The whole chapter worked together and contributed to make this event a success.”