Galentine's Day: The New Wave of Love

Stemming off of the Roman festival of Lupercalia, Valentine’s day has been celebrated worldwide as early as the end of the 5th century. While celebrating love is magical, the Hallmark capitalized holiday has turned into an excuse to right your wrongs with a bouquet or a heart-shaped box of chocolates. Celebrating love isn’t wrong, especially celebrating love with your partner, however, Valentine’s day has seemingly turned into a holiday of people all over the world self-loathing, questioning as to why they don’t have a Valentine. Kappa Kappa has been breaking these boundaries, celebrating Galentine’s Day. Popularized from a 2010 episode of Parks and Recreation, Galentine’s Day is seen as a celebration of best friends. Ally General, Kappa Kappa’s VP of Chapter Development, hosted multiple events to celebrate Galentine’s Day. Her main event was a Galentine’s Day and secret sister gift exchange celebration, however, Ally took it the extra mile and hosted February blind dates.

For February, Ally wanted to create a whole season of love. The secret sister gift exchange was randomly generated, meaning sisters could have been shopping for someone they may not completely know, which ultimately created excitement for the sisters who participated. For one of her CD chapters, she also hosted a night full of love languages. Ally wanted to take the opportunity for sisters to find out their love language and connect, as she believes, “Everyone expresses and needs love in different ways. That is a priority of mine, to make sure every person is loved the way they need to be.” Ally also kick started blind dates this month. For these blind dates, sisters would sign up and would get assigned to other sisters for a sisterly date. Ally described that at first, it can be uncomfortable when you initially join a chapter. She expressed that new members are instantly greeted with 100+ new sisters, so although we all love one another, we don’t know each other very well. This can be especially intimidating for new members joining the chapter. The longer an active member is a part of the organization, the harder and more awkward it can be to try and make new connections. When discussing her role as VP of Chapter Development, she described, “…the idea that me being that one person 117 girls can come to and open up emotionally to isn’t realistic. I love the idea of kind of reliving, ‘Oh, I’m meeting a new sister today!’ It’s the excitement of bringing the new member experience to active members.”

As for the future? Ally plans on making these blind dates monthly. Sisters can sign up for group dates or one on one dates. They have the freedom to decide whatever fits within their budget, whether it’s doing an activity or catching dinner. For the upcoming month, Ally decided to add an option for sisters to express if there are any sisters they wanted to get to know better. She’s excited to see where these blind dates go in the future, as she stated, “When a chapter gets comfortable, that can be an issue. You should never get comfortable. There is always something new.”

Kappa Kappa is so proud of all of the new ideas and hard work Ally has put into her position thus far. We cannot wait to see her continue to shine her light and bring love and joy to the chapter!