Getting In Good Trouble Awards Luncheon

Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity Inc., was founded on January 9, 1914 at Howard University, Washington, D.C., and has been changing lives through service for 108 years. Our Noble Founders, Honorable Charles I. Brown, Honorable Leonard F. Morse and Honorable A. Langston Taylor, felt a need to establish a fraternal organization based on the principals of Brotherhood and Scholarship.

One of our Honorable Founders, Brother Leonard F. Morse, helped charter the Gamma Delta Sigma Chapter here in Orlando. Founder Morse was also the President of Edward Waters College in Jacksonville, Florida. In the fall of 1951, Founder Morse resided in Jacksonville, Florida and oversaw the initiation of nine Gamma Delta Sigma charter members. Those individuals were Stanley Muller, Marion Price, Preston Lamb, William McKinney, W.M. Holland, Samuel Smith, Theodore Charlton, Willie J. Brown and James “Chief” Wilson. Bro. Wilson, the last surviving charter member, died December 5, 2018. These original members were responsible for laying the foundation of a chapter that has made major contributions to the Central Florida community.

Throughout the past 70 years, Gamma Delta Sigma has embodied the spirit of its motto, “Culture for Service and Service for Humanity.” The chapter sponsors many events for the education, social, and business communities and continues to do so by living out the high ideals of the fraternity, which are “Brotherhood, Scholarship and Service.” Some of the chapter’s signature events have garnered community service and literally raised thousands of dollars and donations towards disadvantaged families and individuals in the Orlando area. Some of these events are the 12 for 12 Thanksgiving Give-Away, the Pick a Family Christmas Drive, the Back-to-School Backpack Drive, the Scholarship Luncheon Program, the Adopt-A-Precinct Program and the Adopt-A-School Program.

Additionally, the Chapter has sponsored several youth football teams for approximately twenty–nine years, mentoring boys and providing them with an opportunity to grow athletically and academically. The Chapter also sponsors a Sigma Beta Club mentoring boys 8-18 as part of the Fraternity’s Youth Auxiliary Program. Gamma Delta Sigma continues to look forward with great anticipation to the future and will endeavor to extend its great tradition as “our cause speeds on its way.”