Our Interview with Student Leadership Award Winner, Up ’til Dawn at Keuka

The Jenzabar Foundation also spoke with Darla Sucy, Chair of the Up ‘til Dawn Program at Keuka College. The Up ‘til Dawn Program at Keuka, another one of The Jenzabar Foundation’s Student Leadership Award winners, raised a tremendous amount of money for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital this past year.

Read on to learn more about how the program began, how it exceeded its fundraising goals and what it has planned for the upcoming school year.

The Jenzabar Foundation: Can you tell us how the Up ‘til Dawn program began at Keuka College this past year?

When the Student Activities Director at Keuka, Jennifer Furner, found out about the Up ‘til Dawn program, she immediately thought that it would be a perfect fit for our school. A handful of student leaders, many of us who knew little-to-nothing about St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, were encouraged to be on the Executive Board. I can clearly remember the first meeting that we had- we went around the group and everyone said why they were interested in becoming involved. It was then that we found out that the majority of us had a personal connection to cancer patients. Personally, I had a good friend from childhood who I watched fight melanoma for years. After this session of sharing, we all were pretty fired up and ready to help St. Jude’s fight childhood cancer and other diseases. That’s all it took for us to get started.

TJF: Also, could you let us know what your specific role within the organization is?

I am the Team Chairperson on the Executive Board of Up ‘til Dawn at Keuka. I held this position last year and will continue to for the upcoming school year. My role is to encourage students and faculty to get involved in our major events each year through personal electronic invites as well as through word of mouth around campus.

TJF: The Up ‘til Dawn organization at Keuka College exceeded its $10,000 goal this year, raising $13,355 for St. Jude’s Research Hospital. This was more money than any other first year program and matched or exceeded funds raised by more established Up ‘til Dawn programs. What do you believe was the most significant contributing factor to your organization’s incredible success and do you have any new ideas for fundraising in 2010?

When I am asked what made Up ‘til Dawn so successful in its first year at Keuka, I can quickly and confidently answer: the Keuka community itself. We are a school that has strong foundations in community service. Many students, like myself, are willing to step up and become leaders for various causes and organizations, all while balancing our academic commitments. Simply encouraging others to join our fight against cancer and help us in our effort to raise awareness and funds for St. Jude’s proved to be an effective strategy for our first year.

In the 2009-2010 academic year we will be hosting some of the same events that we did in our start up year, as well as trying to incorporate some new ideas for fundraising. The letter writing campaign, car wash, charity bingo and pool movies all were successful this past year. We are also considering adding a chicken barbeque and pizza sales to get people involved in supporting our fundraising efforts.

TJF: I noticed that the Up ‘til Dawn program at Keuka has a Facebook group. What impact has this social media outlet had in helping to promote the organization, recruit students and raise awareness?

Social media, and Facebook in particular, has helped us greatly. Our Facebook page provides general information about the group, as well as a place for us to post updates on our fundraising goals. Also, when I posted a new Keuka event on Facebook, I was able to generate 20-30 responses in less than 10 minutes. We also made use of our college message board and email system to send out event notifications as well as biographies of children at St. Jude’s.

TJF: Finally, how do you plan to use the $5,000 Jenzabar Foundation Student Leadership Award?

We donated half of the $5,000 award to St. Jude’s Hospital. A portion of the award also helped to send two of our Executive Board members to Memphis, Tennessee to attend the Collegiate Leadership Seminar. The remainder of the award will help us with our fundraising and awareness events in the upcoming academic year.

Our Interview with Student Leadership Award Winner, The Web of Life

The Jenzabar Foundation also spoke with Oliver deSilva, President of The Web of Life Student Environmental Organization at the University of Dubuque. Oliver’s organization, another one of The Jenzabar Foundation’s Student Leadership Award winners, has been making great strides to promote environmentally friendly living on campus and beyond.

Read on to learn more about the focus, activities and future ideas of this student group, as well as to gather some environmental and sustainable living advice!

The Jenzabar Foundation: Could you give us a little bit of background on the University of Dubuque’s Web of Life Student Environmental Organization and your role within in?

The Web of Life is a student organization at the University of Dubuque that focuses on environmental education and awareness, not only on our campus, but also in the community.

