Donations
The Damiano Center of Duluth is blessed to have Flora Woodfork’s joy for life and cooking. After moving to Duluth with her brother, she started volunteering at the center over 15 years ago and is now in charge of the kitchen. Since Covid, food is prepared and packaged for people to pick up rather than eat on site. Takeout meals are served at breakfast and lunch Monday through Wednesday and dinner Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Recently, Altrusa Duluth presented Flora with $200 to help with kitchen supplies.
Carlton County Employees raised $2,530 during Minnesota FoodShare’s March Campaign last month. Funds will be provided to Second Harvest Northern Lakes Food Bank who operates its own local food shelf and also supplies other non-profit programs with nationally and regionally donated food within Carlton County. The county has a higher food insecurity rate amongst the general population and children compared to Minnesota’s state average. It will benefit greatly from the county employee’s support.
Learning notes
Luther College, in Decorah, Iowa, is working to limit food waste and feed those in need through the return of the Cafeteria to Community Program. The program, which had been on hiatus from March 15 through Dec. 1 due to the COVID-19 pandemic is back up and running. Through the Cafeteria to Community Program, student coordinators work with dining services staff to package food that is labeled and delivered to three food pantries: Open Hands Food Pantry, Northeast Iowa Community Action and the Decorah Food Pantry. The program allows individuals and families to obtain healthy and nutritious meals at little to no cost. "This program allows for both student and community (pre-pandemic) volunteers to come together and give their time for those in need," said Olivia Helland of Duluth, student leader of the program. The program has put together 2,361 pounds of food as of March 30 and has a goal of getting 3,000 pounds of food into the community by the end of the year. While not at the usual scale, these contributions have been a great help to the community during an unprecedented time when many are struggling financially.
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- Norwich University senior history and political science major Faith Privett, of Proctor, presented her research on Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia at the Council on Undergraduate Research’s 2021 Posters on the Hill event, held virtually April 27-28. Privett, one of 60 student presenters selected from hundreds of applicants to participate in this event, will present her research, “Clad in Sheep's Clothing: An Analysis of the Influence of Attitudinal and Extra-Legal Factors on Justice Antonin Scalia's Decision-Making Process.” Her research was completed under Associate Professor of Political Science, Dr. Jason F. Jagemann’s mentorship.
Privett’s research aims to explain why Supreme Court justices vote the way they do, and her methodology can be applied to any judge. Focusing on Justice Scalia, she measured his votes on the Supreme Court in four different issue areas: First Amendment, Civil Rights, Unions, and Privacy cases. Using his Segal-Cover score, an independent measure of justices’ ideology; the Stimson Public Mood Index, which is the overall public mood in the United States per year; and custom public mood indices on each of the four issue areas, Privett found that Scalia’s decisions were influenced by both his ideology and public opinion.
Hannah Sake, of Hayward, who is studying communication sciences and disorders at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, presented research at the 19 th annual UW System Symposium for Undergraduate Research, Scholarly and Creative Activity held virtually April 28. Sake will present on Voice-Related Motor and Somatosensory Cortical Responses to Rapid Perturbations in Airway Resistance as a co-presenter.
The symposium showcases undergraduate research, creative achievement and service learning conducted or performed by students across Wisconsin during the 2020-2021 academic year. Presentations reflect diverse fields of study, including the humanities, fine arts and biological, physical and social sciences. Undergraduate research is considered a high impact practice.
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- 4-H Black & White Photography Challenge was a multi-state effort that got youth outside and seeing their world differently. Three hundred eighty-four youth in grades kindergarten through one year post high school from eleven states including Minnesota and Wisconsin participated. In this challenge, youth played with shadows, looked at texture, and layered dark and light tones to create stunning black and white photographs. They also built skills in effectively turning a color photograph into a black and white image. Ninety-five percent of the participants ventured outside to take these photographs. In north St. Louis County the four youth who participated in the 4-H Black and White Photography Challenge are Briella W., second grade of Canyon; Elesa E. seventh grade of Ely; Kali W., fifth grade of Canyon; and Rydge G., kindergarten of Cotton.
The Northern Minnesota Robotics Conference All-Academic Award program recognizes the academic excellence (based on GPA) of participating high school students in the Northern Minnesota Robotics Conference. To earn NMRC All-Academic Team honors, a student must possess a cumulative GPA of 3.5 or higher for this current year. In addition to the GPA requirement a student must meet all varsity level “Lettering” requirements set by their team or school district as well. Honored this year are: from Team 5653 / Iron Mosquitoes / Northeast Range High School: Oskar Koivisto, senior; Phoebe Morgan, senior; Ethan Zaitz, senior; and Greyson Reichensperger, freshman; from Team 6132 / Iron Rangers / Crosby-Ironton High School: Alex Schmidt, senior; Dean McCaleb, senior; Carter Reynolds, senior; Tanner Vipperman, senior; and Morgan Leblanc, junior; from Team 6453 / Bog Bots / Kelliher High School: Hailey Brambrink, senior; Evan Waldo, sophomore; Cooper Brambrink, sophomore; and Gregor Pederson, freshman.
Scholarship opportunities
- The Carol E. Macpherson Scholarship is accepting applications for full and half-time enrollment status for the 2021-22 academic year. Those awarded the scholarship can expect to receive $1,000-$6,000 in scholarship. The scholarship provides awards to promising female-identifying students with a five-year or longer accumulative gap in their post-secondary education, and are seeking an undergraduate or graduate degree from a Minnesota college or university (full- or half-time). Additional information and the application form are available at:
apply.cemscholarship.org
. Deadline: July 30.
