Volunteer
February 5, 2011
What does it mean to SWAG?
Goshen College, and the Mennonite world at large, have long been known for their acronyms: MMA, MDS and MCC are just a few. Now, we bring you a new one: SWAG, which stands for Serving With All Gifts. Odelet Nance, the director of the Multicultural Affairs Office, and Jeremy Pope, a senior sports management major, planted the seeds for this new group in the summer of 2009, with the goal of uplifting and encouraging men of color. Nance and Pope addressed a lack of positive support and purposeful fellowship among the men of color around GC and contacted Theo Williams,...
October 27, 2010
Merry Lea’s ‘Enchanted Forest’ full of night critters
Turtles, beavers, and bears were just a few of the dozen woodland critters to lead educational nature tours for children at Merry Lea’s annual “Enchanted Forest” event last weekend, October 22nd and 23rd. These were not real animals, of course, but Goshen College students who offered their Saturday evening to dress up as forest creatures with other volunteers and teach children about Indiana’s native woodland night life. Each year the “Enchanted Forest” event is held at Merry Lea Environmental Learning Center as an alternative to Halloween for children. This eco-friendly event provides an interactive, educational hiking experience for kids aged three...
October 27, 2010
Organizations collaborate in Week of Compassion
Next week has been designated as a "Week of Compassion" in the city of Goshen. Beginning Monday, Nov. 1 and continuing through Sunday, Nov. 7, local organizations The Window and The Center for Healing and Hope will be raising awareness for the needs of struggling families here in Goshen. As of 2006, the poverty rate in Goshen was 13.2 percent, which would include 4,300 people. One quarter of those people are children. According to the event's website, "The focus of the week is to raise the community's awareness of the needs of many of our neighbors. The city of Goshen...
October 14, 2010
Canoe clean-up highlights Oct. 10 work day
Last Sunday, Goshen College students and faculty gathered at the College Cabin to join the 7,347 different movements in 183 countries across the world for the 10/10/10 global work day, which echoes last year's 350 celebration day. The 350.org movement was started by Bill McKibben, author and environmental activist who visited GC in 2009, to highlight the importance of the number of parts per million of carbon dioxide that scientists say is tolerable for the atmosphere. The movement also emphasizes the importance of awareness of the effects of carbon emissions on the atmosphere. The event on Sunday, hosted by the...
October 6, 2010
Students prepare for global work party on Oct. 10
This Sunday, Oct. 10, Goshen College will be a site for one of nearly 7,000 work events across the world registered with 350.org. The event, known as, "10/10/10 day," is an echo to last year's events on Oct. 24, 2009, in which groups worldwide held events to highlight the importance of the number 350--the number of parts per million that scientists say is tolerable for the atmosphere. As a global initiative, 350.org seeks to organize a worldwide work day on the specific task of committing to take action on climate change through a tangible project and raising awareness among political...
September 24, 2010
Celebrating service for more than a decade
Just over 400 Goshen College students dropped their daily activities on Wednesday to volunteer for Celebrate Service Day. For the past 12 years, the entire campus has set aside a day of service in order to reach out to community organizations. Students sign up as dorm floors or campus housing groups and are paired with one or two faculty members, although some students volunteer independently or through a church. Among the 25 work sites this year, 15 GC students helped to lower the rates of poverty by building houses for Habitat for Humanity. Volunteers like GC students make it...
March 5, 2010
Brazilian Adventures for GC Student
In October of 2008, instead of heading to college like a lot of his friends, David Graber, a first-year environmental science major, was leaving his hometown of Goshen for 10 months of service in Brazil. Graber and three other young adults headed to the capital, Brasilia, as part of the Radical Journey program run by the Mennonite Mission Network. The Radical Journey program includes a month of service in an urban setting in the United States and ten months in an international location. “I knew I wanted to go to a Latin American country because I had taken Spanish in...
March 5, 2010
Ingold ‘behind the scenes’ support of G.C. sports
John Ingold sits calmly in the driver’s seat as the Goshen College baseball team piles onto the bus. A smiling Ingold, clad in a purple Goshen College jacket and a black leather flat cap, greets each player by name. As soon as everyone is packed in, Ingold closes the bus doors and off they go to their next away game. In the past four years alone, Ingold has logged over 100,000 miles and 2,500 hours driving Goshen College athletes and students all over the country. A regular conference game for any Goshen athletic team requires an average of four hours...
February 18, 2010
“Culture for Service” bringing new life to kidney failure patient
When the Goshen College administration came up with the motto “Culture for Service” I bet they didn’t think it would lead to any life-giving surgical procedures. For Dan Coyne, an elementary school social worker who graduated from Goshen College in 1980, that GC motto is something that he lives by and as a result, he is donating one of his kidneys to Myra dela Vega, a cashier at his neighborhood grocery store. Coyne’s relationship with dela Vega started out as a typical customer/clerk relationship. “I try to make an effort to connect with the people who work in service at...
October 28, 2009
Starve a vampire: donate blood
Soon after midnight in the early morning hours of Wednesday, quiet was broken by yelps of pain. “This is the worst pain I've felt in years! My hand feels like it's on fire,” cried Sophomore Daniel Driver after catching his roommate's cactus before it would have landed on the floor. The aspiring doctor then performed amateur surgery on himself with little more than a box cutter, tweezers and the support of his awakened floor mates. All in all, 17 deep spines were removed, and thankfully he was not in need of any blood transfusions. However, there are many people who...
September 23, 2009
Over 500 celebrate service
The faulty forecast for rain was no deterrent for a large participatory showing at Celebrate Service Day yesterday. Around 550 students, faculty and staff participated in the event this year, scattered among 40 different local organizations. Celebrate Service Day is a way for the college to give back to the community by providing large quantities of able-bodied young adults for temporary hire at various local organizations. These organizations adhere to one or more of Goshen’s core values. [caption id="attachment_7114" align="alignright" width="205"] A group of friends living on the first floor of the Senior Apartments helped organize books, make pamphlets and...
September 16, 2009
Beaded jewelry strings together hope for Ugandan women
First-years Erica Grasse and Corinne Jager are changing the world, bead by bead. Working with an organization called BeadforLife, the two have ordered over 350 strings of necklaces and bracelets, each consisting of paper beads handmade by Ugandan women. The profits made by selling the jewelry on campus will go directly back to the program, raising money for community development, health access, and housing in Uganda. The plan developed this summer at Mennonite Church USA’s Convention in Ohio, where a stand offered youth string bracelets made of BeadforLife beads. Grasse and Jager, who both attend Blooming Glen Mennonite Church in...
April 1, 2009
30 Hour famine takes practice
Melissa MacGregor had skipped both breakfast and lunch. She was well on her way to fasting a complete 30 hours. Unfortunately, it was March 20, a full week before the 30 hour famine was scheduled to take place. MacGregor and Lydie Assefa, both seniors, were among 154 students who signed up to donate three meals at the dining hall over the weekend of March 27 to 28. Their sacrifice supported Seeds of Hope, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping children infected with or orphaned by HIV/AIDS. Student participants were asked to either find pledges, donate their own money to Seeds...