Union College News

Three Local Union Students to Attend National Conference in California

Chrystal Pridemore

Kim Smith

Travis Carmack

Three local Union College students are scheduled to attend a national service conference next week. The 2005 COOL Idealist National Conference will be held at University of California at Berkeley next weekend. The conference is an annual event that allows students and administrators involved in and committed to community service to gather for discussion on new service project ideas, to learn new skills, and to network. Travis Carmack '08 and Kimberly Smith '06 from Knox County and Chrystal Pridemore '07 from Bell County will represent Union College at this conference.

In addition to attending workshops, the students will also hear from keynote speakers, like Van Jones, the founder and National Executive Director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights (EBC). EBC is a national organization based in San Francisco that challenges human rights abuses in the US criminal justice system. Niko Clifford, Chief Executive Officer of Girls for a Change, is also a keynote speaker. Student keynotes include Brandon Cohen and Kjerstin Erickson of FORGE, a high-impact service based non-governmental organization (NGO), which provides college students the opportunity to develop and implement international service projects. FORGE's work particularly touches refugees, over 80,000 in the past two years. Another student keynote is William Gyude Moore, a Berea College Bonner Scholar. Gyude, a refugee from Liberia, is an Oxfam CHANGE Leader, National Coordinator of the Student Trade Justice Campaign, and a teen mentor through the Bonner Scholars Program.

Wayne Meisel, now President of the Bonner Foundation, founded COOL, or Campus Outreach Opportunity League in 1980. Two years ago, COOL merged with Action Without Borders/Idealist.org. Action Without Borders was founded in 1995 by director Ami Dar to create a website that would be a "one-stop shop" for volunteers and non-profit organizations to easily find each other. Since then, over 44,000 agencies in 165 countries have connected with thousands of volunteers looking to serve. With the merger, COOL Idealist has expanded the scope of work to include assisting college students in finding non-profit internships and jobs, organizing non-profit career fairs on campuses, and providing workshops about non-profit careers and internships throughout the year.

March 16, 2005

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