For spring break this year, nine 91鶹Ʒ students will roll up their sleeves and dig in to help others — literally.
Accompanied by Daniel Mandell, assistant director of the COVE, the group will head to the Dominican Republic this Friday to plant vegetable gardens and lead educational sessions on nutrition for the community of El Mangito.
The idea for this trip sprouted from Marla Pfenninger ’08, who interned in the Dominican Republic last summer thanks to the Dr. Merrill Miller Endowed Fellowship.
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| Evan Kramer ’08, Rachel Greenburg ’10, and Annemarie Papandrea ’08 (left to right) sell food from El Tropical restaurant in Syracuse to help fund the Dominican Republic trip. Students raised $242 from food and craft sales at the Coop. (Photo by Tim O’Keeffe) |
While collecting data on the height, weight, and eating habits of children under the age of 5 in the town of Neiba, Pfenninger identified the dire need for nutrition education in this area.
After submitting her report to Vision Mundial, the organization with which she was interning, she was asked to bring a group down to address this problem. Upon returning to campus, her plan blossomed under the guidance of COVE staff.
Next, Pfenninger and a committee narrowed down the applicant pool of 60 students to decide who would be going on the trip.
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“We were trying to form a group that was able to share our vision of what the project would be like and was able to commit a significant amount of time to the project during the semester,” she said.
“I told them that they would have to consider this trip to be an additional class because there was so much that needed to be fleshed out; it couldn’t be something they put in the back of their minds until March 14,” added Mandell.
The group has been meeting weekly to plan fundraising initiatives and outline the four educational sessions that will teach community members about beneficial cooking practices, vitamins, breastfeeding, and childhood nutrition.
In addition to the main goal of raising awareness about the importance of proper nutrition, it is also hoped that the group will develop a sustainable relationship with the community.
“I’m hoping that we can establish a strong relationship between the COVE and El Mangito so that this is something we can build off of,” Mandell said.
Pfenninger added that she would like to bring the knowledge they gain from the experience back to the 91鶹Ʒ community.
“After the trip, we’ll have eight more students and a faculty member who’ve been to this community and understand something about global malnutrition, so we’ll be able to deal with that issue in a more concrete way.”