- that's going to do it for us today, but you can stay in touch by following us on social media and subscribing to our youtube channel. for our entire team, i'm charles davis. we'll see you next time on sports stars of tomorrow. (upbeat gentle music) (upbeat gentle music continues) (gentle music)

good morning and welcome to mosaic. i'm hosting mosaic, on behalf of our producer and cohost elizabeth egdale. our service is service to the community. our churches and our religions' efforts has always been concern about the community. it has never been just involved in the walls behind the churches as they say, the four walls. so we have been involved and concerned about our community from the inception of our ministries. i want to first shoutout to troy belton, advocated for good media, who has been so instrumental in the programs that we have brought to you for the last five months. he was up one morning and he has been a longtime friend and colleague. he saw the program and said that he would like to

suggest some guests to come and he has done that for the fifth time now. each guest has been wonderful and dynamic. and i anticipate the same today with the guests we have today from aka and that's jiharry lynx. >> good to be here. >> and ranicka cook green. >> thank you. >> tell us about your background and what made you involved in this organization that is so famous. >> yes, so i will backup and introduce myself. i'm the president of alphakai alphasorority. we have been serving the bay area community since 1929. and ranicka is the first vice president of the chapter. she is over all of our community service efforts. >> that's great. >> we are both bay area natives which is great. >> i heard that. >> and i joined when i was an

undergrad. as an undergraduate at california state university at long beach, i joined the lovely chapter, that's what we called it. and i have been active ever since i joined the sorority in 2002. since i have joined, i joined for a number of reasons but one, i'm very passionate about serving not just our local communities but internationally. i do travel abroad frequently to support with community efforts in africa. >> i saw that in your background. >> yeah, and locally, as a native of richmond, california, it is always a passion of mine to serve the community, the greater community. >> i was pastor of easter hill methodist church back in the '90s. . >> i know easter hill. >> and what about you?

>> i was initiated to the sorority in 2019, in the graduate chapter. i'm from san mateo. just the same, we are coming into the community and serving the community, not just the local community but the bay area. so i currently live in the east bay, being from the peninsula and got involved with the organization and have been working with the organization since then. >> so you went to high school in san mateo. >> holy high school. >> and you had a master's in leadership? >> yes, from the university of november at las vegas. it was a leadership program that focused on developing leadership skills to service in higher education and outside of that as well. currently, i am a recruiter,

town acquisition professional. i have recruited for several different organizations in the bay area. currently, i am recruiting for professional sports team in oakland. >> the oakland a's. >> maybe, i don't know. >> okay, okay. and you? >> i have a master's in counseling psychology from holy names university in oakland. i'm currently a community college counselor. so i work with community college students, helping them to transfer to four year college and universities or hbcus or things like that. >> that's great. this is a wonderful beginning. we will talk more about the akas after we come back. >> thank you. >> please join us with jahaury and ranika.

welcome back to mosaic. we have speaking to jahari and raniqua about their beginnings and involvement in their communities. a psychiatrist once said we have three basic needs. one is for safety, one for satisfaction, and the other is for connection. this is for organizations they represent, involved in connection and community involvement. so tell us a little bit about the akas.

>> sure. >> alphakappa alpha was founded at howard university on january 15, in 1908. so we have been serving the entire world since -- for 110 years. >> okay. >> and we have what we call the 20 pearls which means we have 16 founders and we have four women who incorporated our organization. and since our inception, we have been doing several things globally. you will edit this part, right? >> no, no, go ahead. >> sorry. okay. so we have been servicing our local communities with our mississippi health project as well as several other initiatives to encourage people to vote and we have also catered

to women and children who are in need of -- who are in need. >> i mentioned earlier that you met in houston. >> yes. currently we have about 300,000 members in our sorority as a whole. i believe it is more than that. and each four years we have a different program or area of focus. so we met in houston for what we call our international convention. and we at that point, our new international president was installed. she shared the new program that we will carry out in our local communities. and for anyone, it is exemplifying excellence, correct? >> yes. >> it has an emphasis on arts,

