Olivia DrakeIn August 2005, Hurricane Katrina’s battering storm smothered Bob Flowers’ Gulfport, Miss. home. The flooding and winds left the structure unlivable, forcing Bob and his wife to reside in a FEMA trailer for the next four years and 10 months. Desperate for some helping hands, the couple applied for relief with Mission on the Bay, a ministry of Lutheran Episcopal Services in Mississippi. The organization provides volunteers who help families rebuild post-Katrina homes. Mike Conte, assistant director of mechanical trades, and his daughter, Megan Nicole Conte, 17, are among 1,800 volunteers from across the country and Canada who joined the…
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David PesciShining Hope for Communities, a student-founded non-profit organization, has been named the winner of the 2010 Dell Social Innovation Competition. The award is based on a world-wide competition among college students who create projects that can “make the world a better place.” Shining Hope for Communities founded The Kibera School for Girls in 2009 in the Kenyan slum of Kibera, and is creating the Johanna Justin Jinich Memorial Clinic and a community center this year at the same site. Initial funding for the Kibera School for Girls was provided by the Davis 100 Projects for Peace program. The Dell award…
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Between March 7-19, eight Wesleyan students assisted the Ananda Marga Universal Relief Team-Haiti (AMURT) by setting up camps for children and planting community food gardens in Port-Au-Prince. The students, Jacob Eichengreen '13, Elijah Meadow '13, Haley Baron '12, John Snyder '12, Ali Patrick '13, Barbaralynn Moseman '13, Michael Steves '13 and Stefan Skripak '13, created a video of their experience (watch video below). “Probably, the most difficult time for me was last night when there was a flash flood, and I just realized that everyone that we’ve met, or heard of...hundreds and thousands of people, right now are in six inches…
Thanks to nine Wesleyan students, subsistence farmers in the small urban center of Nandaime, Nicaragua, will no longer struggle to grow crops during the dry season. Between March 7-14, the students transformed five plots of land into irrigated farms, which will allow a network of female farmers to grow extra vegetables in the summers and sell them at a cooperative. "Now they'll be able to supplement their diet with nutrient-rich foods and sell the excess food at the market for an additional source of income," says trip organizer Rachel Levenson '12. Levenson and her peers, Amanda Schwartz '12; David Harris…
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Eight Wesleyan students will assist victims of the January 2010 Haiti earthquake by offering hands-on community-based disaster relief during their spring break. Between March 7-19, Elijah Meadow, Haley Baron '12, John Snyder '12, Ali Patrick '13, Barbaralynn Moseman '13, Michael Steves '13, Stefan Skripak '13 and Jacob Eichengreen '13 will be setting up camps for children and planting community food gardens in Port-Au-Prince. They will be assisting the Ananda Marga Universal Relief Team-Haiti (AMURT). AMURT volunteers assist local residents, allowing them to grow and help their own communities. To date, the non-profit organization has distributed emergency food rations, tarps, tents…
Steven Jacaruso, art director in the Office of University Communications, recently judged the 2010 Connecticut Libraries Publicity Awards Contest. As one of three judges, Jacaruso observed more than 75 imaginative bookmarks, brochures, newsletters, program flyers and innovative web sites, blogs, podcasts, videos and electronic newsletters. Awards in each category are based on the library’s total operating budget (less than $750,000 or $750,000 and over). The event was held at The Middletown Library Association in Middletown. "Considering the budget constraints and the fact that most of the submissions were by non-professional designers, some of the work was of a very high…
The Winter Solstice Event was featured in The Hartford Courant on Dec. 19.