Community College Philanthropy Awards
The Virginia Foundation for Community College Education will present its Fifth Annual Chancellor’s Award for Leadership in Philanthropy tonight at the Country Club of Virginia. The Awards are scholarships at each Community College are given in the name of the winners.
The keynote speaker at the event is Rebecca Evans, an associate professor of accounting at Blue Ridge Community College. She is also faculty adviser for that school’s Students in Free Enterprise team. They were in Haiti when the earthquake struck in January.
Evans: About 15 miles outside of Port au Prince, we were eight miles from the epicenter.
The BRCC students have been active in Haiti for three years and they’ve set up several micro businesses.
Evans: We were there to start up a new rabbit cooperative for 20 families in the village of Leogane.
Those 20 families would then breed the rabbits and then supply offspring to 20 more families who will then do the same. None of the villagers or team members was hurt, and a month or so after the earthquake, 60 more rabbits arrived.
Evans: So it’s definitely up and running and viable.
At the same time, Evans explained, a nearby school with about a thousand students was totally destroyed. Now the Blue Ridge students have a new project in Haiti.
Evans: Working to rebuild the school for the handicapped.
John Ogle, WCVE News
Post new comment