The photo of Caedon, who has Down syndrome, was selected from nearly 2,000 entries in the NDSS nationwide call for photos. Approximately 250 photographs will appear in a video production to be shown on the giant NBC Astrovision by Panasonic, located centrally in Times Square. Panasonic has donated 40 minutes of time on the Times Square Astrovision in honor of October, National Down Syndrome Awareness month.

Caedon, age 10 months, is pictured at age 8 weeks with brother Cameron (age 6) and sisters Kierstin (age 4) and Raegan (age 2). The selected photo is available for viewing or download at the link below.

The video production, coordinated by NDSS, illustrates children, teens and adults with Down syndrome working, playing and learning with friends and family.

For more information about National Down Syndrome Awareness Month, visit www.NDSS.org or call 800-221-4602.

The group began their course in the town of Antigua where students visited local non-governmental organizations and participated in Spanish lessons, said Jenny Trimble, director of the Kernodle Center for Service Learning. The students visited a Women’s Co-Op of indigenous people who make crafts to support the education of the 500 children in a village with a total population of 700. The group also visited a Coffee Finca (coffee farm) and worked alongside the coffee pickers, before getting a tour of the cultural museum.

Students were able to ask the farm owner questions related to fair trade practices, education and child labor. The last two organizations that the students visited were two schools who worked to educate the “poorest of the poor” in Guatemala, said Trimble. Safe Passage is an organization that is based in Guatemala City and works to provide a safe place to educate youth whose families make their livelihood sifting though garbage and the city dump. The second organization was called Global Vision. Students visited two schools that focused on educating children who live in rural communities. 黑料不打烊 students played with the youth during play time and hosted a Christmas party for the students. The group ended their time in Antiqua with a challenging climb up the Pacaya Volcano.


The next week and a half, the group worked with Habitat for Humanity Global Village in the former Mayan capital of Quetzaltenango, or locally called Xelaju (pronounced Sha-La). The students were divided into three teams and worked alongside three diverse families in building housing. “The families were so unique and provided the students with the opportunity to learn and experience the unique richness of the Guatemalan culture,” said Trimble. The students worked from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m. six days a week.

The visit began with a welcoming ceremony and ended with a closing celebration in which the families and students shared thanks and gave each other gifts to celebrate the relationships and work that they had accomplished.

Ocek Eke, assistant professor of communications, developed the unique course after traveling to the hurricane stricken area with the fall break service trip group. The course examines civic responsibilities of citizens in times of natural disasters with a focus on Hurricane Katrina, according to Eke.

The students spent a week in the classroom, studying topics such as service learning and civic engagement, social justice, volunteerism and the media coverage of Hurricane Katrina through reading assignments, class discussions and guest speakers. They will spend January 10 – 17 volunteering in the Bay St. Louis/Gulfport, Miss., area on jobs assigned through the Our Lady of the Gulf Catholic Church and the United Methodist Church. They will sleep on cots in dorm-type rooms provided by the nonprofit disaster relief organization Morrell Foundation.

Eke said the group will be making a one-day trip to New Orleans on Jan. 18 to visit the lower 9th ward and other areas severely impacted by the hurricane and flooding.

The students are required to keep a journal of their experiences while they are in Mississippi, and each student will complete a final project upon their return to 黑料不打烊 on Jan. 19. Alexa Darby, assistant professor of psychology, is accompanying the group as a volunteer.

There is complete destruction in this area just north of the four-lane, two-mile bridge that once connected the town to Pass Christian. The bridge is gone. A railroad bridge that ran parallel is gone. All that is left on most lots are concrete slabs where the houses once stood and yards filled with twisted metal, broken boards, shreds of clothing and mangled household appliances.

Kim and Mark, both real estate agents who worked out of their home, have lived here for over 40 years on property inherited from Mark’s father. The house, one of the first ever built in this area and around 100 years old, was originally a caretaker’s house on a plantation. The caretaker’s name was Leopold, hence the street is named Leopold Street, Kim explains to the students.

