Meredith Mobilizes to Provide Relief to Tsunami Victims
As Meredith faculty, staff and students focus on the beginning of a new semester, the campus community has turned its attention to helping the victims of the December 26 tsunami disaster that devastated parts of Asia and Africa.
Ideas and plans for Meredith's response began almost immediately after students returned to campus on January 9 for the start of the spring semester. Meredith's service council held a forum to gather input from the Meredith community on Monday, January 10. Betty Webb, English professor and study abroad director, and her husband John Rose, led Meredith's chapel service on Wednesday, January 12. The couple recounted their personal experiences in Sri Lanka on Christmas Day, one day prior to the tsunami. President Hartford has also assembled a special group -- to be led by Campus Minister Sam Carothers -- that will put together the infrastructure for a coordinated, sustained Meredith response.
"I really want the shape and scope of the response to be defined by the community…," Carothers said. "The creative aspect of campus life, and especially this campus, will really drive our efforts."
According to Carothers, the College has decided on a two-pronged strategy for providing relief to people in the affected regions.
"At this point, we are focusing on fund raising for an international relief agency," Carothers explains. "However, as we do our homework, we will soon be hearing proposals that make our relief efforts more personal and that perhaps place Meredith people in the region."
Individual students, faculty and staff committees and other campus organizations have begun planning their own fundraisers. For example, Carothers has already been in touch "with a student who is planning a silent art auction. He has also worked with another student who taught herself to make jewelry and is planning to make and sell a very attractive bracelet that she designed."
Although campus wide relief efforts are still in the formative stages, Dean of Students Ann Gleason has been impressed by the ideas that have surfaced to date.
"The initial response from Meredith students, faculty and staff has demonstrated the kind of care and compassion that the Meredith community is known for," she said. "I have heard ideas from colleagues and students that are action-oriented and inspiring. I expect that the coordinated campus response will be generous, creative and sustained."
President Hartford also has great expectations for Meredith's relief effort. "The Meredith community has long been known for its caring, compassionate response to the needs of others, and the people affected by this tragedy are in desperate need of the thoughtfulness, compassion and generosity that characterize our campus," she wrote in an e-mail to the campus community. "Together, we will mount an inspirational effort to help our neighbors around the globe whose lives have been torn apart by this recent disaster."
Additional information about the college's relief efforts will soon be available on a special "Meredith Responds" web site. For more information about making donations to Save the Children or about Meredith's long-term relief efforts, contact Sam Carothers, at 760-8347.
