As a journalism student, I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to work for the Ohio State University’s student-run newspaper, "The lantern". I worked as a reporter on the outreach & engagement beat. I would explore our campus and venture into the greater Columbus area to find stories, conduct research and interviews, and write about my peers and other community members who were making a change for the greater good.
Please find samples of my articles below.
OHIO STATE PROGRAM HELPS HIGH-RISK CHILDREN GET KINDERGARTEN READYSince 2016, Ohio State has helped children transition from pre-K to kindergarten through a four-week summer learning program, and six months after the 2019 program, students and parents showed improvement in academics and communication.
Summer Success is a program geared toward children who have little to no experience in an early childhood setting, designed to help them gain the skills and support they need to start kindergarten in the fall. The children build their language, literacy, mathematics, social-emotional and motor skills Monday through Friday for four weeks in classrooms of 12-15 students with four teachers, Ruri Famelia, research coordinator for Summer Success, said.
Summer Success is not a summer camp — it is a summer learning program that mimics the kindergarten setting, Famelia said.
“We help children learn how to be in a structured environment with other children while introducing them to the routine they will follow in kindergarten every day,” she said
Children who are enrolled in the program tend to come from high-risk backgrounds and may be experiencing poverty or some sort of trauma, such as domestic abuse, homelessness or moving schools, Kari Welch, Summer Success program coordinator, said.
Welch said one child who went through the program this summer was an immigrant whose second language is English. The child had never been through an American school system, and Summer Success helped him get comfortable in that setting.
Students get assessed before and after the program, and Welch said that after the summer and talking with the child’s parents, they decided he needed one more year of pre-K to continue the growth of his social skills.
“He was never able to practice his English skills in an actual conversation with other American children,” Welch said. “We thought one more year of pre-kindergarten would help fine-tune his social skills and make him kindergarten ready.”
The program not only aids students in their academic and social growth, but also helps parents, Famelia said.
“Some parents just don’t know how to communicate with their child’s teachers,” Famelia said. “So we provide time for parents if they have questions and need help as well.”
One mother of a child who participated in the program this past summer for the second time saw her daughter’s improvement, and in turn, felt more comfortable approaching teachers, Welch said.
“She’s doing better than she had been, and Mom now has the comfort of coming over and looking for support,” Welch said, “She has a space where she feels safe to come and then feels empowered to go talk to the teachers.”
Welch said she has goals to continue the expansion of Summer Success and wants to reach out to more areas in the community that may need help from the program.
OUT-OF-BOX STUDY OPPORTUNITY COMES TO CAMPUS AREAA new way for students to study outside of the traditional library or coffee shop is now available in Iuka Park, minutes away from Ohio State’s campus.
OotBox, launched this summer, is an outdoor meeting, study or group space that travels around Columbus and could eventually have a permanent presence on campus. The space is equipped with secure Wi-Fi, temperature control and a smart keypad to give users security, Robbie Friedman, founder of ootBox, said.
The ootBox also consists of 36 square feet of storefront glass, and four people can fit in the space comfortably, according to the company’s website.
For the past five months, the company has been testing the pod in multiple locations, including Upper Arlington, Bexley and the Short North, to see where it is most helpful. Recently, the company realized its effectiveness as a study pod and wanted to learn how it would help Ohio State students, Friedman said.
“A college campus is a unique location because anything can happen,” Friedman said, “When we put it in the Short North, it immediately became a workspace, but on a college campus, there is more curiosity and possibilities on what it could be used for.”
Students can reserve an ootBox on the company’s website beginning at $8 for one hour, $12 for two hours and $15 for three hours, according to ootBox’s website.
Taylor Hughes, a recent Ohio State alumna, said that when ootBox got delivered to her office space, it was a great new way to have team meetings outside of work, while still being near the office.
“Being able to get outside of what you do every day — whether that is me being in meetings all day or students being in the library all day, having this new environment to study, work or relax in is very refreshing,” Hughes said.
Hughes said she would have loved to have had this at Ohio State when she was a student-athlete because it is a “good space for student-athletes to get out and go study after being stuck in the gym for eight hours a day.”
Friedman said his goal is to have ootBox on many college campuses as an ideal study space.
