By Gal Tziperman Lotan, News Staff

Quick, think of sorority girl stereotypes.
Is the ability to orchestrate 12 community service events in one semester while taking a full load of classes and being involved with two other student groups one of them?
‘It’s a really important part of being in a sorority, giving back to the community,’ said Katie Sharpe, Sigma Sigma Sigma’s community service chair.
Because of her community service work with the sorority and other student groups, Sharpe was elected community service chair of the Panhellenic Council’s executive board for the fall semester.
Every sister in Northeastern’s Sigma Sigma Sigma chapter has met her 10 hours-per-semester community service requirement, and some have racked up more than 50 hours, Sharpe said. A few have done nearly 100 hours of service.
Sharpe, a senior international affairs and political science major from Summit, N.J., said she has been volunteering since she was 3 years old.
As a toddler, she helped her mother cook for Bridges-Lunches, a now-defunct program which distributed homemade lunches to homeless people living under bridges in New York City.
‘That really sparked my interest in community service,’ she said. ‘While we were making lunches, my mom would teach me about homeless people and that you need to help others that are in need.’
Cassandra Gleed, president of Sigma Sigma Sigma, described Sharpe as hardworking, enthusiastic and personable.
‘Her excitement is almost contagious. She offers an event or project at every meeting,’ Gleed said. ‘She’s very bubbly and approachable, very sweet and willing to help someone, even if it has nothing to do with her chair.’
At Northeastern, Sharpe joined the Progressive Student Alliance (PSA) after hearing about the Justice for Janitors campaign.
‘They were helping people on campus that really needed a voice,’ she said. ‘That was very attractive to me.’
Sharpe was secretary of PSA this semester and is running for vice president in the fall during today’s election. The group has branched out from helping janitors and is now working with the Student Government Association to provide fair-trade coffee options throughout the university among other projects, she said.
Carlotta Starks, former PSA president, said Sharpe was instrumental in getting contacts in local non-profits for the Justice for Janitors campaign.
‘She brings enthusiasm to everything she does,’ Starks said. ‘She’s dedicated and compassionate, which is why she’s involved in so many things, but she is also able to get things done.’
Sharpe is also leading a group through the Husky Volunteer Team, working with Downtown Crossing homeless shelter Boston Rescue Mission.
The team goes to the shelter at least once a week at lunch or dinner time to help distribute food, she said.
‘First you serve 100 homeless people, mostly men, then the residents of the Mission come down and eat, too,’ she said. ‘Getting to interact with the people is a great experience.’
While looking for community service groups to work with for Sigma Sigma Sigma, Sharpe said she thought the Rescue Mission could give sorority sisters a good volunteer experience.
‘I figured, if we could do this for the Husky Volunteer Team, we can do it for Sigma too,’ she said. Four of 12 service projects she planned during spring semester were at the Rescue Mission.
Sharpe is also the secretary for Northeastern Students for Giving, which she said acted as a board of directors to distribute a grant the university received last semester to groups working against youth violence.
‘Northeastern got a grant for $15,000 with the stipulation that they had to give away half to community-based organizations,’ she said.
With the help of three human services classes, Northeastern Students for Giving distributed $8,100 between anti-violence group Hyde Square Task Force, South End shelter Hayley House, which has a soup kitchen and organic farm, and Urban Edge, a Roxbury-based community development corporation.
‘They all had specific requests that directly linked to youth violence, and they’re all very established organizations,’ Sharpe said.
Sharpe, who said she hopes to work at a non-profit after graduation, said the group gave her an opportunity to see what that professional domain would be like.
College students’-especially those who live off-campus should give back to the community when they can, she said.
‘In Mission Hill, they could say, ‘No Northeastern students,’ but they don’t,’ Sharpe said. ‘It’s really important that we give back to them because they give so much to us.’
Despite all the charity work the sorority was doing on Sharpe’s watch, she said she did not think it was out of the ordinary.
‘When I gave my speech for the Panhellenic [council], people were kind of in awe of the things my chapter has done,’ she said. ‘There are so many people, especially in urban areas, that really need the help, and we’re perfectly capable of giving it to them, so we might as well.’