Every semester on Brock Commons, a group of men ride bikes for 24 hours to raise money for their philanthropy, The Ability Experience. Most people pass them, give them a smile, a wave, but most do not understand the passion behind Longwood’s Epsilon Gamma chapter of Pi Kappa Phi’s annual bike-a-thon and the other philanthropic events they host every semester.
Pi Kappa Phi is the only national fraternity to have started their own philanthropy and The Ability Experience is the exclusive philanthropy of the national social Greek fraternity.
The Ability Experience, formerly known as Push America, is a non-profit that has developed national programming that promotes positive understanding of people with disabilities and raises money for greater disability accessibility and acceptance. It was founded in 1977 with the “purpose of instilling lifelong service in our fraternity members and serving people with disabilities,” according to the philanthropy’s website.
At Longwood, the brothers of Pi Kappa Phi continue to spread the mission of The Ability Experience through their own campus programs such as various bike-a-thons, water balloon contests, push up contests, a penny wars competition and much more.
Their main and most known philanthropic event is their annual bike-a-thon. The bike-a-thon happens once every semester and goes from 9:00 a.m. until 9:00 a.m. the next day, making it a total of 24 hours that Pi Kappa Phi fraternity brothers continuously bike throughout the day and night, as people donate money to The Ability Experience.
Pi Kappa Phi’s philanthropy chairman Stephen Laitinen said, “We are basically biking for 24 hours because a lot people with disabilities can’t. So we do it for them and raise awareness at the same time.”
Besides biking for a day, the brothers had to rent bikes from the ller gym, set up tents to sleep in and spread the word about their event to the community in order to raise money. As a result of that, they raised over $300 at this semester’s bike-a-thon alone and are hoping to raise more money at other philanthropy events that are still to come throughout the year.
Junior Pi Kappa Phi member Matt Ward said, “The bike-a-thon is the most exhausting day of your life, but also extremely rewarding. It builds awareness as well as raises money, both of which are important. Without awareness, no one would make an effort to impact the lives of others in a positive way.”
Going beyond Longwood’s bike-a-thon, The Ability Experience also has national bike races that began when a brother from another university organized a team and rode across the United States in order to bring more attention to the philanthropy. Because of that, sending a brother to be a part of one of the national bike races is a goal of the Epsilon Gamma chapter of Pi Kappa Phi at Longwood.
Laitinen said, “You have to raise, I believe five or six thousand dollars per person to get out their and do it and we have had a couple guys try, but none who have officially been able to do it yet. We hope that one day we can have someone ride nationally from our chapter.”
Throughout the United States, undergraduate chapters of Pi Kappa Phi take their time to serve people with disabilities in their local communities.
At Longwood, Pi Kappa Phi brothers volunteer locally to help Joshua Bolt, a 14-year-old boy from Buckingham, Va. who has cerebral palsy. The brothers help Bolt on the weekends with physical therapy and also started him a GoFundMe page where people can donate money to help Bolt’s family with medical equipment costs.
The Epsilon Gamma chapter of Pi Kappa Phi has raised thousands of dollars over the years for people with disabilities and The Ability Experience, contributing to the millions of dollars and millions of volunteer hours that all chapters combined as a whole have raised for the national philanthropy.
Sophomore Phi Kappa Phi brother Scott Yowell said, "When I joined Pi Kappa Phi, I realized how important philanthropy truly was to the organization through the first hand experience of participating in various events such as Relay for Life, War of the Roses and of course the bike-a-thon. Helping others is always something that I was interested in and my fraternity gave me the platform to actually pursue that passion and make a difference in the community.”
Pi Kappa Phi still has more philanthropy events coming up next semester such as another bike-a-thon, War of the Roses and Penny Wars, in which all of the proceeds will go to The Ability Experience.
Laitinen said, “One of the biggest things we pride ourselves on is our philanthropy. We really want to get out and help the community and give back, not for recognition but just to do good.”
