Malvernite heads service fraternity at Adelphi

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When Malvernite Christian Albano, 21, was attending Valley Stream North High School several years back, he said, he didn’t make the most of his high school experience. “I was shy and not very outgoing,” he said.

Today, Albano, a junior studying political science at Adelphi University, is anything but shy, and is president of the university’s Kappa Sigma fraternity, president of the Student Government Association, holds two jobs at the university and is a member of the university’s Honors College.

And that’s just skimming the surface.

Albano credits much of his involvement in extracurricular activities to the Kappa Sigma fraternity, an organization that focuses on four operational “pillars.” “We focus on fellowship, which is the brotherhood aspect of all the events we do; academics — because we want whoever comes to our fraternity to do it with honors; leadership — because we want everyone to get involved and develop themselves as leaders; and service — because we want to give back to the community,” he said.

According to Albano, the fraternity brought out the best in him because he wouldn’t have ever done student government if it wasn’t for his brothers encouraging him to do it.

Leo Brown, Kappa Sigma’s director of chapter services in Charlottesville, Va., isn’t surprised. “We see this a lot with a lot of our undergrads, and I think I can say the same thing about myself,” said Brown. “What makes our fraternity unique is our ‘greater cause’ initiative. We’re really focused on giving back to our communities not only on the local level, but state and national levels too. They’ve definitely embraced that at Adelphi over the past eight years.”

According to its Wikipedia page, Kappa Sigma is one of the largest international fraternities in North America, and is a leading American fraternity in terms of pledges and new members, service hours, and philanthropic donations. In 2012 alone, the fraternity’s endowment fund raised over $1 million in donations.

One of the ways Albano has led the fraternity’s community service was through the Sleep Out for Soldiers event, which was conducted to raise awareness about veterans in the United States. Albano, with the help of others in the fraternity, set up eight tents and slept overnight on the lawn of the campus. “It was really cold,” he said. One of the fraternity’s brothers enlisted in the military, was wounded in Iraq, came back to the United States and now attends Adelphi. “He joined last spring, he’s a sophomore and came in uniform to the event,” said Albano.

A recent event Albano helped orchestrate was the Super Hungerfest, a community service event based around the Super Bowl. “During the week leading up to the Super Bowl, we go around the community and say we’re going to be coming out for food donations, and we’ll in turn donate that to Island Harvest,” said Albano. “Then, 24 hours before Super Bowl, we all fast together so we don’t eat until 6 p.m. on Saturday to 6 p.m. on Sunday — just to raise awareness of hunger on Long Island.” They raised over 1,300 pounds of food through the event, had speakers from Island Harvest come to the campus and had bands entertain. At the end of the fast, Avellino’s and Malverne Deli, among other establishments, gave them food to end the fast.

After final exams have concluded, Albano will start studying to take the LSAT’s for his next milestone: law school. “I want to stay local and am interested in criminal law, and corporate law too,” he said. “But criminal law is fascinating.”