Service fraternity holds food drive in remembrance of member

Alpha+Phi+Omega+staff+package+food+in+remembrance+of+Krzysztof+Jablonski+on+Sunday.

Alpha Phi Omega staff package food in remembrance of Krzysztof Jablonski on Sunday.

In remembrance of Alpha Phi Omega member Krzysztof Jablonski who passed away last year, the non-profit service fraternity held a food drive in the Illini Union Sunday.

Jablonski was a dedicated member of the fraternity who spent his time helping others in the community, said Kari Wozniak, alumnus and chapter advisor. To remember him for the work he did, the fraternity has organized three programs centered around the pillars of leadership, friendship and service. Those programs include a scholarship, a brotherhood award and a food drive.

Approximately 25 students volunteered to package food for two hours to complete the service pillar. They worked in partnership with Illini Fighting Hunger (IFH), a Registered Student Organization, and the Eastern Illinois Foodbank.

During the event, IFH supplied the food and packaging for the meals, and it will help the fraternity distribute the meals to community members that suffer from hunger.

Wozniak said she was one of Jablonski’s best friends, and helped coordinate the service event in his honor. She said she hopes the fraternity will make the food packaging event an annual service event for the fraternity.

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“He held countless leadership roles, he brought a lot of change to the chapter; one of the big things he did was he was a pledge trainer and he implemented a whole new education program,” she said. “He was a very well-known and well-loved brother in the chapter, and he did a lot and he cared a lot about people and about developing.”

Along with honoring Jablonski through this service event, the fraternity also began a scholarship program in September. The scholarship will send brothers to APO conferences each semester to help them develop leadership skills and network with fellow fraternity members. To cement the friendship pillar, the fraternity will give a brotherhood award to one member during the spring break banquet for the first time this year.

Louis Blanc, a senior in the College of Engineering, is responsible for setting up the scholarship fund. He said that Jablonski was a leader who helped other members grow, and this scholarship honors Jablonski’s name and the work he did by facilitating an opportunity for future fraternity members to continue to develop as leaders.

Wozniak said the fraternity hopes to continue the work Jablonski did through leadership, friendship and service events.

In the future, Wozniak said APO brothers would like to coordinate more fundraising events for the scholarship. However, it does not currently have any concrete plants.

“We wanted to do those things in his honor. Those three principles are ones that the fraternity lives by, but that was what he lived by,” Wozniak said. “We’re just trying to do our best to keep that legacy going.”

Ruge can be reached at [email protected].