By: Ana Corona (Theta Omega, Marquette University)
Where is home for you? – This may seem like one of the easiest questions to answer. One or two words, max. For some reason, I always find myself over-explaining and just confusing the curious individual standing in front of me. In short, I feel as though home is wherever my family is. With that said, I wholeheartedly believe in falling in love with places that make you feel at home and in return having them take a little bit of your heart. These are the places that you can’t help but smile from ear to ear just at the thought of the beautiful memories you made there.
It’s true. A house quickly became my home, and weirdly enough, I didn’t actually live there.
On August 21, the Theta Omega chapter of Alpha Chi Omega at Marquette University was blessed with the opportunity of moving into a brand-new facility, which we now call our beautiful home.
I have had the honor and humbling opportunity to serve as the chapter president for the women of this chapter through a year filled with an immense amount of growth and transition. One thing I know for sure is that this year was the year of emails…and lots of them! A new facility comes with many moving pieces including many points of contact for specific tasks and making sure everything is set to go for the long-awaited day when our women get to move in.
I couldn’t help but light up with excitement every time I would receive an email or phone call from the incredible and diligently hardworking people that helped make this possible – including the Alpha Chi Omega National Housing Corporation and CSL Management. These individuals provided our VP facility operations, Katie Ferro, along with myself all of the tools necessary to ensure everything stayed on track and most importantly that our chapter members would be ecstatic on move-in day. I can speak for all of our women when I say that no words can ever be enough to thank them for the countless hours they put into building this home and everything in between.
After just one semester of being able to call this new facility our home, we have made countless unforgettable memories. On any given day, you could always count on the lovely mess and masterpiece of playing a five-hour long video of a fireplace on the second floor TV where Claire sipped her tea on the couch next to Shannon and Ana as they reviewed their nursing PowerPoint slides. Their serenity was met with the first floor madness of Katie T. baking her mouthwatering, chocolatey brownies and Megan, Madison, Maddie, Sammy and Katie F. yelling out every lyric to their favorite songs. The third floor had the seniors sprawled out on the nap-worthy sectional with their cozy blankets, and the fourth floor was filled with the most beautiful, crafty seasonal decorations and of course, delicious pizza.
We held our weekly executive board meetings in the chapter room; we had our fall bid day at the house due to unpredictable Milwaukee weather; our VP philanthropy, Mary Claire, invited sisters to the house for DVA-related movies to help educate them; and I even had my two worlds collide by having my boss from University Tees come to the house to help host an event to give all of our members free Kendra Scott items and new T-shirts. I could go on forever, but these are just a handful of the memories that I will cherish forever and that have helped me call this new house my home.
Although I do not live there, which is a story for another time, this house has quickly become a glowing promise of safe shores filled with authentic love, sisterhood and too many belly laughs to count. It has made me fall deeper in love with my chapter and made me even more thankful for the crazy journey that Alpha Chi Omega has put me on. It is an uncontainable and inexpressible kind of love. So for that and so much more, all I can say is, thank you to everyone that helped make this all possible. There is no doubt in my mind that the best is yet to come, not only for our current members, but for all of the young, strong women that we will soon be calling our sisters. This is our home, and I cannot wait for it to be their home too.