Nourish International
Saving The World, One Project At A Time
Kristen Hetland Photos By Drew Halladay
Issue date: 12/12/09 Section: Feature
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. That's the idea behind a new service chapter at Miami.
Nourish International is working to fight global poverty by helping impoverished communities help themselves, according to Miami junior Jenny Krzmarzick, membership coordinator for the university's Nourish chapter.
While most poverty-stricken communities have the strength and determination to improve their situations, many lack the funds and resources needed to do so. This is where Nourish steps in.
Nourish chapters raise the money needed to develop self-sustainable community projects, then send members to help start building and implementing them. In doing so, Nourish empowers impoverished communities by giving them the support they need to provide for their own futures.
According to the Nourish International Web site, past Nourish projects include a microirrigation system to develop one area's farming and chicken coops to create an egg and poultry business in another community.
Junior Jonathan Lawson, a general member of Miami's Nourish chapter, says the self-sustainable projects are what make Nourish different from other service groups.
"It's not just like we're going to go there and just hand them a bunch of clothes or shirts or stuff that in a year or five years are going to go away," he says. "We're going to implement something like a green house system of gardening. We'll help them build maybe the first couple and then from there they'll be able to do it themselves and it can become a sustainable activity in the community."
Since starting Miami's Nourish chapter at the beginning of the semester, co-founders - junior Sama Alkalaf and sophomore Ashley Miller - say they have been very pleased with the way students have taken to the group.
"People have really taken initiative to help us out and step up to get our organization running," Miller says. "Right now we have about 40 members who regularly attend meetings and a lot more on the listserv. There have also been a lot of organizations on campus that have approached us trying to partner with us and we've made a lot more money than we thought we would by now. It's really exciting."
One of Miller's favorite things about Nourish is the opportunity for students to have complete control over their project. Not only does each chapter get to decide where and what its project will be, it also decides how to raise its money.
Nourish co-sponsored the 10th annual Pledge-A-Meal drive in October and has held multiple "Nighttime Nourish" fundraising events at the Phi Delt Gates throughout the semester. Nourish plans to continue these events in the spring as well as bring a surprise speaker to campus to talk about about global poverty.
Nourish meets at 8 pm every Wednesday in Harrison 204. For interested students, be on the lookout for Nourish's "Meet the Chapter" event sometime in January.
Nourish International is working to fight global poverty by helping impoverished communities help themselves, according to Miami junior Jenny Krzmarzick, membership coordinator for the university's Nourish chapter.
While most poverty-stricken communities have the strength and determination to improve their situations, many lack the funds and resources needed to do so. This is where Nourish steps in.
Nourish chapters raise the money needed to develop self-sustainable community projects, then send members to help start building and implementing them. In doing so, Nourish empowers impoverished communities by giving them the support they need to provide for their own futures.
According to the Nourish International Web site, past Nourish projects include a microirrigation system to develop one area's farming and chicken coops to create an egg and poultry business in another community.
Junior Jonathan Lawson, a general member of Miami's Nourish chapter, says the self-sustainable projects are what make Nourish different from other service groups.
"It's not just like we're going to go there and just hand them a bunch of clothes or shirts or stuff that in a year or five years are going to go away," he says. "We're going to implement something like a green house system of gardening. We'll help them build maybe the first couple and then from there they'll be able to do it themselves and it can become a sustainable activity in the community."
Since starting Miami's Nourish chapter at the beginning of the semester, co-founders - junior Sama Alkalaf and sophomore Ashley Miller - say they have been very pleased with the way students have taken to the group.
"People have really taken initiative to help us out and step up to get our organization running," Miller says. "Right now we have about 40 members who regularly attend meetings and a lot more on the listserv. There have also been a lot of organizations on campus that have approached us trying to partner with us and we've made a lot more money than we thought we would by now. It's really exciting."
One of Miller's favorite things about Nourish is the opportunity for students to have complete control over their project. Not only does each chapter get to decide where and what its project will be, it also decides how to raise its money.
Nourish co-sponsored the 10th annual Pledge-A-Meal drive in October and has held multiple "Nighttime Nourish" fundraising events at the Phi Delt Gates throughout the semester. Nourish plans to continue these events in the spring as well as bring a surprise speaker to campus to talk about about global poverty.
Nourish meets at 8 pm every Wednesday in Harrison 204. For interested students, be on the lookout for Nourish's "Meet the Chapter" event sometime in January.
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