First MPIRG Meeting and other updates

Hamline's MPIRG (Minnesota Public Interest Research Group) chapter had its first meeting of the year on Monday. It was really really exciting but before I explain why I'll explain a little about the org. MPIRG is a non-profit, non-partisan, student run, state wide social justice org. Ever heard of the Boundary Waters? Yeah, well MPIRG was behind the legislation that created the BWCAW. We also banned fluorocarbons, created the Metro Greenways, pushed the toughest environmental legislation in the nation to pass, plus tons of other stuff - check out the website...http://www.mpirg.org/
In other words we're pretty awesome! Anyway last year our attendance was limited to say the least and therefore this year we went all out during recruitment weeks and had 30 students in attendance plus the leadership for this year. We have a lot of really great and amazing projects planned and what looks like a great group to start the work!

On a completely different note as part of Wesley Scholars I got to listen to this amazing woman from Peru who is working for fair trade in her community. She started a group of women making various objects which are then given to several different groups of Fair Trade organizations. Her story was amazing. Peru in the past few decades has had some intense problems with poverty and governmental agencies. During the 80's insurgent groups (The Shining Path for example) gained large support because they were reacting to the government. The government then came in and began to kill participants of the Shining Path but because no one really knew who was part of the group many innocent and almost always poor residents were killed. The woman we talked to tonight was personally affected by this in several ways. Her mother died when she was 12 leaving her to be the head woman of the house and only a year or so later the government came and took her father. The government did this often during the time and it was referred to as 'disappearing people'. 90% of the people who were disappeared never returned. Yuna's father did, but only because there was one guard who gave him water at one point during his 3 + day interim locked in a cell with nothing to eat or drink. At the end of the time he was taken out to a field and the officer who had been nice to Yuna's father was chosen to kill him. Instead of killing him he shot at the ground twice and told him to go home. I'm not telling this story nearly as good as she did, but hopefully I portrayed some of the amazingness of the discussion in my note. It was wonderful!

Campus Kitchen

So the newest endeavor I've fallen in love with is the campus kitchen. Check out the link below, but for now I'll explain my fascination. On a monthly basis for the past year I've taken groups of students to Simpson Men's Shelter to serve dinner. Getting the food has been a dilemma each and every time. The majority of the last year we were able to get the food from Hamline's food service, but we had to pay an arm and a leg for it. I heard about Campus Kitchen last year and thought that it would be awesome for Hamline to have one (if you don't know what it is check out the website). So, I contacted the campus kitchen at Augsburg to see if it would be possible to get the food from them and we're going to get it for free! (Well if we have a few people go and volunteer - which is not a problem at all!). So now that we have food to serve at Simpson we also have an insider's look at a running campus kitchen and I have a meeting with the dean of students to start the ball rolling on a campus kitchen here at Hamline!!!!!!!! It is sooooooo exciting!


http://www.campuskitchens.org/

Back to School again

Well, it's that time of year again and I am back at school having a blast! This year I'm an orientation leader for new students. Specifically I'm in charge of a group of transfer students. All first year students have a three day orientation that started today and since the transfer students don't have to go to today or tomorrow I get to have a blast and help out in lots of other areas of the orientation process. For example: tonight after all of the required orientation things there was soccer and sundae's where people went to go see women's soccer and got ice cream sundaes. And then after that there were Piper Lawn Games where any incoming students who want to come show up and play tons of large group icebreakers. Things like Captain's Coming, Birdie on a Perch, among other things. (Ask if you have no idea what I'm talking about). Anyway orientation is so much fun!
Other things....I am taking Immunology at Hamline, Advanced German Conversations and Composition at Augsburg, Shakespeare at Augsburg, and German in the Media at Macalaster along with Band and Biosem this semester. I'm also doing some more volunteering at the hospital that I was volunteering at last spring. Plus I'm in charge of Hamline's chapter of MPIRG in addition to being the group leader for the Hunger and Homelessness task force, being in Wesley Scholars, and on the exec board of a new org that was started last spring. The semester is going to be busy but well worth it! I'm so excited! But very sad that it is winding down so quickly!