By Jennifer Baxter
In this week’s newsletter, read about how student awareness has increased through an art exhibit highlighting gender based violence, volunteering for the CARing Kids Project and after South Campus Commons burglaries.
UMD students provide mentorship, service to children through the CARing Kids Project
By Abigail Bender
University of Maryland student volunteers are helping develop the educational and interpersonal skills of children living in Langley Park, Maryland, through the CARing Kids Project, or CARing.
The project aims to teach these children academics, provide them with interactive activities or take them to visit places on campus. CARing volunteers are paired with a child for the semester who they meet with on Thursdays from 3 to 5:30 p.m. at the Hope Lutheran Church, Pastor Ray Ranker, the Lutheran chaplain at UMD, said.
The program includes 20 children in second through fifth grade, who are chosen based on their home and school life by La Sagrada Familia’s Ministry in Langley Park, according to Ranker. Students say that the volunteer experiences are great for leadership building and communication skills.
Read more here.
UMD South Campus Commons residents feel unsafe, vulnerable following burglaries
By Julian Feurer
University of Maryland students have become more cautious of on-campus safety in recent days after two men were charged in connection to a series of South Campus Commons burglaries, according to a University of Maryland Police Department Report.
Despite charges being announced, concern is still up in the air for many UMD students. Extra precautions are being taken, such as locking doors inside of students’ residences rather than just the front door.
“I’m glad they’re not around breaking into people’s apartments anymore, but it doesn’t really change the fact that security let it happen in the first place,” said senior environmental science and policy major and South Campus Commons resident Sienna Gediman.
The incident has led students to be more aware of the possibilities of people finding their way inside buildings despite some security measures such as student swipe access being in place.
UMPD is continuing to remind students to lock their doors and windows when leaving, and remaining inside their residence.
Read more here.
‘Bearing Witness’ exhibition honors women lost to violence during Latin American Heritage Month
By Skylar Mullin
The University of Maryland Latin American and Caribbean Studies Center invited Puerto Rican artist Marta Pérez García to exhibit her work titled “Bearing Witness” in H.J. Patterson Hall’s Atrium on Tuesday. The work aims to spread awareness of gender based violence.
García created “Bearing Witness,” sculptures of women’s torsos that documented the names of women killed in Puerto Rico weekly during the COVID-19 pandemic, so that the women would be remembered as people, not statistics.
The exhibit also included handcrafted dolls that female survivors made during García’s workshops in Washington, D.C., which she said she held in order to connect with the women that she would be creating her art about.
Each and every aspect of García’s work relates directly back to the premise of why she created the work that was displayed, down to the fact that she used paper because she believes it to be “stronger than people think.”
Read more here.
Watch: The City of College Park’s Second Annual “Bailamos- Let’s Dance” Event
By Mary Tompkins
Featured Image: Children gathered for an activity during the CARing Kids Project at the Hope Lutheran Church on Thursday, Sept. 17. Photo by Duncan Holditch.