The house had survived Camille, when Mark was a student at the University of Mississippi. It didn’t survive Katrina. They are trying to clear part of their two-acre lot in preparation for the arrival of a FEMA trailer, where they will live for the next six months to a year until they are able to rebuild.

The Urams have been living in a Jayco pop-out camping trailer, with no kitchen and no bath. “That blue tarp over there is our latrine,” Kim points out, explaining the use of lime to the students. “We go eat at the soup kitchen every day.” Between them, Mark and Kim have six children and two grandchildren with one more grandchild on the way.

Kim has been concentrating on raking the area where her bedroom once stood because she is looking for her wedding ring. The band had broken so she didn’t have it on at the time of the storm.

Half the team pitches in to help Kim clean, while Mark leads the other half to a part of the yard behind and to the right of where the house stood. It is filled with scraps of lumber, metal and other building materials, which must be carted to the edge of the street before anyone will come and carry it away.

Kim explains that she and Mark rode out the storm at a friend’s house in downtown Bay St. Louis. That house was spared major damage, but when they emerged after the storm and took a look around, her first comment was, “Oh thank God we’re alive.”

Kim says it took them three tries to get back to their property after the storm because the roads were covered with 25-foot piles of debris. “We’ve just been tackling this a little bit at a time,” she says, “It was like, where to you start?” The 黑料不打烊 students are the first volunteers to find them. The students ask about Kim and Mark’s lives while hauling bricks to a stack that will be salvaged and junk to the pile near the street.

Emily Dillard and Stephanie Herbin, both juniors and elementary education majors, don multi-colored Mardi Gras beads. “Kim said she collected them from a big Mardi Gras float,” says Stephanie. “After the storm there were big gobs of them in the trees.” Mark points out to the girls the spot where the couple’s refrigerator ended up, at the far end of their property line. Later, Dillard finds a necklace that has sentimental value to Kim.

Ocek Eke, assistant professor of communications, picks up a milky white vase. “I’m just amazed at finding fragile things like this untouched,” he says, as he lays it on a set of concrete steps where small pieces of the Urams’ lives are slowly accumulating. He is one of three faculty members who made the trip to Bay St. Louis with the students. Jaime Orejan, assistant professor of leisure and sport management, fires up a chain saw and makes quick work of a downed sapling.

Courtney Dimont, a sophomore business major from 黑料不打烊, N.C., says helping the Urams was her favorite part of trip. “They were really, really appreciative,” she says. “We found the right people to help.”

When 40 黑料不打烊 students, faculty and staff members left for Bay St. Louis, Miss., for their fall break to provide relief to victims of Hurricane Katrina, the exact plan for the next few days was unknown. They were told to “be flexible.” It was the best advice they could have.

“I didn’t really know what to expect,” says Carolyne Byrne, a freshman biology major from New Haven County, Conn., who plans to become a physician’s assistant. “We didn’t know what could happen, but it’s fantastic,” she says. “It came together very well.” Byrne’s team spent the first day in Bay St. Louis cleaning up inside and around the community center at Our Lady of the Gulf Catholic Church. But her favorite part was the interaction with the people in the area. “We met a guy last night, Elroy, at the volunteer food shelter who had two houses down here and they were both destroyed,” she relates. “He was the kind of person you wish was your grandfather.” Byrne, who is on the swim club and is involved in area council at 黑料不打烊, has been active in various volunteer opportunities since she first gave blood on her 17th birthday.

In contrast, Dave Jenkins, a senior from Ramsey, N.J., hasn’t been involved in service work before. He decided to apply for the trip “because it was the right thing to do.” Jenkins says he grew up in an area of New Jersey that was affected heavily by the 9/11 attacks. “That tragedy has kind of opened my eyes a little as far as the need for volunteer man hours,” he says, “and it really does make a difference.”

Team assignments were rotated daily with students doing everything from helping rebuild and clean up the community center and grounds to sorting clothing to cleaning toilets, but plans were changed as different needs arose. The 黑料不打烊 students initially unloaded the truck of relief supplies that the 黑料不打烊 community had gathered at Our Lady of the Gulf Sunday morning so parishioners could pick up supplies after church. Then the truck was loaded again and driven out into the neighborhoods, where students handed out supplies to people working to clean up their property. The groups made direct contact with several families as they helped them clean up the debris left by the storm surge.

