Blue Hens flock to D.C. alumni club

When Karen Slachetka, AS ’05, started work in then Sen. Jon Corzine’s Washington, D.C., office last year, she missed the ready-made social life at UD.

Then a friend of a friend told her that UD alumni play flag football on the Ellipse behind the White House.

Slachetka quickly joined about 500 capital-area alumni who stay in touch via listserv, sports teams, alumni events and house parties.

“I knew I would miss Delaware—the friends [and] the whole social aspect of having fun people around all the time,” Slachetka says. “Being a part of this network has really helped make the transition easier.”

Cara Spiro, BE ’02, who was involved in everything from student government to Spirit Ambassadors when she was on campus, has been a driving force behind this popular Washington, D.C., Alumni Club.
Spiro, who moved to D.C. to work as a contract specialist at the Department of the Navy, expanded alumni events beyond the traditional ones funded by UD’s Office of Alumni and University Relations. She grew the events from about two a year to at least 10 official ones and a long list of impromptu ones.

With Amber Burke, AS ‘03, Spiro started softball and flag football teams that regularly draw 30 to 50 alums to play with alumni from other schools in the Capital Area Network League.

“I’m an outgoing person, and I have no qualms going up to someone in the supermarket and meeting them,’’ Spiro says. “But, when you move to D.C., there are a million things available to you, but you don’t necessarily have a way to tap into those things or someone to attend events with.

“Delaware has been home for four years, and coming to a big city like Washington, D.C., can be overwhelming. We’re here to give them a place to start their new life. We give them an instant network that they can capitalize on and, more than that, a chance to enjoy and develop new friendships.”

The D.C. alumni network solves that with official events, barbecues, volunteering, networking parties, house parties, movie nights, weekend sports and impromptu birthday parties. Now, graduates who land in the capital without their old UD friends can make new ones who share the same memories.

Spiro says the D.C. Alumni Club, [UDDCalumni@yahoo.com], recently received a $2,000 grant from UD’s Alumni Association. “It’s wonderful,” she says. “It gives the club an opportunity to plan events more easily, allowing us to serve food at networking events, hold events in larger spaces and have pre- and post-game barbecues with other Capital Area Network sports teams.”
Burke, who works for a Homeland Security contractor and manages the club’s sports teams, says she’s sometimes amazed that she plays softball on the Ellipse behind the White House with friends who graduated from UD.

“It’s one of these surreal things,’’ she says. “You’re playing America’s favorite sport right in front of the White House.”

Lauren Dickert, CHEP ’03, says she came to Washington to work for Marriott Corp. without knowing a single person in the city. She clicked onto the UD alumni web page [www.udel.edu/alumni], saw Spiro’s name and phoned her.

Spiro and Dickert met for lunch and became close friends. Through Spiro, Dickert met other friends whose paths had never crossed hers on campus. One alum from the group just moved into Dickert’s apartment building.

Although there are no Double Del marriages yet, the alumni club has produced two couples and hundreds of friendships.

Slachetka, who now works for Corzine successor Sen. Robert Menendez, says 90 percent of her Washington friends have UD roots.

“I moved here knowing very few people and literally walked into a whole group of UD grads that I now hang out with on a weekly basis. I thought graduation would be the end of my life, moving hundreds of miles away from friends that have been feet away from me for the past four years, but this group is like having the best parts of UD down in D.C.”

—Kathy Canavan