Containers for a Cause in the running for 250,000 Grant

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Project Updates

 Containers for a Cause single container to be built early in semester.

Suruwat

Our Suruwat project began 2 years ago to help Nepalese refugees that were relocated to Jacksonville, FL assimilate into their new environment. When the refugees arrive in America they speak little English and do not always understand our cultural norms and ways of life.  Flagler SIFE began giving workshops to help these individuals learn everything from how to clean a kitchen to how to speak English.

We learned that 75,000 additional Nepalese refugees would be coming into the United States over the next 5 years. We wanted to create a program that could help these families face the challenges of everyday life in America: going to the bank, shopping at the supermarket, searching for a job. We produced a video and supplemental packet to help with these lessons. Our video and supplemental packet was distributed through the 10 national resettlement agencies including World Relief, Catholic Charities and Lutheran Social Services. Since the program was so well received we have been asked to create more videos.

Recently we met with Catholic Charities to determine the languages our video should be translated into, these include: Arabic, Spanish, and Barundi. Our next videos will use different nationalities as actors and will be translated into at least 7 different languages.

Conservation Cadets

Conservation Cadets was started last year when it was brought to Flagler SIFE’s attention that we could help people to conserve energy and save money. We deliver our message through a series of videos in which children and adults reverse roles. In our videos the Conservation Cadets, teach adults how to cut costs and conserve energy. A lot of great tips coupled with humor have allowed our Conservation Cadets to successfully reach about hundreds of people with their crash course in environmental sustainability.

We are pleased to announce that as we begin the fall semester, the Conservation Cadets project is, once again, gaining momentum as we look to the future.

To view the videos and learn more about the project click here OR check out Flagler SIFE’s YouTube Channel.


Containers for a Cause

Containers for a Cause is one of our newer projects, started last semester, it is one of our largest and fastest growing. Containers for a Cause takes used shipping containers and transforms them into low income housing.
We are currently working on building our first container. The plans are still in the building department. When they are approved, we will begin the construction of our first container on The Record’s parking lot.


SIFE General Meeting, 6:00pm, Wedensdays @ Markland
(Markland is the big white house right behind the Student Center)
Food | Travel | Jobs | Internships | Leadership Experience | Food

Conservation Cadets Update

The Sassy Sisters teach a business how to save paper by printing on the back and front of paper.

We are currently working on a partnership with the Solid Waste Authority of South Florida and Talquin Electric. You can now find Conservation Cadets on Radio Green Earth's site , Earth 911, YouTube and the website for the Florida League of Environmental Educators.

Summer Project Update

 Shelia Acharya working with a Nepalese woman in a language lab.

This month Flagler SIFE has been busy working on the Suruwat Refugee program and Containers for a Cause.
Sheila and Barry finished the script for the second Suruwat video. The first one can be viewed here. We hope to start filming this new script once everyone is back from summer break. The topics it will cover are employment, housing and maintenance and transportation.
Our first video is now being used by 10 national resettlement agencies. Topics cover banking, grocery shopping, personal safety and learning English. We will be speaking to the agencies, including Catholic Charities, about the second video this week.
Containers for a Cause is moving forward. We received our building plans from PQH Architects and the plans are now at the county building department for approval.
These plans are for the single unit structure that we will construct on the parking lot of the St. Augustine Record. The high cube shipping container is 40ft x 8ft x 9ft6in.

TEDx Creative Coast

Counter Clockwise, Victoria Van Arnam, and Renee Chiaverini pose with the Loci Design interns Walter Woods and Clayton Dodd in front of the TEDx sign.

     On Friday, Flagler SIFE and Loci Design exhibited at the TEDx sponsored by Creative Coast in Savannah GA. We were demonstrating innovative ideas on how to give old shipping containers a new life.

     It was an incredible opportunity to go to TEDx, seeing the movers, shakers and thinkers of Savannah really motivated us to implement these ideas in St. Augustine. 

     Containers for a Cause is moving forward on several different fronts.  We are working on several large partnerships with different groups and following several leads from the conference to secure land and money for our containers.

    Containers for a Cause is working to make low income housing out of shipping containers.

Containers for a Cause

Our Containers for a Cause project is moving along rapidly. We already have a container, which will be transformed into our first home shortly in the St. Augustine Record’s parking lot. We are working on several parallel paths that start from our initial container idea and expand out in multiple directions.

Our partners from Loci Designs have arrived in St. Augustine and have set up their equipment alongside our editing station, making it a rather cramped space considering the lack of air conditioning. We are working closely with Loci Design to create a concrete plan for our Containers for a Cause project.