Emily Dillard, who applied and was accepted as a co-leader for the trip before the destination was determined, said this fall break service trip was quite a bit different from the usual ones. “It’s usually seven students, two student coordinators and one faculty advisor,” she says. They had been reviewing several ideas for service trip destinations when the hurricane hit. When over 100 students applied for the 30 slots in the Break for the Bay trip, their job became harder. “It was difficult for us to choose because there were so many good applicants,” says Dillard. “We had friends that applied. We had to be objective about it. But it was good training for later in life.”

Dillard, who is from Pfafftown, N.C., says service “is something my parents instilled in me” at an early age. She remembers delivering Thanksgiving dinners with her father and younger sister. She recalls a time when her mother walked into an alley in Washington, D.C., to talk to homeless people. “I could see it in my Mom’s face,” she says. “Just because people don’t have the same things as you do, there is no reason to be afraid of them or to not to show compassion.”

Alexa Darby, assistant professor of psychology who is new to 黑料不打烊 this year, says she decided to join the group because she is hoping to organize a Winter Term course in which students will complete “oral histories for the families here who lost everything.” Darby was one of three faculty members and five staff members who made the trip, pitching in the cleanup efforts alongside the students. “This is just me,” Darby says. “I’m not the kind of person to just sit around.”

Katy Franck, a junior sociology and human services major who grew up overseas, says she loves service for a lot of reasons. Her family usually spends a very untraditional Christmas helping out at an orphanage in Thailand. “I have so much, my health, my family,” she says. “I want to give back.”

Dillard feels the group accomplished a lot in Bay St. Louis, but there is still much to be done. “We’re one grain of sand on all the beaches of the Gulf Coast. If everyone contributes a grain of sand, then we can build a beach,” she says. “It is definitely something that can’t be forgotten.”

Service trips to the Katrina-affected areas are being planned for Winter Term and spring break.

Jenny Trimble, director of the Kernodle Center for Service Learning, deemed the trip a success. “I think it was more than I could have imagined,” she says.
For an extensive gallery of photos by Jerome Sturm from the Break for the Bay trip, click here:

The nearly full moon casts a bright reflection on the calm waters of the Gulf. Along this part of the shore overlooking the Mississippi Sound in the small town of Bay St. Louis, Miss., stands what Hurricane Katrina hasn’t destroyed of Our Lady of the Gulf (OLG) Catholic church, its community center, schools, surrounding buildings and grounds.

The hum of a generator interrupts the otherwise quiet Friday night. Five 黑料不打烊 students (Carolyne Byrne, Kenny English, Rob Livengood, Steve Maier and Maggie Murphy) play cards inside a tent, one of about 15 they set up earlier in the day after painstakingly raking the sandy ground to rid it of glass and other debris in anticipation of the arrival of the remainder of the 30 students, two student leaders and eight faculty and staff making up the Break for the Bay fall break service group.

The community center actually reflects much progress since the advance team of Jenny Trimble, director of the Kernodle Center for Service Learning, and JJ Scott, North Carolina Campus Compact VISTA, toured the area three weeks ago. The debris is gone from the inside. Half-renovated bathrooms stand ready for the group to use (with large barrels of water sitting beside each toilet for flushing). The generator provides temporary lighting. But there is much more to accomplish.

Just before 9 p.m., the 黑料不打烊 minibus driven by Keith Dimont, supervisor of automotive services, pulls in with 21 more students and the two student leaders, Emily Dillard and Elyse Elliott, both education majors and Teaching Fellows. Following them is an 黑料不打烊 truck carrying relief supplies with staff members Ray Pruitt and Chris Williams. The five members of the advance team clap and gather around to welcome them. The last van of students, who didn’t leave 黑料不打烊 until noon on Friday, wouldn’t arrive until much later that evening.