“It is an inviting environment and can be a mental health break to relax and focus,” Hughes said.
OotBox is an outdoor meeting space that travels around Columbus and could eventually have a permanent presence on campus
OHIO STATE AND PENN STATE RAISE MONEY FOR CAMPUS FOOD PANTRIESOhio State and Penn State are battling off the field in a friendly competition to raise money for their campus food pantries.
The Tackle Hunger Ohio State versus Penn State Giving Challenge is taking place between the two universities to see which can raise the most money toward helping combat food insecurity on campus. The contest began Sunday and will end Saturday after the much-anticipated football game between the two universities, Jenn Keyes, assistant vice president of the Alumni Association at Ohio State, said.
A 2014 Ohio State survey showed that 15 percent of students have a “very low level of food security,” according to a university press release.
Nicholas Fowler, Buckeye Food Alliance coordinator, said both universities see college food insecurity as an important issue and wanted to use this opportunity to bring support and awareness to the cause, which is what prompted the competition.
“Leaders from both universities wanted to leverage the rivalry around football and to inspire philanthropy in a fun way,” Fowler said.
Keyes said that at the end of the day, the competition is about the students they are impacting and that is the spirit behind the campaign.
“That is why our alumni, friends and community members are getting behind it because it is helping our students,” Keyes said. “I think part of the competition and the fun is that it is something everyone is enjoying.”
Keyes said it is great when two competitive schools can come together for a common good and make a difference in their communities.
“Both schools have already won because of the amount of gifts that have been donated,” Keyes said.
Monetary gifts can be donated online through the event’s website. Once the competition has ended, the gifts will support Buckeye Food Alliance and a similar program at Penn State, Keyes said. For every $5 donated, one point goes toward the challenge, and each dollar raised equates to up to five meals for students.
The current tally shows Ohio State, with 13,473 gifts, trailing Penn State, which has 28,739 gifts.
The Tackle Hunger Ohio State versus Penn State Giving Challenge is seeing which university can raise the most money to fight food insecurity.
ENGINEERING STUDENTS CREATE SOLUTIONS FOR COLUMBUS’ UNDERSERVEDOhio State students are bringing technological solutions to communities and individuals in Columbus, Ohio, who have disabilities or cannot afford certain resources.
Design for 90, an undergraduate student organization, is creating solutions for those who are underserved in Columbus. The group, which started in 2015, is comprised mostly of engineering and business students who work together to create projects that benefit the community, Mia Feist, a fourth-year in civil engineering and co-president of Design for 90, said.
“We work closely with the underserved portions of Columbus, and that is how we got our name,” Feist said. “In engineering, you design for the top 10 percent of the population, and Design for 90 looks at the bottom 90 percent to make their lives better.”
The project-based organization focuses on individuals’ needs through each project, Feist said.
“We are working with individuals as opposed to making things just for the sake of making things,” Feist said. “We learn about the individual and create something personalized that at the end they get to keep and use.”
Samuel Redman, a third-year in mechanical engineering and co-president of Design for 90, said the group’s first project was an adapted spoon designed and built for a nonverbal resident of an adult home who only had one finger.
Design for 90 currently has four projects in the works, the latest being a device to help a woman with limited hand mobility pick things up.
This semester, the organization partnered with Creative Living, an organization in Columbus that provides housing and support to people with physical disabilities, to make the idea come to life, Redman said.
Students pitch projects to the organization, or outside sources seek out the group’s help, Feist said. For the current project, a member of the organization volunteered with Creative Living in the past spring semester and brought the idea to Design for 90.
Feist said the organization has a wide range of students, and many of the project ideas stem from students’ personal interests.
Once a project is chosen, the organization sees the process through to completion. Members start by brainstorming and narrowing down ideas, then make a rough design, estimate a cost and create a prototype that is tested until they are satisfied with the outcome, Feist said.
Redman said the organization pays for the projects and gets funding by fundraising through volunteer work, as well as winning awards for past projects.
For an engineering student, this is a great way to experience real-life application of what they have learned in the classroom, Redman said.
“It gives us engineering experience that we do not get in our classes, where we are just taking notes and tests,” Redman said. “You can really see the first-hand impacts you are making in individuals’ lives.”