My role as President of the Web of Life is to organize meetings, facilitate volunteers, filter the many requests for events we get and mainly be the head contact for the group. This is my first year as president, though I have been with the group for all of my years at the University of Dubuque.

TJF: Since Web of Life seems to be a leader in raising environmental awareness within the Dubuque community, I am curious as to what types of activities, programs and volunteer opportunities it offers?

We participate in activities such as highway cleanups, cleanups at the local arboretum and tree-plantings, as well as work with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources on the Osprey reintroduction. Educationally, we focus on after-school programs and event days, such as Science Day with our local elementary schools and middle schools. We also try to have several fun events each semester, such as camping, fishing, or hiking trips.

TJF: If you could offer one piece of environmental education to the community at large, what would it be?

Sustainability, sustainability, sustainability. Who knows, without it, there may not be anything left for our children or for their children.

TJF: Finally, how does the Web of Life Organization plan to use the $5,000 Jenzabar Foundation Student Leadership Award?

The Web of Life plans to use the award money to further our educational programs. For example, we are putting together an “EnvironmentBee” by inviting local elementary schools to Dubuque’s campus to compete in an environmentally themed day of learning and fun. With luck it hopefully will become an annual event!

Our Interview with Student Leadership Award Winner, The SENEA Project

Following the announcement of this year’s Student Leadership Award winners at JAM 2009, The Jenzabar Foundation spoke with several of the winning organization’s student representatives to hear more about their causes, campaigns and upcoming initiatives and goals.

Read on for our interview with the University of Tulsa’s Allison Johnston, to learn about her role with the SENEA project and the organization’s plans for using the new $5,000 grant.

The Jenzabar Foundation: For those unfamiliar with the SENEA Project, could you briefly describe what the team does and the results of the team’s work thus far? Also, what role do you have within the SENEA team?

The SENEA project is comprised of a group of students who research sustainable energy technologies for use in rural areas, particularly North East Asia and now Haiti as well. We then travel and implement these technologies, hoping to improve people’s access to energy in these areas.

At our site in the Jilin Province of China for example, we have technologies such as wind turbines, solar ovens, and biogas digesters set up around a shepherd’s house. We also have built a greenhouse designed to generate renewable power at this site. Future plans for the area include wind powered air compressors and human powered vehicles. In Haiti, a new extension of the SENEA project, we are researching the feasibility of biogas digesters and hydropower.

I personally am the Project Lead for SENEA, which means I oversee the research being done and when it comes time to implement our technologies, I make sure that it happens.

TJF: As you alluded to above, one of the most significant contributions of the SENEA Project has been the construction of a model home and greenhouse called the Sustainable Shepherd’s Residence (SSR). How does the SENEA team plan to further implement these SSRs into the region?

The SSR is really a model home. It includes more technology than is needed for the resident shepherd to survive. Consequently, people living in areas near the SSR are encourage to explore it, decide which technologies would work best for them, and then choose from amongst sets of plans that include various combinations of the available technologies. With directions written in a language that they can read and built using materials that they have access to, the SSRs can be implemented into these rural areas. The SENEA Project is conducting continuous research on new and better sustainable energy sources that could possible become included in the SSR as well as on other sites in the area to continue the spread of information.

TJF: The SENEA Project hopes to someday be able to present sustainable energy systems to millions of underprivileged minority residents in North East Asia. What is it like being part of such a large-scale service initiative, especially one that is centered on the other side of the globe?

Undertaking the SENEA project requires ambitious and dedicated students, willing to help people that they never have met. And for many, traveling across the globe to do this is an added incentive and increases initiative.

TJF: Finally, how does the SENEA project plan to use the $5,000 Jenzabar Foundation Student Leadership Award?

One of the nice things about working in North East Asia is the availability of cheap materials. Because of this, individual components of the SSR cost hundreds of dollars, rather than tens of thousands of dollars as they would in America. Therefore, $5,000 will go a long way in helping the SENEA project facilitate the advancement of the SSR in the form of materials and labor costs.

One of the downsides of working in China is the cost of travel just to get to the project site- often approaching $3,000 per person. Therefore, the Jenzabar Foundation Student Leadership Award will also be used to help meet travel costs, which are not yet funded.

You can read more about the University of Tulsa’s SENEA Project by visiting their website at

http://orgs.utulsa.edu/senea/index.htm.