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Campus Garden Will Augment Community-Supported Agriculture Initiative Recently Arrived Refugees Receive Warm Welcome During Campus Visit Barry Senior Orianna Camargo Raising Awareness of Cancer Community Engagement Award Nominations: Community Partnership Category Faculty Member and Community Partner Present at Conference in Haiti Collection of Service-Learning Books Available in CCSI Library
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Official Launch Scheduled for November 28
An urban garden is in the making at Barry. It will complement Barry FairShare, a project aimed at helping to combat food insecurity and inadequate nutrition in Miami-Dade neighborhoods.
The Barry Urban Garden will be introduced formally during a short ceremony on Barry’s main campus on November 28. An area adjacent to Powers Hall, where the School of Education is located, will serve initially as the garden space; and that’s where the launch will take place.
Last month, on Make a Difference Day, students assisted with early preparation for vegetable plots that will be part of the Barry Urban Garden by spreading mulch atop cardboard in the garden area. Since then, students have spread soil, prepared garden signs, and promoted the initiative through social media.
The garden design is based on the ethics of permaculture, summarized as “Earth Care, People Care, and Fair Share.”
Permaculture, the experts explain, is a way of adapting to a particular ecology – a process that relies on understanding the garden site and local conditions. The garden will occupy space used creatively, with plants placed together in the right combinations so they will grow in cooperation with one other.
The Barry Urban Garden is described as “a values-based community agriculture initiative that will provide organic produce to low-income residents in nearby neighborhoods categorized by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as urban food deserts.”
A faculty/staff committee, a subcommittee of Barry's Ecological Sustainability Team (BEST), is contributing to the development of the garden initiative.
Campus and community members will work together to implement projects within the framework of the initiative, which will provide experiential learning opportunities to students and engaged scholarship opportunities to faculty.
Barry FairShare, launched in January 2017, was focused initially on providing locally sourced organic produce to campus and earnings for small farmers.
The Center for Community Service Initiatives (CCSI) launched Barry FairShare in January 2017 as a project to advance community-supported agriculture. The project was focused on providing locally sourced organic produce to campus and earnings for small farmers.
The CCSI developed the project in partnership with Urban GreenWorks, a local environmental and food-access organization, whose Cerasee Farm is located in Liberty City. Faculty, staff, and students participated in Barry FairShare by purchasing produce harvested from Cerasee and other sustainable small farms.
During its first four months of operation, the project yielded over $3,000 in sales. In the process, it gave a boost to efforts to eradicate food deserts and encouraged healthy eating.
Creation of the garden is part of Barry’s Civic Action Plan, which calls for the development and enhancement of specific programs and projects to deepen and strengthen civic engagement for positive community impact. One of the commitments articulated in the plan is to “embrace our responsibility as a place-based institution to contribute to the health and strength of our communities – economically, socially, environmentally, educationally, and politically.”
During the November 28 ceremony, scheduled to start at 11 a.m., seedlings will be sowed and students will reflect on the contributions they have been making to the initiative.
For further information, contact CCSI-based AmeriCorps VISTA member Asha Starks at astarks@barry.edu or 305-899-5466.
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Recently Arrived Refugees Receive Warm Welcome During Campus Visit
You are welcome here. That’s the message conveyed to recently arrived refugees who came to campus on a Saturday afternoon last month.
They left El Salvador, Eritrea, Pakistan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo and have found a new home in Miami. They received assistance from the Miami office of Church World Service and a warm welcome from Barry students, faculty, and staff members.
The CCSI coordinated the Welcome Day activities, which included games such as Pictionary and Jenga, musical chairs, face painting, and pickup soccer.
Kenneth Fuentes, a refugee resettlement program caseworker at Church World Service Miami, thanked the university for its support.
The new Miami residents left campus with a few small gifts, and broad smiles on their faces.
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Barry Senior Orianna Camargo Raising Awareness of Cancer
There are certain instances when the best way to help others is to first help ourselves.
Barry graduating senior Orianna Camargo indicated this as she shared a deeply personal account of how she started volunteering with the American Cancer Society.
“My dad was battling cancer since last year,” she said, “and he actually passed away three months ago. So I thought I needed to heal and I needed to find a way to not have so much hate or anger toward cancer.”
She started this journey for herself, but as she walked farther along the road, she said she realized just how many people have been touched by cancer.
“I thought it was going to be very selfish on my part to do it just for myself; so I decided to do it for Barry,” Camargo said.
With her father as inspiration, Camargo contacted the American Cancer Society and told them she wanted to volunteer.
The American Cancer Society funds and conducts research, shares expert information, supports patients, and spreads the word about prevention. The fruits of her labor were on full display on November 10 at Rolling Oaks Park in Miami Gardens. She organized a cancer walk to raise awareness of the disease. Barry students, faculty, and staff supported the event.
She plans to continue to support the work of the American Cancer Society after she graduates from Barry.
“My dad showed me after fighting for a year that the people who are still here fight every single day to have one more day to live,” Camargo said.
Community service in general is important to her and has helped to shape her character. A student-athlete, she currently serves as president of the campus-based Fellowship for Christian Athletes.
Orianna’s message to anyone who will listen is, “We only live once, and even though we think we have all the time in the world, people run out of time every single day.”
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Community Engagement Award Nominations: Community Partnership Category
“Community Partnership” is among the categories for which Community Engagement Award nominations are being accepted. The award is presented annually to community partners.
Students, faculty, staff, and administrators are invited to submit nominations by January 28, 2019.
The other award categories are Community Impact,Community-Based Research, Engaged Scholarship, Community Engagement Educator, Service-Learning Faculty, and Engaged Department.
The Center for Community Service Initiatives will host Barry’s sixth annual Community Engagement Awards on March 27.
The nomination forms are available in the Community Engagement Management System <http://web.barry.edu/service/ProgramView.aspx?ID=1494>.
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Faculty Member and Community Partner Present at Conference in
Dr. Pamela Hall, associate professor of psychology, and Nadie Mondestin, executive director of the Haitian Youth and Community Center of Florida (HYCCF), made a presentation at the 30th annual conference of the Haitian Studies Association on November 9.
Titled “Teachers’ Use of Photovoice as a Documentary Tool for Children of Haitian Descent,” the presentation was derived from a community-based research project involving the Department of Psychology and HYCCF. The project was designed to provide social and emotional support for children enrolled in a Head Start Program.
Hall has maintained a partnership with the HYCCF, a state- and federally funded not–for-profit organization, which manages the Early Step Learning Center in North Miami and the Lillie M. Williams Head Start Center in Miami.
The Center for Community Service Initiatives (CCSI) provided funds for the community-based research project.
The Haitian Studies Association supports scholarship on Haiti and provides a forum for the exchange and dissemination of ideas and knowledge in order to inform pedagogy, practice, and policy about Haiti in an international community. Organized around the theme “Haitian Studies at the Crossroads: Integrating the Humanities, Arts, Religions, Technology, and Sciences,” the conference was held in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on November 8–10.
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Collection of Service-Learning Books Available in CCSI Library
A collection of books on service-learning is available in the CCSI library. Authors of those books include Robert Bringle, Susan Cipolle, Janet Eyler and Dwight Giles, Barbara Jacoby, and Edward Zlotkowski.
In addition, a series of 15 monographs on Service-Learning in the Disciplines is available in the library. Each monograph is focused on why and how service-learning can be implemented within a particular discipline.
All service-learning books, including the monographs, may be checked out for brief periods.
For further information, contact CCSI Administrative Assistant Sandra Augustin at saugustin@barry.edu or at extension 3696.
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