In addition, today, June 9, we presented our idea to Dr. Proctor. Dr. Proctor was supportive and gave us several other exciting directions to consider for the project.

Currently, we are preparing a presentation for the St. John’s County on how our containers can reduce the local recidivism rate. We are also preparing to present at a TEDx conference in Savannah, GA on June 18.

Coming home

That poster behind us has Kameron Lapp, Victoria Van Arnam and Jessica Welch's faces on it!

After watching the final four, Flagler SIFE had a wonderful post competition dinner. As we were leaving the restaurant, we ran into Belmont, the newly christened national champions. Their presentation was incredible and they truly deserve the 2010 SIFE National Championship.
The SIFE year has turned over; this has been a great year for Flagler SIFE under the unwavering leadership of Jessica Welch. Congratulations to Jessica who is moving on to work with Wal-Mart. This year we have overcome many challenges, gained new experiences and grown exponentially.

The new Co-Presidents, Emily Marcellus and Victoria Van Arnam flanked by their Co-Vice Presidents Alyssa Murphy and Jessie Quick (for full list of officers see previous blog), are ready to lead the team through whatever the criteria changes and down economy can throw at them.

The team has since arrived back safely from nationals. Everyone has dispersed to their appropriate states. All is quiet in St. Augustine, but in Markland house, operations will soon be returning to normal.

Heading Home

We're headed back to Saint Augustine now. The first group is en route to the airport.

We had a wonderful time with our entire family last night; parents, SIFERS, D&B (Donna and Barry), and Dr. and Mrs. Abare. We ate at "The Local," exchanged senior gifts and gave speeches and toasts; a wonderful, memorable evening.

That's all for 2009-2010.
Will keep you posted with the exciting summer stuff we'll be doing!


- Posted by the Marketing Director of Flagler SIFE via BlogPress

Semi-finals Results

We made it to the semi-finals, but didn't move on to the Final Four. We're very proud of the team and the performance. Watching the Final Four now.


- Posted by Flagler SIFE via BlogPress

8:00

We're so proud of our team! We did the best we could at 8am for the top 20 semi-finals presentation this morning. We find out in an hour if we make the top 4!!! Immediately following the announcements of final 4, the contestants must prepare to get on stage right away. Keep your fingers crossed for us!!!

Top 20!

We made it to the semifinals! We will be presenting tomorrow again in the top 20!

More information later!

Rally of Champs

Bull Pen Unleashed!
The Rally of Champions was incredible! The entire team got to run up onto the stage, wave the American flag and show our Flagler pride. We watched as the trophy that once decorated our student center was once again brought to the stage for this year’s SIFE USA National Champions.

We won first place in the Campbell’s Lets Can Hunger, Hunger Awareness competition. The award included $750 for the team and a plaque! We are incredibly proud of our two freshman members who headed that program Jessie Quick and Ryan Ledonne.

We saw Joel Conner and Jack Shewmaker at the Rally and they stopped to say hi and meet our new members. We are so excited for the competition to begin! We present at 11:20, if you want immediate updates check our twitter and Facebook!

(right) Ryan Ledonne receiving Let's Can Hunger award from Doug Conant President and CEO of Campbell Soup.
(left)Pictured from left, Barry Sand, Emily Marcelles, Joel Conner CEO and Chairman of Bellisio Foods and Chairman of the Board of SIFE, Victoria Van Arnam and Donna DeLorenzo.

Enjoying Minneapolis

Last night we had a spectacular dinner with the President of Winmark Corporation, the head of Winmark’s Training Department, and the Play It Again Sports Training head. The presentation team had a wonderful time getting to explore some of the city and relax after the long flight and weeks of working around the clock. We are now getting back to work!

The rest of the team is on their way, we will be having a late lunch, practicing, and then we’ll head off to the Rally of Champions. We are so excited for the competition to begin!

Pictured finishing dinner, Katie Salmi left, and Angie Benson Director of Winmark Training.
Photo courtesy of Hannah Garner

Traveling

Got up at 3:30, to go to Jacksonville for our flight. We are now on the plane to Minneapolis! Everyone is ready to do their best (after a little nap)! More later.
Photo of Mike Lambert, Courtesy of Joe King.

Preperation

Lets Can Hunger
Flagler SIFE has been chosen as one of the nine finalists for Campbell's Let's Can Hunger Challge! We collected 3,042 cans, all of which we donated to St. Francis House, a local hunger relief organization. We look forward to the competition results which will be announced May 11, 2010 at the SIFE USA National Exposition.