OHIO STATE AMERICAN SIGN LANGUAGE PROGRAM ENGAGES DEAF COMMUNITYColumbus has the highest population of deaf and hard-of-hearing people in Ohio, an Ohio State lecturer said, and a university program is taking students off campus and into the community to use their skills to support the deaf community.
The American Sign Language program at Ohio State allows students to leave the classroom and apply their learning to real-life situations through a 2019 Emerging Service-Learning Award-winning Ohio State course.
According to the Office of Outreach and Engagement’s website, the university service-learning course won the award in May, as they work at partner sites, where students “respect Deaf Space at their partner site while using ASL and serving as communication facilitators between hearing service providers who do not sign and the marginalized Deaf people.”
The service-learning program, offered each semester to students who have taken at least one ASL course, is designed to bring student awareness to the deaf community in central Ohio. It allows ASL students to use the skills they learn in the classroom to provide needed services and support in the deaf community, Kristin Wickham-Saxon, senior lecturer in the ASL program, said.
“We identify the needs of our community partners as well as the skills and interests of our students to organize the site placements,” Wickham-Saxon said.
Students are placed in different agencies and organizations that serve the deaf community in central Ohio. The placements include group homes, nursing and/or rehabilitation facilities, independent living housing and anti-violence agencies, Wickham-Saxon said.
The service-learning course began at Ohio State three years ago, and since it started, it has taken off and created excitement in ASL students, Wickham-Saxon said.
“It is a transformative experience. Not one student leaves the class that has not been changed in a significant way,” Wickham-Saxon said.
In the program, most students only sign in the classroom when they are told to by professors, but Madison Zimmerly, a fourth-year in zoology, said it is important for students to sign conversationally with people in the deaf community.
“We have to completely sign to communicate when we go out in the community, so we are fully immersed, which is good for our language development,” Zimmerly said.
ASL students not only learn the language but also learn about the culture of the deaf community. In the service-learning course, they get to have first-hand experiences with the culture they have learned about, Zimmerly said.
“We do work that has a direct impact on someone’s life,” Zimmerly said.
As the service-learning course continues to be taught at Ohio State, the goal is to grow the opportunities the students have in the community and to help the deaf population of central Ohio as much as possible, Wickham-Saxon said.
Ohio State packs 200,000 meals for veterans across OhioOhio State students, faculty, staff and alumni packed 200,000 meals in an hour and a half for the Military Veterans Resource Center at French Field House Tuesday evening.
In a collaboration with the Kind Columbus initiative at the Columbus Foundation, Ohio State will be distributing the meals to 140,000 veterans who are food insecure —without reliable access to quality and nutritious food — across the state of Ohio. Former Ohio State football player Ken Blair, along with Office of Student Life staff, will deliver the meals in an Ohio State football-themed tractor trailer Wednesday.
This is the third year the meal packing has taken place, but the first year it is being done for military veterans.
The group will drive to the Chillicothe Resource Center and the Hamilton Resource Center, where they will unload the truck with students and veterans. The rest of the food will be put in a Columbus warehouse and sent to veterans across the state, Tracy Stuck, assistant vice president for student life, said.
More than 200,000 meals were packed and donated throughout Athens, Ohio, last year, Stuck said.
“The amount of cheers and people thanking us was overwhelming,” Stuck said.
This year’s event focused on veterans because of the upcoming Ohio State football game against University of Maryland Nov. 9, which is going to be dedicated to veterans, Stuck said. After hearing about the game, she said she learned that many Ohio veterans face food insecurity, and Student Life reached out to the Military Veterans Resource Center.
The event spreads kindness across the community, which is an important part of being an Ohio State student, Julia Dennen, Undergraduate Student Government vice president and fourth-year in public affairs who was participating in the event, said.
“When we are doing service and when we are connecting with alumni and other students, I find much of that purpose is what it means to be a Buckeye,” Dennen said.
Through one night of packing meals, Ohio State can impact hundreds of families and give people across Ohio food, Dennen said.
“There is the tangible impact of families getting food and then there is also a cool opportunity for people to connect and bond over being a Buckeye,” Dennen said.
