In 1989 Kappa Alpha Theta adopted Court Appointed Special Advocates, otherwise known as CASA, as their official philanthropy. CASA is a service to help children who are going through the foster care system. The court system assigns trained CASA volunteers’, also known as guardian ad litems, to specific cases of abused or neglected children. The volunteer is usually the only constant person in the child’s life. They are the shoulder for the child to cry on and the smile to brighten the child’s day. Once the volunteer has interviewed the parents, contacted caseworkers, made sure medical care was given as needed, and encouraged their education, they recommend a safe and permanent home for the child. Since 1977 volunteers have helped more than two million children. In 2007 more than 59,000 volunteers were able to represent the best interest of 243,000 children. Kicks for CASA is Eta Omicron’s main philanthropy event of the fall. The main component of the event is a kickball tournament which consists of groups of 8-10 teams from fraternities and sororities, as well as other clubs and other organizations around campus. We want to reach out to the entire university community and get the whole school excited about CASA. There is a guys' and a girls' brackets and then the "Bragging Rights" game in which the top guys' and girls' teams go against each other for the bragging rights until next year. Also included in Kicks for CASA are many smaller events. We encourage each team to participate in a banner making competition and penny wars. At the end of this week long event, we tally up all the points from the kickball games, banners, and penny wars and declare a winner.