Schools out for Summer!
Flagler College SIFE students are ecstatic about school coming to a close. Finals ended last week, we have been spending all of our time perfecting our projects and getting ready for competition.

Containers for a Cause
The Containers for a Cause project is moving along at a lightning pace. Within the next few days, we have multiple meetings planned with some great people in the community who are helping us turn our homeless rehabilitation center into a reality. We've made tons of headway over the past year and with each new day we get that much closer to our final goal! We have a video of some of the pictures taken at our Cardboard Campout. Check it out and leave your comments!

Conservation Cadets
Conservation Cadets editing is now complete and is available for viewing on our Flagler College SIFE's YouTube and on the Flagler SIFE website! Huge thanks and congratulations to the team members who have contributed so much time to filming and editing the videos for this project!

Officer Postitions

On Friday Barry and Donna announced the SIFE officers for 2010 and 2011.

Victoria Van Arnam & Emily Marcellus

Co-Presidents

Alyssa Murfey & Jesse Quick

Co-Vice Presidents

Beth Houston

Secretary (will receive a "co" soon)

Stevie J. Schenk & Shannon Greene

Directors of Marketing

Justin LaVerdiere & Ryan Ledonne

Directors of Finance

Rachael Holgate

Transitional Coordinator

Become a friend of Flagler SIFE on facebook and check out all of our photos! updated frequently.

More news coming soon!

Whats going on

The team is so excited and so honored about moving on to nationals in Minneapolis. The end of school is rapidly approaching; we will soon be able to work on SIFE all day long without having to worry about classes! We have a two week “break” between our last week of class and nationals that will be nonstop fun.

The Lets Can Hunger (LCH) initiative has collected 687 cans which we turned in at regionals. This last weekend we were at the St. Augustine Friday night Art Walk. This weekend, the 10^th and 11^th, LCH will be at the St. Augustine Art Association Spring Festival at St. Francis Field by the Parking Garage. If you are in the area please come by!

The Cardboard Campout was a great success! Thanks to everyone who donated money and slept on the West Lawn with us. To see photos and video of the event go here.

WE WON REGIONALS!!

Flagler SIFE won the regional competition and will be proceeding to nationals in Minneapolis, Minnesota in May. This regionals had some tough competition but the reigning national champions prevailed as results were announced on Monday at the award ceremony.
Flagler SIFE won the Entrepreneurship Individual Topic Competition with their TAPED Ethical Training video.
Flagler SIFE also attended a small reception with individuals from Sam’s Club corporate offices.

The team is ecstatic and exhausted, after a week break general and competition preparation meetings will resume as everyone is ready for more.

Flagler SIFE ready for regionals

The last day of practice went great today. Yesterday, we performed a formal presentation for some of the college staff and they loved it. We’ll be meeting at 6:30 in the morning for the seven hour road trip to Charlotte, NC. The 40 team members are hoping to get some sleep on the ride up along with some Q&A and presentation practice.

Lets Can Hunger and BAB

Regionals is getting close, we will be competing on March 29th in Charlotte, NC! Flagler SIFE is finishing up projects and taking those last few photos to make everything just right.

We just held our Let’s Can Hunger challenge at First Friday Art Walk last week, which was a huge success. There was a great turnout and we collected a lot of cans and donations.

The Business Advisory Board presentation will be on the 16th from 5-6:30PM. We are thrilled by the feedback thus far and cannot wait for our dress rehearsal next week.

The presenters and alternates have also been finalized and are listed below:

Presenters:
Alyssa Murfey
Shelia Acharya
Jessica Welch
Jaclyn Wilmers
Kameron Lapp
Joe King

Alternates:
Mike Lambert
Rachael Holgate
Katherine Baggett

Tech Team:
Victoria Van Arnam
Hannah Garner
Ryan Ledonne
Joel Green

Fieldtrips and projects

This past Wednesday, the Flagler SIFE team was invited to meet with Gorge Lindemann President and CEO of Standard Union at White hall, Henery M. Flagler’s Palm Beach home. Over lunch Mr. Lindemann talked with various SIFE students about the importance of being persistent in business, "If you can't get in through the front door, try the back door. If that doesn't work start looking for a window." After lunch SIFE students were able to tour the historic home of industrialist Henry Flagler, who our College is named after. It was amazing to see another beautiful Gilded Age building so much like our Ponce De Leon Hotel.

For Project News...

