News & Events 2007-2008

October Vespers Services Celebrate Outreach

Some members of the Blair community participated in Fall Vespers in recognition of Worldwide Communion Sunday on October 7. Blair Chaplain Cynthia Crowner offered an opening explanation of the importance of this international service, held in Chesnutt Chapel, before asking worshippers to think silently about a place in the world that needs prayers and support. Da Eun Jung ’11 played a piano solo, followed by Isaiah Suh ’08 who read in Korean from Luke 22: 14-20. Adriana Pena ’09 and Rebecca Merrifield ’10 read the same scripture in Spanish and English, respectively.

Faculty members Edwidge Dorelien and Engracia Jamieson, along with Jin Ryang Chung ’10 and Rita Maquiera ’10, also participated in the communion service, with music by Soo Min Lee ’11 and Jin Ryang Chung ’10. Quincey Lewinson ’09 provided a special performance of the Lord’s Prayer.

An All School Vespers will take place after formal dinner on Friday evening, October 12, with special speaker Wayne Meisel, president of The Corella and Bertram F. Bonner Foundation. This foundation supports scholarships for low-income students at 22 schools in the Southeast and Midwest through the Bonner Scholars Program. In return, each scholarship recipient performs 600 hours of community service a year.

Meisel graduated cum laude with a B.A. in government from Harvard University. He was a John Harvard Scholar for the highest academic achievement and was awarded a John Finley Travelling Fellow. With this fellowship, Meisel walked from Maine to Washington to champion student and campus involvement in community service.

As founder of the internationally known Campus Outreach Opportunity League (COOL) Meisel created a platform for students and graduates to lead, sustain and challenge their peers to serve others and bring about positive change. Working with COOL from 1983 to 1989, he set the tone for youth-run/youth-led organizations. His efforts brought about coalitions between and among individuals, campuses, local communities and all levels of government that today are actively engaged in program conduct and policy implementation.

In recognition of his activism and leadership, Meisel is the recipient of a Lyndhurst Career Prize, an award given out by the Lyndhurst Foundation of Chattanooga, Tenn. He has served on the National Boards of Directors of the Independent Sector, COOL, and The New Grange School, a nationally acclaimed school for youths with learning disabilities. He was also a founding board member of the President’s Commission on National and Community Service and Teach for America.

Meisel is the author of two books, Building a Movement: Students in Community Service and On Your Mark, Get Set, Go: From Student Ideas to Campus Action.

Posted 10/9/07

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