education enrichment, global impact as well as health. those are essentially areas of focus for our organization and areas that impact -- areas of need within the african american community specifically. >> we have a few members in our church that are active. you said as large a group as you have, not knowing everyone because there are many chapters. >> yes, there are. we are actually the second chapter, founded in a far western region. the sorority is divided by regions. and in california, we are considered being a part of the far western region. we are one of a number of chapteres. the second chapter chartered and the first chapter in northern california. we were chartered on june 8, and we have served the

bay area for 90 years. we have a large gala we are planning for next year. we will send you the invitation. >> and san juan is one of the members that has been active for 60 years. >> yes. >> she is really excited about that. and you are working with community service, i understand. >> yeah, the program which she talked about is exemplifying excellence through sustainability. we roll out a different program every four years. so this program is focusing on like we are going to do a program where it is soles for souls. we will donate shoes for children in haiti. and we will come together with the lions group and collect glasses. the platform is to help the community the best way we can and to be -- to help those in need and to make sure we are visible and that we are able to

help our communities and internationally also. >> to back up a little bit, what inspired you both to get involved on this level? >> yeah, so that's a great question and it is something that we were just talking about because it does require -- as a president and vice president of a chapter of 150 professional women, it can get a little busy. and we were just in our off season, during the summer months. those are typically our lighter months. we were just laughing about how things are starting to crank up a bit now. for my perspective, the passion i have for the organization, i believe in the organization's mission. it is a beautiful organization with amazing, amazingly talented women who contribute to the community. i'm happy to be a contributor from that standpoint, yes. it is

significant, thank you for that. >> i will say for myself, the notion of the sisterhood, i have 300,000 sisters. i can go to a different city and i can look up one of my sisters. and my son being the only child, the bond i have with the women is great. my bond with jahari but i have another 150 women i can bond with who i can go to and i may have a question about the program or i need help with that. i have 150 women i can go to along with the 200,000 women i can go to also. >> i recently heard quincy jones say that when musicians have to have passion, they have to have musical curiosity, and they have to be fearless. i hear one heard you mentioned, passion. so you seem to have that real passion for what you do and that's critical. >> yes. >> i know for me, it was something that was instilled in

me since undergrad. i was fortunate enough to have great people assist with my initiation. they never had a break in membership. they encouraged myself and my sisters to continue on that path as well. i have six sisters from undergrad and most of us have stayed active. and my younger sister from my undergraduate chapter is currently in the alphaomega chapter and she has stayed active as well. >> we will hear more in the next segment and this has been good. i'm sure people appreciate all the work you are doing. thank you for being here. we'll come back. >> okay. >> we'll be back soon, please join us here on mosaic.

back to mosaic, i'm ron swisher and it has been great to host mosaic again as these two dynamic women and their involvement in the akas. tell us more about what you do. >> okay. so again, as i mentioned, we have a chapter that is comprised of 150 members. in the past few years, we have done thousands of hours of community service. we provide scholarships to local high school students. we also mentor local high school students as well. we just wrapped up our mentoring program which is called ascend which is a program that recently ended. we had about 12 students who came out

to participate in several efforts. do you want to talk about some of those? >> with our program, like she said, we mentor high school students. so that program, we had high school students, 9th to 12th graders, boys and girls. we did programs with them. we did -- i'm sorry. >> we did museum. >> we focused on arts, went to the museum, we had an etiquette program where we taught them table manners for boys and girls, proper etiquette at a table when you are at a restaurant or out in public. we do the black expo, focusing on the hbcus. we took a group of students there. we went to visit colleges, local colleges in the area. you know, just providing them with information about financial literacy, hosted a literacy program on getting ready for college, like when you

go to college, what is expected, talking about financial aid, about choosing a major, and becoming responsible, the process of being a student and being a responsible student. >> that seems extremely helpful. >> yes. >> what i was thinking, and i'm sure others are thinking, how do you become a member? what are the qualifications? >> well, it is secret. >> like a lot of these sororities and fraternities. >> it depends on when you decide to join. if you join at an undergraduate level, you can join at your local campus which is what i did. and you seek out, find out more, seek out who may be a member. we have membership information on the graduate level. if you are in the bay area, we have membership information on the website at