The team is working hard to prepare for our regional competition, which is just five weeks away.

Last night we completed filming for Suruwat and will begin editing today. We plan on distributing the video next week and are thrilled by the enthusiasm we have received thus far with this "how to" assimilation program. Suruwat is also being used as the feature story for this term's Flagler Magazine!

As for Winmark Training video, the conference presentation was amazing. Winmark staff, franchisees, and managers all loved the video. In our video survey 100% asked for additional videos! Steve Murphy, the President of Winmark, said told us that as this project evolves into a formal business we can count Winmark as our first official customer! We also chose a name for the program:T.A.P.E.D or Teaching Associates Proper Ethics Daily.

A new project that we are working on in our housing for the homeless program which will create a rehabilitation center to integrate St. Johns' County homeless back into society. The former Mayor of St. Augustine donated our initial supplies to get this program started. The project is progressing rapidly and although it will not be ready for regionals we are very excited by the community support we have received.

Thank you so much for your support of Flagler SIFE. If you have any project questions or suggestions please let us know!

Thank you,
The Flagler SIFE Team

Onward

Flagler SIFE has welcomed 10 incredible new members to the team since the semester began a few weeks ago. We are so excited by the enthusiasm and drive these new members already have for SIFE and our projects. Some of our new members have even designed and started working on an extremely ambitions project for next year that will be an amazing opportunity for Flagler SIFE.

In addition to new members the team has been busy with projects and competition preparation. This has been a hectic past two weeks, here are some of our biggest team updates for the past week:

The biggest accomplishment this week is the completion and submission of all 6 of our Individual Topic Competition (ITCs)! We will find out at regionals if we finaled in any of the ITC categories we submitted, regional ITC finalists receive a trophy and prize money during the award ceremony. In addition to getting past this first competition hurdle, completion of ITCs means that we have framed our projects and are ready to start writing the script.

Our Ethics Training Program for Winmark is complete along with the accompanying supplemental information packet. Last year's video was great, and this years video is even better! Jessica, Kameron and Katie will be leaving Sunday February 14th to go to Las Vegas to present the video and supplemental information packet at Winmark's conference and trade show.

The Suruwat video will be filmed this Friday and Saturday and we are having fun preparing to make our second "major motion picture" of the year :)

We held auditions for Consumer Cadets and Conservation Cadets last week and were overwhelmed by the enthusiasm of the community and the great kids who came out for casting. We will begin filming both segments next week.

These updates are just a glimpse into what we have been doing the past week. We would like to thank everyone who has been working with us on these and our other projects!

Consumer Cadets

We are currently working on a project called Consumer Cadets, in the past, Flagler SIFE has written and produced a similar segment called Amaro’s Army for First Coast News anchor Ken Amaro. Some of our Amaro’s Army segments can be seen at firstcoastnews.com keyword: Amaro’s Army. Consumer Cadets will be similar to Amaro’s Army except it will be hosted by elementary students in St. Augustine.

Consumer Cadets segments will feature kids discussing ways to save money at locations throughout St. Augustine. Student actors will be working with Flagler SIFE team members and our coach Barry Sand, the original writer and producer of The Late Night Show with David Letterman.

We hope to cast six kids between the ages of eight and ten that have an upbeat personality and are comfortable in front of a video camera. Here is where you come in! If you have a child that fits these criteria and would like to star in Consumer Cadets, please bring him or her to our Consumer Cadet auditions.

Consumer Cadet auditions will be held at Flagler College on Thursday, February 4th, 2010 at 3:30 p.m. If you have a child between the ages of eight and ten that might be interested please fill out the attached release form and bring it with you to casting. This release will allow your child’s Consumer Cadet segments to appear on YouTube and possibly First Coast News as part of the show. There are no guarantees that the show will be played on the local news. The show also has a chance of expanding and being put on other news networks. Parents and students will be notified should segments be posted anywhere other than YouTube.

If your child is interested in auditioning or you have any questions, please contact me by Monday, February 1st at (561) 371-8187.

Clinic Nepal

Today we had the honor of hearing a speaker, Hari Bhandery, who has started a program called Clinic Nepal that looks beyond Mt. Everest and sees the human side of Nepal and addresses rural humanitarian needs. In addition to opening the first medical clinic in his area, Hari has also started a number of Kindergarten schools, education scholarships, installed pipe wells for clean drinking water, and has educated the public on the necessity of sanitation.
This man has done so many incredible things and has effected the world around him in such a positive way, he was an incredible inspiration to us and we cannot wait to work with him on SIFE projects.