The Story
With a Little College Help, Students Embark on a Summer of Service
While most College students take advantage of the summer break to catch up on much needed sleep or to improve a tan ruined by Williamsburg’s dreary weather, other will spend this summer traveling throughout the country and the world to help others.
This year the Office of Student Volunteer Services gave Summer Service Grants to 21 students who spent the summer volunteering with various volunteer organizations throughout the world.
This years’ Summer Service Grant recipients will carry out service work in in the United States, Guatemala, Peru, Hondorus, Kenya, Lesotho, Thailand, India, Mongolia, China, the Phillipnese, Costa Rica, and Romania.
The grants allow students an opportunity to travel and volunteer in many places they ordinarily may not be able to go. This year $20,000 in summer service grants were awarded.
This year’s summer service grants were:
Parents Association Recipients:
• Sarita Alami and Yasmin Alami— will conduct environmental clean up and outreach in Guatemala’s Lake Atitlan and surrounding villages.
• Kaitlin Farrell—will perform medical tests for The Clean-Burning Stove Project in Peru’s Sacred Valley region.
• Hope Huynh—will translate for the “Eye Brigade,” an ophthalmology team in El Progreso, Honduras.
• Amy Klein and Colin Makubwa—will provide community outreach and medical care in Kenya’s Kendu Adventist Hospital and with Kiye Community Based Development’s HIV/AIDS Mobile Awareness Program.
• Graham Nessler—will provide child care and teach English in an orphanage and child nutrition center in El Progreso, Honduras.
• Audrie Pattenn—will work with the Maseru Women Senior Citizens Association in ha Ntlama, Lesotho.
• Jamie Quiroz—will teach reading and technology to impoverished rural women in Thailand.
• Anusha Sundaram-will work with two service organizations in Chennai, India supporting the disabled children of Spastics Society of Tamil Nadu and providing childcare for abandoned infants at the Karna Prayag Trust.
• Krishnan Vasudevan— will volunteer with Pillar of Hope,providing aid to rural Kenyan communities affected by the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
Pulley Family Endowment Recipients:
• Jessica Allred— will serve as a counselor, teacher, and mentor to youth at a camp outside Mongolia’s capital city of Ulaanbaatar.
• Robert Cramer— will teach English to teenagers at a camp in Fu Zhou, China.
• Richael Faithful—will assist the mentally and physically impaired and will contribute to HIV/AIDS community outreach efforts in Thailand.
• Kim Grubb—will tutor children in English and math, train people in basic management and micro-enterprise, and conduct medical outreach with the ha Ntlama Integrated Development Project in ha Ntlama, Lesotho.
• Alice Krips— will organize and lead building restoration and community outreach programs at the Henderson Settlement in Appalachian Kentucky.
• Thao Nguyen—will serve as a tutor, teachers’ aide, and child care provider for homeless and low-income families at the Adult Skills Center within Episcopal Community Services of San Francisco.
• Heather Soloria— will teach and supervise youth at an orphanage in Solano, Philippines and volunteer with patients suffering from leprosy.
• Victoria Young – will work with troubled youth in rural Costa Rica
The Christopher Wren Association Recipients:
• Matthew Harrington— will tutor and mentor children at an orphanage in Romania’s Transylvanian region.
• Tina Nguyen—will teach and care for the youth of a child protection center in Kanchna Buri, Thailand.
"[This grant is] making it possible for me to travel and volunteer, two things that i've been working towards my entire college career. I think it will be an amazing experience working with the orphaned children in Thailand this summer," said junior Tina Nguyen, a summer 2004 Pulley Family Endowment Recipient.
Information provided by the Office of Student Volunteer Services.