Students, faculty, alumni and staff packing meals for the Military Veterans Resource Center at French Field House on Oct. 29. Credit: Jessica Klein | Lantern Reporter
Seeds of service works on final siteThis semester’s Seeds of Service event marked the removal of most of the invasive plant species and planting of trees on the final work site, where students continued the tradition in Carmack Woods Saturday morning.
The Undergraduate Student Government at Ohio State and Friends of the Lower Olentangy Watershed, a nonprofit dedicated to keeping the Olentangy River clean and safe, sponsored the Seeds of Service restoration event along the Olentangy River Trail at Carmack Woods. Seeds of Service seeks to increase ecosystem services to meet Ohio State’s sustainability goals, Alyssa Barbuto, director of sustainability for USG and fourth-year in environment, economy, development and sustainability, said.
Before any trees could be planted, some invasive species, including honeysuckle, had to be eradicated, Alexis Kilbane, deputy director of sustainability for USG and fourth-year in international relations and diplomacy, said.
“Now that the area is clear, people can put down more trees,” Kilbane said, “So we are increasing our canopy level on campus, which is one of our sustainability goals.”
Barbuto said in a text message that this quadrant was the last to be worked on as part of a graduate capstone project with Friends of the Lower Olentangy Watershed, and there are plans to work on a large tree garden off Cannon Drive, as well as build up the ecosystem surrounding the Olentangy River.
Barbuto said in terms of sustainability goals, the university has a stake in their projects.
“Ohio State is very interested in ecosystem services at the moment,” Barbuto said in a text message.
Students who attended the day of service on behalf of a student organization were able to receive funding for their club, Kilbane said. The 260 attendees could earn up to $120 and use the event toward service hours.
“Through such a small act that is planting one tree, something larger comes together, and we are able to create something like a forest and participate in a beautiful meaningful act that we can share,” Kilbane said.
Students who attended this year’s event — which Barbuto said in a text message had the largest turnout — received a demonstration on how to properly plant a tree and then were able to do it themselves for a few hours.
“We need the students’ support to increase trees on campus because if the students do not support our goals, then we have no reason to be out here today,” Barbuto said.
Kilbane said the idea, “As Ohio State does, the world follows,” is important to remember as they take action.
“Making it one of our community’s priorities to be healthy and eco-friendly so that the message will be communicated to other people is a good thing,” Kilbane said.
Through planting trees along the river at Ohio State, students are helping to increase the oxygen levels for the entire city of Columbus, Barbuto said.
Kilbane said in the future, she’d like to regulate the bus routes to help facilitate transportation for volunteers as well as expand the project to other locations in order to create a larger leaf canopy.
Students planting trees at Seeds of Service in Carmack Woods on Oct. 19. Credit: Jessica Klein | Lantern Reporter
OHIO STATE BRINGS CONFLICT RESOLUTION FROM LAW SCHOOL TO COMMUNITIESLawyers don’t always mediate in the court context — sometimes they bring it into communities across the nation through an Ohio State-based program.
The Divided Community Project, based at the Moritz College of Law, designs processes that help communities identify, understand and address divisions in their own communities caused by differences in race, economy, ethnicity and religion, William Froehlich, deputy director of the Divided Community Project, said.
With the help of a new grant, the project will be able to continue to expand its work within more communities across the country, Becky Monroe, director of the Divided Community Project, said.
“Our mission is to help local leaders strengthen community efforts to transform division into action,” Monroe said.
Since the project’s founding in 2015, the JAMS Foundation — a non-profit that provides financial assistance for conflict-resolution initiatives— has provided three grants. The most recent grant provided $300,000 Oct. 3 to support the project through the 2021 calendar year, Froehlich said.
The project is part of the dispute resolution program at Moritz, which is the No. 1-ranked dispute resolution program at a law school in the country, Froehlich said. The program emphasizes the value of designing conflict resolution systems made for the specific needs of public and private institutions.
OHIO STATE AIMS TO REDUCE OPIOID-RELATED DEATHS BY 40 PERCENT IN 3 YEARSOhio State is combatting Ohio’s opioid epidemic through research, collaboration and the help of a large federal grant.
In April, a $65.9 million grant committed to the HEAL Initiative — Helping to End Addiction Long-Term — was awarded to Ohio State. The communities-based study is funded and supported by the National Institutes of Health and will focus on 19 Ohio counties using real-time research to prevent, treat and provide recovery programs with Ohio State leading researchers from six additional Ohio universities, according to an Ohio State press release.
