Campus Bites

Students Come Together to Fight Hunger

The Helping Hands Across America canned food drive is a Rollins College and Sodexo “Stop Hunger“ initiative that is in its fourth year at Rollins. This year, Dining Services surpassed its goal of 20,000 pounds and through monetary and food donations was able to collect 21,474 pounds of food. All donations go directly to the Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida for distribution to those less fortunate in our community.

This year’s campaign kicked off in the Campus Center’s dining hall on Oct. 17 with the goal of collecting 20,000 pounds of food. Since then, Dining Services has been collecting donations at the registers of all six on campus dining locations and via a link on the Office of
Student Involvement and Leadership’s Web page.

For the past two years, the Winter Park Chamber of Commerce held an event at its Welcome Center, with all proceeds going toward the Helping Hands campaign. As part of Greek Week, students hosted their annual Can-Paign (formerly Can-Struction) and collected 1,900 pounds of food. Holt students also got involved and collected 195 pounds of food.

In 2008-2009, Dining Services partnered with Fraternity and Sorority Life to incorporate the cans it collected for its Can-Struction to benefit the Helping Hands campaign. Rollins collected a total of 3,777 pounds of non-perishable food. In 2009-2010 that amount increased to 12,293 pounds and last year, 16,201 pounds were collected.

Guerrilla Girls: Art & Activism
As part of the series of feminist events on campus recently, the Guerrilla Girls worked with a small group of students and staff to show what it takes to create artwork that makes a statement. The Guerrilla Girls — who remain anonymous, wearing gorilla masks while interacting with people — emphasized their mission that artwork is activism.

“A lot of people think discrimination doesn’t exist anymore, so this is what we fight,” said Aphra Behn, one of the girls. Students and staff participated in a discussion about issues they thought stemmed from women’s rights. Focus areas included family, mental health issues, the environment and war, just to name a few. Groups of five to 10 people worked together to create artwork that represented their positions on what
those focus areas violated. Liz Ibarrola ’13 participated and connected with what the Guerrilla Girls were preaching. “As an RA, I feel like it’s my duty to make people — residents, friends and peers — more aware of feminism. If they can identify with their friends’ beliefs, they’re more likely to give the idea a chance.”

The Guerrilla Girls inspire people all over the world by nudging them to address current concerns and issues through the medium of artwork, and that is certainly what the experience most of the students and staff involved did.

No Shave Initiatives Grow at Rollins
Perhaps you have seen the scraggly men around campus, but this is more than a mere beard-off ; this year, No Shave November has gone philanthropic. Chi Psi is supporting Movember, a moustache growing charity event that raises funds and awareness for prostate cancer and other male cancer initiatives.

There are many ways to participate in Movember but the main one is to grow out one’s mustache (aka “Mo”) during the month. Participants have individual accounts on www.movember.com, where they seek donors to donate to their page. There are teams (such as team Chi Psi) and networks (such as the Rollins College network) from around the world that compete against each other to raise the most money.

X Club is also using No Shave November as a fund-raising campaign for its philanthropy, Making Lives Better. No Shave November is a challenge for the brothers. Once a brother accepts this challenge he is not allowed to shave until and unless he raises $50 as a donation for MLB.

The best part about the event is that the brother himself cannot front the money, so he has to ask people for money so that he can shave. So,
if you see a brother with an unsightly beard, help him out and donate to the cause.

Introducing New Rollins Dance Team
After rigorous auditions, the Rollins Dance Team is back! As representatives of school spirit and promoters of athletic support, the team has become a major part of sporting events. The girls will be dancing at football and basketball games, and they hope to add soccer games and other school events to their schedule.

The team meets each Wednesday and Friday for two hour rehearsal sessions, where it practices and learns new routines. Its coach is professional dancer Peggy Williams, former Jacksonville Jaguars cheerleader and co-founder of Professional Cheerleaders Alumni Inc. , and its manager is Sandy Weisstein. With an abundance of knowledge from Williams and experienced teammates, this is undoubtedly going to be a great year for the Rollins Dance Team and its fans.

Only a handful of the best dancers were chosen to be a part of the team. Please welcome: Francesca Agostino ‘15 (captain), Nicole Brand ‘14 (co-captain), Kat Norcross ‘15 (co-captain), Sarah Maisano ‘12, Christianne Tallent ‘12, Paulina Birenbaum ‘14, Jenell Harvey ‘13, Julia Clancy ‘15, Olivia Blackwood ‘15, Amy Zdon ‘14 (alternate) and Amy Teixeira ‘14 (alternate).

The team can be contacted through the coach pegprocheer@yahoo.com. Join the team’s Facebook group to keep on top of upcoming sporting events and performances.