Building Bridges and Bulldozing Barriers

By Chuck Wainwright

I'd transferred to Syracuse University from a tiny college in Salem, West Virginia where we’d actually had a fairly robust chapter of Alpha Phi Omega, a fraternity focused on public service. What amazed me when I got to S.U., however, was what little presence APO had there. I mean, seriously, you had to almost trip over it to find it.

I suppose I’d sought out the S.U. chapter initially because undertaking projects that helped my fellow man had scratched some nagging itch deep within me – an itch that, I realize now, was first planted in Salem.

But, then, along came Brian with his grand vision and his motivational brilliance and before you knew it Alpha Phi Omega’s “little” presence on the S.U. hill had gone the way of the rumble seat and nickel candy bar. When I first joined, our entire chapter consisted of me and seven other dedicated but ultimately naïve kids, most of whom didn’t give ourselves a snowball’s chance of even surviving, much less improving other people’s lives.

Almost immediately, though, our newest member – the cocksure little Irish kid with the big dreams and the fancy, schmancy wheelchair – began to recruit members in a way that, even today, leaves me in awe. Because it wasn’t just that Brian was bringing in so many members to Alpha Phi Omega.  It was the quality of the recruits he was bringing in.

Suddenly, we had the president of the student council as a member.  Then, just as suddenly, we had the head of the Newman Center, a socially conscious community of young Catholics. And then before long, we’d also added that person’s counterpart from an organization of Jewish students. That addition was, itself, augmented by the addition of a handful of varsity basketball players who Brian had, somehow, managed to befriend.

Each new membership, of course, led to two or three others because all those new members invariably brought a few in tow; people who, in turn, subsequently brought even more friends and roommates. And so on it went, like some 1960’s precursor to an internet meme going viral.

Before long, what had once been eight lonely marchers in search of a parade was now an army of over a hundred and twenty social warriors, each ready to make a difference – and each, it seemed, slightly more motivated than the next.

The Sixties were, as most know, a time of almost unprecedented activism. But even in that context, what we had going at Alpha Phi Omega was downright awe-inspiring.

But that wasn’t the end of it. In fact, it was barely the start.

Because in the process of having all those meetings, it became incumbent upon many of us APO brothers to haul Brian and his wheelchair up to them (and down from them). Our meetings, you see, were generally held on the third floor of Archbold Gymnasium, a difficult three-flight trek under the best of circumstances, but one made that much harder when trying to lug a classmate and his wheelchair up sixty or so steps.

That’s the point at which Brian – probably out of sympathy, as much as anything – suggested we make one of our first projects the construction of an access ramp to the building on campus that housed the Maxwell School.

That was the genesis. And that was how the seeds of the whole Alpha Phi Omega “Architectural Barriers” project were first sown.

I’ll spare you most of the details, but one-by-one APO chapters from Maine to California began adopting the elimination of architectural barriers as their signature project. And that movement became so widely embraced coast-to-coast, that national took the rare step of embracing architectural barriers as the fraternity’s national objective; only the fifth time in history of Alpha Phi Omega that any such project had been so designated.

(And the first four – just as a frame of reference – were full citizenship for all Americans, the World War II home effort, the birth of the Red Cross, and the creation of the Peace Corps.)

That was the power of my friend, Brian, who I’d only just met at that point, but who I’ve since come to love.  A guy who over fifty years ago was able to toss a single pebble into a vast sea from his wheelchair in little Syracuse and have it ripple in every corner of this land, a pebble that rippled then, and one that can still be seen, felt and heard today.

Happy belated St. Patty’s Day, Brian.  I love you, my little Irish brother.    ###

Fellow S.U. alum Chuck Wainwright is one of my best friends in the world.  And while, yes, I did play a role in building up the roster of the APO chapter in Syracuse, never for a moment overlook his role in turning it into one of the most important and respected in the U.S.  My dear friend is a world class doer, giver, and world-shaker.  And I remain in awe of his grinding, organizational talents, his humanity, and, above all, his deep and abiding love for his fellow man.     BPM