Since being awarded the grant in April, researchers have been collaborating to create a protocol, and the fieldwork, including surveys and data collections, has begun, Dr. Rebecca Jackson, principal investigator of the study and director of the Center for Clinical and Translational Science at Ohio State, said.
The overarching goal of the initiative is to reduce overdose deaths by 40 percent over the next three years, Jackson said.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Ohio was second in the country in opioid-related fatalities in 2017. West Virginia had the highest rate of opioid-related fatalities in the country.
“Ohio is the epicenter for the opioid crisis that affects every state across the country,” Jackson said. “It is a disease that does not discriminate against race, ethnicity, or rural or urban communities.”
William Martin, former dean of the College of Public Health, said being a part of a university in the state with the second-highest rates of opioid-related deaths motivated the team to get involved and help out.
INTERACTIVE EXHIBIT TO ENGAGE COLUMBUS COMMUNITYA new way to learn about evolutionary theory is coming to the Columbus community — if it can raise the money it needs.
The Anthropology Public Outreach Program at Ohio State is helping guide “Evolved,” an evolution-themed exhibit, and is in the process of raising the funds needed for the project to appear at COSI, Mark Hubbe, professor of anthropology and director of APOP, said.
“Evolved” will explore the evolution of the human body through eight interactive modules, according to APOP’s website. The project is designed to provide an informal learning environment, which visitors can experience and think about human evolution relating to their bodies.
Since 2017, APOP has established several outreach projects with the goal of bringing diversity to students, Hubbe said. Some projects include a library lecture series hosted by APOP, a Science Olympiad tournament and a podcast called “A Story of Us.”
Hubbe said that because the project was thought out and designed by Ohio State alumna Abbey Sarver-Verhey, it became important to APOP.
“We have the opportunity to take a project from one of our own students, her own passions, and make something for the greater community,” Hubbe said.
Sarver-Verhey did not respond to request for an interview by the time of publication.
The program is raising money through its website, social media presence and blog that allows for discussion with Ohio State alumni, Hubbe said. The program has raised $28,022 of its $51,111 goal, and the deadline for donations is Sept. 30.
For example, one initiative within the Divided Community Project — the Bridge Initiative — trains community members how to keep protests safe and helps settle conflicts between law enforcement and community members, according to the project’s website.
“We take mediation concepts and skills we teach in classes here and apply them to communities with division and tension,” Froehlich said.
Communities in Rochester, New York; Orlando, Florida; and San Mateo County, California, have all been reached by the project, Monroe said.
“We work with communities to teach them how they can constructively respond to community unrest while identifying and meaningfully addressing some of the reasons that underlie the unrest,” Monroe said.
The project is not meant to prevent civil unrest; it is meant to recognize and respect that there are divisions in our communities, and the project’s goal is to keep people safe while addressing these issues, Monroe said.
“Our goal is to provide real-time dispute resolution to people who need it,” Monroe said, “While supporting local leaders and their communities.”
“We lead the nation in overdose deaths. We all knew we had to do something,” Martin said. “We should all feel privileged to have the resources we do and the opportunity to bring them to the counties.”
The counties involved in this study, which represent a wide range of urban and rural communities, include Allen, Ashtabula, Athens, Brown, Cuyahoga, Darke, Franklin, Guernsey, Greene, Hamilton, Huron, Jefferson, Lucas, Morrow, Ross, Scioto, Stark, Williams and Wyandot, according to a press release.
“In four years, we will be able to provide scientific evidence that will allow communities to deploy custom-designed programs to disseminate across all the counties,” Jackson said.
The study aims to answer the questions of how to end the opioid crisis, and how to help individuals in terms of the community they live in. The fact that this study is community-based is what makes it different from other research programs, Jackson said.
“It is community-engaged and community-driven. Communities will look at the gaps in their services and select approaches off a menu we provide that will help them reach the overarching goal,” Jackson said.
Jackson said she played a big role in acquiring the grant by bringing together a team of scientists.
“We built a team locally and then I reached out to collaborators that I have in Cincinnati and Cleveland to ask if they would like to collaborate on this with us to move forward on a statewide approach,” Jackson said.