alphanew omega 1929.org. there is a membership section that you can find out all of the requirements to join and what the steps might be. we do not -- it's not -- membership is not an ongoing thing. it is when we as a chapter decide when we would like to expand our chapter. >> i see. do you want to add to that? >> i do. like jahari said, going to our website and looking at the information and what's required, but also when you think about membership for an organization such as ours or any other, this is a life membership. you want to really think about is this an organization that you will commit to for life. >> i have been a part of a few organizations. i'm a rotarian. you cannot join. they have to invite you. so that's one of the reasons i have the question. >> yes. we have a similar model. so it is by invitation only. but

in terms of when that happens, it is when as a chapter we decide to expand on the membership. >> i see, i see. there is a limit to that, then? >> maybe, yes. >> and this is a -- do you have to have a college degree? >> as i mentioned, if you join at the graduate level, you do need to have a bachelor's degree. if you join in undergrad, you would be joining as a student at the local chapter. >> you mentioned there may be something coming up in october? >> yes. so we have several activities on the horizon. and one is our celebrity bartender event. we typically partner with an african american owned restaurant or bar in the area. we have yet to lock down that

specific location. i don't have much to share but i'm happy to provide information at a later date. you can expect the late october time frame. >> you mentioned the website earlier? >> yes, all of our events are posted on our website at alphanew omega 1929.org. >> you can also follow us on instagram. >> okay. >> and facebook. >> okay. you haven't been deleted? >> no, we haven't. >> that's good, that's good. i'm inspired by what you have said. i know many young women and older women would love to be a part of you. so i want to challenge you to continue to do the work you do because you do good work. >> awesome. >> we will come back in the next segment and wrap it up and say anything else you would like to say to the audience. >> okay. >> our congregation. all right?

>> thank you. >> thank you for being with us. please join us in our last segment.

we have been talking about the service to our community here on mosaic. and the akas have done a tremendous amount of service over the years, going

back to 1929 and 1908. 1929 is the local chapter. >> yes. >> many,many years of service. would you like to say a few more things on what you do? >> yeah, just want to say we are very fortunate to be a part of this ilust reous organization. our founders had this amazing vision. and our charter members as well. we are fortunate to be a part of the chapter that is the second chapter here in northern california. we actually are the home of an internation president which is not uncommon for chapteres in the far western region. all that to say, as a chapter, we have a long history. and we have always remain relevant and responsive to the changing needs and patterns in or local community as well as

internationally. and we are excited to carry out this new program that was rolled out at the international conference in houston. i'm excited to get further and deeper into the community. >> when you talk about president and vice president, do you have to run for the office. >> you do. >> is it challenging to do that? >> these are elected positions. and we are elected to serve. this is my first year. so my term is for two years. so i will wrap up my term next year. >> good, good. >> and you were elected as vice president? >> yes, i was appointed. jahari was elected. i'm finishing out her term and i will be most likely running for my position this year. so hopefully things will work out. but we are elected, so. >> do you see competition on the horizon? >> of course, there is always competition but it is good

sisterly competition. >> that's good. >> everyone is very talented and eager to lead and take the charge on things. >> yes. >> i think you probably have a better reputation than some fraternities that we know of. but that's, you know. >> i think we all do great things. we are a part of the divine nine. >> if you get past the introductions and hazing, maybe you can do -- but you guys don't do that. >> of course not and they don't do it either. we are part of the divine nine which is the umbrella organization for the national council or what we call members of the national panitic council. they are all doing amazing things both locally and globally. we are fortunate to be able to partner with them. >> thank you for coming this morning. >> thank you for having us. >> i know it was an effort to

get here. we appreciate you being here. thank you for being here. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> in closing, i would like to say that in service to our community, when we began in ministry, you girls and i started in east oakland. pastor of oakland church and i was president of the organization, vice president of the east oakland clergy. he was an active part of that. we always believed that our church should be involved in our community. i'm saying this now because hugh erlhas been ill for some time. he fell at his home and was injured badly. we want to send out prayers and thoughts to him and his family as they surround him. i was with him in the hospital this last week. so we are with them and elizabeth and i want to make sure that he hears our prayers and thoughts

for his family, gayle and the family. god bless him. for all those making it big out there... ...shouldn't your mobile service be able to keep up with you? get wifi speeds up to a gig at home and on the go. introducing powerboost, only from xfinity mobile.

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