Carmen Luisa Coya is president & chief media strategist for Effective Media Co.
Growing up in Miami as a daughter of a Cuban exile and a Dominican, I blended in with the millions of Hispanics that were transplants from the Northeast, and from their respective Caribbean countries.
My family raised me to give like Christ taught, to love unconditionally, and be a servant evangelist. When I began my studies at Florida International University in the fall of ‘89, the North Campus was heavily populated with transient students that worked full-time and studied part-time.
As I began to navigate the waters of collegiate life, looking for organizations that upheld the values that were instilled in me as a cradle Catholic Latina.
When I learned about Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc., it was not difficult to identify with their foundational values.
Since Jan. 16, 1920, Zeta Phi Beta, founded at Howard University, is recognized world-wide as a service organization that promotes finer womanhood, scholarship, service and sisterly love.
This year we celebrate 96 years of service worldwide. Their force in the community is to be reckoned with. From working with young mothers in a project started here in Atlanta called the Stork Nest, which helps young mothers during their pregnancy in collaboration with the March of Dimes, to teaming up with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services in order to engage more urban youth in they studies of biological sciences and healthful activities in nature.
These ladies reflect the selfless values of service and promoted scholarship among those who were most forgotten.
Our five founders: Arizona Cleaver Stemons, Pearl Anna Neal, Myrtle Tyler Faithful, Viola Tyler Goings and Fannie Pettie Watts took to heart the pearl of loving each other as sisters.
This familial love is so strong that it extends to our Phi Beta Sigma brothers, and together with Zeta Phi Beta we go down in history as the first official Greek Organization that is brother and sister.
The strength and loving bond of the blue and white family can be seen visibly when we work together in varied communities across the nation supporting the voiceless, uplifting those in need, and standing shoulder to shoulder with other Greek Organizations to shed light on the importance of working together in every sector of society.
Their auxiliary groups targeting youth help cultivate a love early on to raise the academic standard and promote the love that conquers some of the atrocities impacting our society today.
The Zetas leave their mark in the arts with sisters like Dionne Warwick, Sheryl Underwood, Esther Rolle and the literary brilliance of Zora Neal Hurston.
The Zeta’s have cemented themselves in various pages of history including Violette Anderson as the first African American female attorney-at-law admitted to practice before the Supreme Court and the first African-American female to hold the rank of Rear Admiral in the U.S. Navy, Lillian E. Fishburne.
Without doubt the Zeta’s have impacted their communities in all aspects of what helped shape society with many firsts.
I am the first Cuban-Dominican to become of member of Zeta Phi Beta’s Sigma Delta chapter, then a citywide chapter in Miami.
I was embraced as one of their own from the very start. We in the blue and white family are humbled to serve some of our greatest civil rights leaders.
Being a Zeta is not just about being a part of an organization, but also embodying the principals of our founders: dedication to scholarly work, service, sisterhood and finer womanhood.
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