Speakers

Alisha Siebers, our United Way representative, shared her personal experiences with homeless people as a young adult with limited funds. She realized there were many people exactly like her and when we unite together, our limited funds add up to substantial ones and we are able to accomplish great things such as the Kalamazoo College community does.

• United Way teams with 70 agencies bringing people together, identifying the root causes of the problems such as treating housing issues first so as to keep people in a safe home, then treating the other problems (meals, social workers, addiction recovery, job training).
• United Way also mobilizes volunteers, helps companies who would like to be involved in a project (building, tutoring, book drive, etc.)
• United Way also has a 211 phone number that is staffed 24/7 that anyone in need can call at any time to be connected to help.

Ann Jenks from the Advancement Office, Director of Corporate and Foundation Relations spoke about grants. Ann participated in ERAC/CE training. Ann encouraged supervisors of students to let their students know of the training opportunities from Joan Hawxhurst.

• Ann spoke about the “Reading Together” pilot project for K College community and anyone interested could sign up or contact Ann. Her thoughts are on staff meeting 4X a year in the cafeteria to read and discuss a book. Six have signed up so far. Ann will email the dates for lunch meetings. The first book being read is “Writings on the Wall: Searching for a New Quality Beyond Black and White” by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar who will be visiting Kalamazoo in March to help the Kalamazoo Public Library kick off the 15th year of the “Reading Together” program. He will be speaking at Miller Auditorium on March 14th. This event is free and open to the public. Ann would like to keep the conversation going on campus and with other books that would be helpful in fostering that communication. She is purchasing copies of the book so let her know if you need one.

Update on November 30th Joint Service Project with Administrative Staff

• Spirit Fridays initiative will be forwarded to Community Council
• Book drive for 3/24, 10:00 a.m. more info coming soon, collecting books for school age children, wrapping them and writing a note. More information will follow.
• DOGL service project including students and employees idea going to Community Council. People are excited about digging back into the roots of the 1980’s DOGL service-oriented projects. More information coming soon.

All Campus Gathering Reminder– Wednesday, January 25th, in Dalton Theatre at 11:00 a.m.

The next meeting will be held on Friday, February 10th at 9:00 a.m. in the Recital Hall/Light Fine Arts Building.

MEETING ADJOURNED.