The work of Jackson and her team was essential in the creation of the HEAL Initiative, Martin said.
“It is the commitment of the individuals and leadership of Dr. Jackson, bringing the [HEAL] Initiative together that has made it successful,” Martin said. “People have repurposed their academic careers to be involved in this.”
“It is not a cry for money at this point,” Hubbe said. “For us, it is important to spread the word about this project.”
Laura Wagner, professor of psychology and director of the language sciences research lab, said Sarver-Verhey wanted to create this project with the hope of it being displayed in a museum, so Wagner helped her develop connections with COSI.
“It is good for COSI to see that Ohio State is where a lot of great scientists are and where great science happens,” Wagner said.
Evolutionary theory has become a topic surrounded by controversy, Wagner said, but Sarver-Verhey has put together an exhibit that is going to help the community understand what evolution is and what can be learned from it.
“The goal is to spark interest and excitement in people — to help motivate them to learn about evolution,” Wagner said.
Hubbe said his main goal for APOP is to never tell people exactly what to think and to create an open discussion that builds knowledge. His support for “Evolved” stemmed from how it embraced this goal.
“It is not your typical exhibit,” Hubbe said. “It is interactive, and you explore your body and how your body evolved to do what it does.”
PREVENTING PRESCRIPTION DRUG MISUSE ONE TOOL KIT AT A TIMEAn Ohio State program is aimed at stopping the stigma surrounding ’scripts.
Generation Rx, started by the College of Pharmacy in 2007, is a national program that educates people of all ages about the potential dangers of misusing prescription and over-the-counter medications, according to Generation Rx’s website.
According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s National Survey on Drug Use and Health, more than 6 million Americans ages 12 and older have used a prescription drug nonmedically in the past month.
The program’s goal is to provide educational materials, called tool kits, that anyone can use to learn about safe medication practices and present to their community to help with the epidemic, Emily Keeler, wellness and community builder for the College of Pharmacy, said.
“We can all help out our community, and this is one resource people can use to promote safe medication-taking practices,” Keeler said.
Kelsey Schmuhl, assistant professor of clinical pharmacy and student adviser of the Generation Rx collaborative, said the beauty of Generation Rx is that the materials are readily available to the public to give presentations, whether in a school, at a health fair or in a senior living center. The tool kits are organized as elementary, teen, college, adult, older adult, patient and workplace.
“Generation Rx helps teach safe medication practice across the life span, regardless of age, and educates people about the potential dangers,” Schmuhl said.
Schmuhl said the students who participate in the university organization, The Generation Rx Collaborative — formed after the national program began — are heavily embedded in the outside community and are passionate about educating the general public.
“The students are the ones going out into the community disseminating this information and teaching safe medication practices,” Schmuhl said.
The issue of prescription drug misuse has become a large problem that people see in the news every day, and students at Ohio State want to be a part of the solution, Schmuhl said.
“They can tell they are making a difference in their community and serving as a prevention effort as we are going through this public health issue,” Schmuhl said.
COMEDY SHOW LENDS SUPPORT TO PLANNED PARENTHOODA two-day extravaganza promoting sexual health awareness benefited Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio this past weekend.
The Student Advocates for Sexual Health Awareness raised $800 for the reproductive health care nonprofit throughout their Repro Rights Weekend. The event followed Planned Parenthood’s August announcement to leave Title X to bypass a Trump administration rule that went into effect May 3, according to the Federal Register.
Title X is the only federal grant program that helps provide family planning services and preventive health care to low-income or uninsured people, according to the Department of Health and Human Services’ website. The new rule prohibits Title X grantees from referring patients to abortion services in conjuction with family planning, according to the website.
According to its annual report, Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio received $4.3 million from Title X in 2018, around 18 percent of its total revenue, but the organization said in an Aug. 19 press release that it was leaving Title X because of its commitment to “providing fact-based, compassionate and respectful health care.”
A comedy show Friday featured various student comedy groups. Using reproductive rights-themed jokes, the comedy show raised $600 of the $800 raised through donations, Abby Rinderle, president of SASHA and fourth-year in public health, said.
Rinderle said the show’s goal was to get donations of any amount to help support Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio.