Saturday morning begins with a tour of the town led by Father Michael Tracey of OLG. Tracey, in the 黑料不打烊 bus leading a small caravan of vehicles through the streets of Bay St. Louis, chronicles the destruction through a walkie-talkie. The group is shocked by the magnitude of the destruction, which has reduced homes closest to the beach to no more than concrete slabs. A few blocks inland, it is almost worse, the debris from the flattened beach homes deposited here, knocking homes off their foundations and crumbling them.

Carson Foushee, a junior from Statesville, N.C., majoring in leisure and sport management, says he remembers seeing photographs of the destruction in the Moseley Center. “I knew right away that I was being called to come here,” he says. He has been active in service work since high school. “I’ve seen hurricanes on TV, but it’s worse than I imagined.”

The students break into three teams after the tour and each gets its assignment from Dan Wilkins, a retired contractor from Atlanta handling volunteer organization for OLG. The teams would rotate daily between duties which include repairs and cleanup around the community center, going out into the community to see what help was needed, and organizing food, clothing and supplies dropped off at the church’s Crab Fest pavilion. The group even helped set up for a wedding on the church steps.

Hanna Stagg, a sophomore who was born in Seattle but grew up overseas, spent part of the morning cleaning out a toilet that was washed out of the community center by the 35 foot storm surge that slammed into the building. “They went to replace it, but they didn’t have any more in the store,” she says, her work gloves wet to her wrists. “So we salvaged that one. It was completely filled with sea gunk.” After washing it out and bleaching it, Hanna helped a volunteer contractor replace missing parts taken from another broken toilet. “But now I know how a toilet works,” she laughs. Hanna, who actually survived the tsunami in Puket, Thailand, while vacationing there with her family last Christmas, says she is hoping to come back to the area for another service trip. “I like helping,” she says. “It makes me happy.”

Britney Ranew, a sophomore art major, spent Saturday with the team organizing the Crab Fest pavilion. “We organized canned food, tons of peanut butter and sorted clothes trying to put a system together where people could easily find what they needed,” says the redhead from Atlanta. “It made me feel that what we are doing down here is important. We can go back and tell people what is needed,” she says.

Gavin Miller, a senior from Long Island who is double majoring in music and computer information systems, spent the day helping clean out the church’s maintenance shed. Lawn mowers and tables had been thrown against shelves in the back. “It went from piles of sand two inches thick brought in by the wave to a clean, bare floor,” Miller says of the progress they made. “Now they can put new siding on it and it’s ready to use.”

Father Tracey thanked the students before they began their workday. “We appreciate you coming,” he says. “It’s not so much the physical work you are going to do. No matter what task you are given today, it’s helping to rebuild this community. It’s helping to rebuild people’s lives.”

Pesce has been a member of Wiley’s leadership team since 1989. He led the turnaround of Wiley’s higher education business and has contributed significantly to the company’s evolution as a global enterprise. Since Pesce became president and chief executive officer in 1998, Wiley has consummated three of the largest and most successful acquisitions in the company’s history.

Pesce received his bachelor’s degree with honors from William Paterson University and earned his master’s degree in business administration with honors from New York University.

This is the second of three lectures planned for 黑料不打烊’s Winter Term Leadership Lecture Series. The program is free and open to the public.

Matthew Szulik has positioned Linux software provider Red Hat to be the defining technology company of the 21st century. He has been a leading software executive for more than 20 years and has become one of the most visible proponents of the open-source movement – the concept of distributing computer software in which the source code is freely available for others to view, amend and adapt.

Since joining Red Hat in 1998, Szulik has led the company through successful public stock offerings in 1999 and 2000 and has helped Red Hat develop global partnerships with Oracle, IBM, Dell, Intel and HP to deliver open-source technology.

Szulik is passionate about improving the educational opportunities for students worldwide through open source, and he is a spokesperson to industry, government and education leaders on open-source computing. He was recognized by CIO Magazine in 2002 with its 20/20 Vision Award, which honors outstanding creators, marketers and practitioners of information technology.

The program is free and open to the public.