'We have a home!' New community resource center in Gastonia

Luc Séguret
·3 min read
Gastonia Mayor Walker Reid speaks at a ceremony for the opening of the Omegas of Gastonia Community Resource Center on North Highland Street. The home represents the first for the Epsilon Upsilon Chapter of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity Inc. in Gastonia in its 72 years of existence.
Gastonia Mayor Walker Reid speaks at a ceremony for the opening of the Omegas of Gastonia Community Resource Center on North Highland Street. The home represents the first for the Epsilon Upsilon Chapter of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity Inc. in Gastonia in its 72 years of existence.

A local fraternity held a ribbon cutting ceremony last week to celebrate having a place to call home for the first time since it started in Gastonia 72 years ago.

The Epsilon Upsilon Chapter of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity Inc. in Gastonia is one of more than 750 chapters across the nation. Their new home, called the Omegas of Gastonia Community Resource Center, will be a place for them to fulfill their intention of uplifting the community through their services and focus on their four principles: manhood, scholarship, perseverance, and uplift.

“I’m just happy to see that we have the interest to make things better in a community that really needs it,” Gastonia Mayor Walker Reid said at the ceremony.

Reid’s youngest brother, Duane Reid, was a part of the Omega Psi Phi fraternity when he attended Western Carolina University from 1978-1982.

Reid said that it was important to have fraternities and sororities active in the community and was happy they built a local facility for the fraternity to better help those in need. He felt that this creates a place for kids to find people they can look up to as examples.

“They need mentors,” he said. “They need male mentors to step up and help out some of these other young men.”

Reid is not the only Gastonia mayor to be a part of this chapter’s history. Thebaud Jeffers, who served as Gastonia’s first black mayor in 1976, was one of the chapter’s 12 founding members on March 8, 1950. Reid said that the government cannot do it all, but they can help these organizations move forward for the community to have access to the help it needs.

The Epsilon Upsilon chapter started when pastor of the Epworth Methodist Church in Gastonia, Oscar Graham, issued a call to form a chapter with Gastonia as its base.

“This is the first time that we have been able to say, ‘we have a home,’” said Epsilon Upsilon chapter’s publicist, Jonathan Strong. Strong said they have many projects ranging from mentoring to increasing people’s learning ability, but it has been difficult to carry out projects without a place for people to come to when they need help. He said that people now have a place they can see visually and know they can depend on.

“Since we founded in 1950, we’ve been having our meetings in the homes of other brothers, chapter members, renting places to have meetings, just wherever we could. Finally, we have a place where we can service the community,” said Strong.

The opening of their new resource center on 220 N. Highland St. was made possible thanks to the effort of many members. Some, such as Charles Whitesides, keeper of record and sales for the Epsilon Upsilon chapter, have been keeping the chapter together for as much as 45 years while waiting for an event like this to happen.

Omega Psi Phi is the first international fraternal organization founded on the campus of a historically black college. At Howard University in Washington D.C., three undergraduates named Edgar Amos Love, Oscar James Cooper, and Frank Coleman founded the organization with their faculty adviser, Ernest Everett Just, on Nov. 17, 1911. The organization’s name, Omega Psi Phi, was derived from the Greek phrase meaning “friendship is essential to the soul,” which was also chosen as their motto.

The organization’s current national president, Dr. David Marion, was present at last Wednesday’s ceremony. With his title of “Grand Basileus,” Marion provided words of encouragement right before the ribbon was cut. “This is a great thing that just happened,” he said. He knew that this chapter would help the community just as they promised, and that this organization could “get it done.”

Luc Séguret, a rising senior at Western Carolina University, is working as a reporter for The Gaston Gazette until he returns to school in August. He can be reached at 828-206-2544 or email him at LSeguret@Gannett.com.

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An open house ceremony for the Omegas of Gastonia Community Resource Center on North Highland Street. The home represents the first for the Epsilon Upsilon Chapter of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity Inc. in Gastonia in its 72 years of existence.
An open house ceremony for the Omegas of Gastonia Community Resource Center on North Highland Street. The home represents the first for the Epsilon Upsilon Chapter of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity Inc. in Gastonia in its 72 years of existence.

This article originally appeared on The Gaston Gazette: Gastonia Epsilon Upsilon and Omega Psi Phi Fraternity have new home