CCSI Newsletter

In This Issue:

Activities Put Spotlight on Hunger and Homelessness

Volunteers Lend a Hand at Food Bank

Faculty Invited to Apply for Service-Learning Fellowships

Proposals Being Accepted for Community Engagement Symposium

Community Engagement Awards: Call for Nominations

Mini-Grant Application Deadline is This Friday

CCSI Annual Report Available in CEMS

Activities Put Spotlight on Hunger and Homelessness

A program of activities at BarryUniversity this month is serving to draw attention to issues of hunger and homelessness. The program includes a community service project, a letter-writing campaign, a food and clothing drive, a Nutrition Games event, and a film premiere.

The service project was at a food bank in Broward County, where a small group of volunteers lent a helping hand (see next article).

The advocacy campaign, Offering of Letters, is in progress. It is organized by Bread for the World, “a collective Christian voice urging our nation’s leaders to end hunger at home and abroad.” Participants write letters to members of Congress calling for the reform of U.S. food aid and for the prioritization and protection of programs vital to hungry people in the United States and around the world.

According to Bread for the Word, although we live in the world’s wealthiest nation, 14.3 percent of U.S. households—a total of 49.1 million Americans, including 15.8 million children—struggle to put food on the table. And more than one in five American children are at risk of hunger.

Barry students, faculty, and staff are urged to participate in the Offering of Letters campaign. Letters should be delivered to the Department of Campus Ministry no later than noon on November 24. The collection of letters will be blessed at mass before being sent to Congress. Additional information on the campaign is available directly from Campus Ministry.

A food and clothing drive is under way and will end on December 2. The organizers are collecting donations of adult clothing, baby items, and dry goods to benefit St. Rose of Lima Church and School in Miami Shores; the Sunnyland Trailer Park at 79th Street in Miami; No More Tears, a Broward County agency that provides services for victims of domestic violence; and Chapman Partnership, the private-sector partner of the Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust. Donations may be placed in collection boxes on Barry’s Miami Shores campus and at the Men’s Basketball home games. The next home game is scheduled for this Tuesday, November 25.

Last Wednesday’s Nutrition Games, featuring food-cost trivia, a food-portions game, and Body Mass Index (BMI) measurements, was aimed at promoting health and wellness through good nutrition. Urban GreenWorks, an environment- and health-focused Barry community partner, supported the event.

The final event for the month was last Saturday’s premiere of Food Chains, a documentary highlighting injustice on the industrial farms of Florida. In this exposé, an intrepid group of Florida farm workers battle to defeat the $4 trillion global supermarket industry through the Fair Food program in which growers and retailers collaborate to improve working conditions for farm laborers in the United States.

A panel discussion with farm workers depicted in the film and a procession in support of the Fair Food Program followed the screening. This event was organized under a partnership involving the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, the Student Farmworker Alliance, and five higher education institutions—Barry University, St. Thomas University, Florida International University, the University of Miami, and Miami Dade College.

The Center for Community Service Initiatives (CCSI), in partnership with Campus Ministry, the Men’s Basketball Team, and the Women’s Softball Team, is coordinating activities for Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Month. For further information, contact CCSI Associate Director Courtney Berrien at cberrien@barry.edu or 305-899-4017.

Volunteers Lend a Hand at Food Bank

Nine Barry volunteers formed an assembly line of sorts on November 8 at a food bank in Broward County, where they turned out boxes of assorted food items for distribution to nonprofit agencies.

Students Ray-Ann Adams, Janene Bottinelli, Mickaelle Celigny, Matthew Galvan, Karrie Garcia, Sydney Ingram, Kristina Jackson, and Nylisha Matos, and CCSI staff members Liz James and Andres Quevedo sorted and packed a variety of food items at the Feeding South Florida site in Pembroke Park. This was their way of marking Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Month.

Together with other university and community groups, the Barry students packed more than 18,000 pounds of food, which will provide approximately 15,000 meals for families and individuals in need.

The volunteers heard myths and learned facts about food insecurity in South Florida and the United States. In Miami-Dade, for example, one in four children goes to bed hungry, and nationally as much as 40 percent of the food produced in the United States goes uneaten and wasted.

One of 202 food banks comprising the Feeding America network, Feeding South Florida is the leading domestic hunger relief organization in the region, serving Palm Beach, Broward, Miami-Dade, and Monroe Counties through a network of nonprofit partner agencies.

Faculty Invited to Apply for Service-Learning Fellowships

The Center for Community Service Initiatives (CCSI) invites faculty members to apply for service-learning fellowships for next academic year. Two service-learning fellowships will be available.

Each service-learning faculty fellow gets a course release to serve as a workshop coordinator/instructor, faculty mentor, and engaged scholar. Fellows participate in a yearlong faculty development program focused on service-learning pedagogy, practice, and associated scholarship. 

For further information and to apply, contact CCSI Director Dr. Glenn Bowen, gbowen@barry.edu.

Proposals Being Accepted for Community Engagement Symposium

The Center for Community Service Initiatives (CCSI) invites faculty, staff, students, and community partners to participate in BarryUniversity’s second annual Community Engagement Symposium on Thursday, March 26, 2015. The symposium will bring together campus and community stakeholders to network and explore community engagement projects, practices, and perspectives.

Proposals are being accepted for concurrent presentations during two sessions of the symposium. Relevant topics include service-learning, civic engagement, community-based research, community-focused fieldwork/internships, community-engaged scholarship, and community partnerships. Session formats are: 45-minute oral presentation, panel discussion, roundtable, and poster presentation.

The proposal submission deadline is Monday, January 12.

Additional information is available from the CCSI, service@barry.edu.

Community Engagement Awards: Call for Nominations

Barry University’s second annual Community Engagement Awards will be held on Thursday, March 26, 2015. The purpose of the event is to publicly recognize students, faculty, staff/administrators, and community partners for their participation, contributions, and achievements in community engagement.

This event will coincide with the 2nd annual Community Engagement Symposium.

The Center for Community Service Initiatives (CCSI) has issued a call for nominations in seven categories: Community Impact (for students), Community Partnership, Community-Based Research, Engaged Scholarship, Community Engagement Educator, Service-Learning Faculty, and Engaged Department.

The nomination deadline is Friday, January 30.

Additional information is available in CEMS—the Community Engagement Management System via the CCSI homepage.

Mini-Grant Application Deadline is This Friday

The deadline to apply for a CCSI mini-grant to support community-based research (CBR) is this Friday, November 28. Faculty who teach undergraduate and/or graduate courses may apply for a mini-grant of up to $500.

For further information and to apply, contact CCSI Director Dr. Glenn Bowen, gbowen@barry.edu.

CCSI Annual Report Available in CEMS

The CCSI’s 2014 Annual Report is available in CEMS—the Community Engagement Management System, via the CCSI homepage.

The Report is divided into seven sections: Awards and Accolades, Community Partnerships and Projects, Service-Learning and Faculty Focus, Co-curricular Programs, Students in Service, Staff Involvement, and Scholarly Publications and Presentations.