“When Planned Parenthood’s funding was being taken away, I just wanted to do something for them,” Rinderle said. “Everyone was very giving. We had a suggested donation of $5, but we had people giving us $20 bills and not asking for change.”
Madeleine Haas, president of Circular Reasoning and Backburner Sketch Comedy and a fourth-year in political science, said she wanted her comedy groups to be involved in the show because humor can act as a way to break down stereotypes concerning sexual health and reproductive health.
“It’s a great way to bring people together over a topic that we don’t usually get to talk about while having fun and raising money for a great cause,” Haas said.
The event went better than the group ever thought it would, and Planned Parenthood was very thankful for the effort that was put into the show, Rinderle said.
“Everyone was very enthusiastic; people were interactive with the comedians and genuinely enjoyed being there,” Rinderle said. “It is something that we will try to do again.”
Student Advocates for Sexual Health Awareness executive board members Elaine Louden, vice president, Isabella Niemeyer, secretary, Abby Nutter, treasurer, and Abby Rinderle, president, raised $800 at the comedy show Sept. 13.
SOCIAL CHANGE SENDS ‘G.E.M.’S TO CENTRAL OHIOThe nearest grocery store to Trevitt Elementary School is an hour walk away.
Because of this, Ohio State students want to mentor neighborhood children by starting a community garden and teaching them the importance of planting seeds. This is just one example of the work the group does with multiple central Ohio elementary and middle schools — and has been doing since 2014 — to encourage interactive learning.
Students in Social Change Ohio State, a department within Student Life, have participated in Grow, Explore and Mentor, mentoring young students so they can improve reading skills and be introduced to the sciences through hands-on learning.
Charity Martin-King, director of Social Change, said the program is tailored to the specific needs of the community it serves.
“The reception of what Ohio State is doing in these neighborhoods is really strong. The families look forward to the students coming back,” Martin-King said.
Suhaib Abudulwahed, a fourth-year in neuroscience and Social Change ambassador, said the program represents Ohio State throughout the greater Columbus community and is making an impact on students in underserved neighborhoods in the area.
“It allows us to be role models and provide after-school programs that will benefit kids, instead of them going home to a place that may not be beneficial,” Abudulwahed said.
Abudulwahed said he has worked with the program for four years and has had the opportunity to see the continuous impact of his efforts with the program.
“Working with the same kids for so long, you become a part of their life in a sense and you build a connection with them,” Abudulwahed said. “You see them grow and see the difference you are making.”
Martin-King said in the coming years she is hoping to continue bridging the gap in sciences and literacy and expand the program as much as possible.
“I would love to see our volunteer base grow, our donor base grow and our income resources grow,” Martin-King said.
While working for this student group, students are making connections that improve the lives of children and also aid in their growth at school, Martin-King said.
“The learning at Ohio State is not just what is happening in the classroom,” Martin-King said.
STUDENT ORGANIZATION HELPS FEED COMMUNITYEvery Sunday, Muslim Students’ Association at Ohio State can be found at local churches handing out bagged lunches to those in need in the greater Columbus community.
Project Downtown, started by the MSA in 2011, provides about 100 bagged lunches every Sunday. The brown paper bags packed by Ohio State students include a sandwich, fruit and other snacks.
Anis Belouadah, a third-year in biology and co-director of Project Downtown, said the project started because students wanted to “make a change” in the Columbus area.
“It’s easy for a lot of people to ignore poverty and other socioeconomic issues, but the fact that you are meeting the people who eat the food you made really puts things into perspective,” Belouadah said.
Belouadah said that the project provides a worldly outlook outside of campus.
“It really puts things into perspective for us and teaches us empathy that we can’t really learn in a classroom,” Belouadah said.
Oumou Fofana, a fourth-year in biochemistry and former director of Project Downtown, said she always tried to give a dollar or a water bottle to the homeless people she would see in downtown Columbus and decided to get involved with Project Downtown after she realized the impact the program had on people.
“With this project, we see how Columbus actually is and see how people really need these meals,” Fofana said.
In the days leading up to handing out the meals, Fofana said she would gather the money needed for the supplies, and begin the sandwich-making process on Sunday afternoons.
There are many ways to be a part of the difference Project Downtown is making, but just “showing up to help is enough,” Belouadah said.