APPLES 2012 fellowships highlight a wide variety of service-learning efforts

By Meghan Robbins ‘13

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has a large number of institutes and organizations across campus supporting and funding young social entrepreneurs. Historically, the Carolina Center for Public Service (CCPS) and the APPLES Service-Learning program have offered several opportunities to undergraduate and graduate students through various fellowships that support social entrepreneurship in local and international communities.

Recently CCPS and APPLES implemented a new approach to fellowships. While continuing to provide significant funding to young entrepreneurs, the new structure also provides access to more technical expertise, administrative resources and enrollment in a public policy course focused on launching new social innovation projects. APPLES offers the new Robert E. Bryan Social Innovation Fellowships, named in honor of alumnus Robert Emmet Bryan (1904-1975) who was a strong supporter of public service. These fellowships are tailored for undergraduate students interested in making a significant contribution locally, nationally or internationally through the creation of an entrepreneurial project that addresses a community issue or need. Fellowships provide up to $1,500 in funding for the first year and the opportunity to apply for up to $1,000 in a project’s second year. As many as five projects are funded through this opportunity, where recipients receive invaluable leadership training and support.

The new Community Engagement Fellowships, offered by CCPS and designed for graduate students, award up to five fellowships of up to $2,000 each to develop and implement engagement or engaged scholarship projects that employ innovative, sustainable approaches to complex social needs and have an academic connection. Fellows work in collaboration with community partners and faculty mentors who are familiar with their topics or geographic areas, while fellows are responsible for the major planning and implementation of their projects.

Sarah Smith, the student services specialist who works closely with the Bryan fellows, commented on the new approach to fellowships. “I’m excited that [APPLES] has found its niche in the social innovation community here at Carolina,” she said. APPLES is pleased to see how its renewed commitment and approach to social innovation will impact students, the campus and the broader community for years to come.

Congratulations to these new fellowship recipients:

2012 Robert E. Bryan Social Innovation Fellowships

FAC Internacional: Train the Trainer
Santiago Beltran ’13, Caleb Dagenhart ’14, Webster Hughes ’14, Jamie Ruiz ’12 and Gautam Sanka ’14 will expand the work of El Fondo de Apoyo Communitario (FAC) Internacional, part of the Campus Y’s Carolina Microfinance Initiative and the first microfinance initiative in Central America’s largest urban slum, La Limonada. Their Train the Trainer program will empower community members through access to financial services, entrepreneurship education and relational support. The project will allow FAC to hire program graduates to help market services, teach classes, and pay what they have learned forward.

Healthy Girls Save the World
Camille McGirt ’13 created Healthy Girls Save the World, an organization that provides the tools and knowledge for young girls to create and sustain a healthy and well-rounded lifestyle, focusing on the importance of healthy eating habits, regular exercise and chronic obesity related illness prevention. Kristen Bowen ’13, Jillian Griffith ’14 and Reena Gupta ’15 joined Camille and Healthy Girls Save the World now also aspires to serve, build and develop young girls into powerful women that will save the world.

HOPE Cooks
Alex Biggers ’13, Jessica Richardson ’13 and Meg VanDeusen ‘14 created HOPE Cooks, a project with HOPE and a committee of the Campus Y. HOPE Cooks brings together students, women and children around a weekly menu to learn from and teach each other about nutrition, exercise and staying healthy on a budget. Working at a women and children’s shelter in Chapel Hill, HOPE Cooks will build relationships, educate individuals about healthy living on a budget and provide transient, low-income populations with a sense of community by cultivating a lasting network of support.

Digital Literacy Workshops and Train-For-Teaching in Chapel Hill
Patrick Heenan ‘13 and Joe Sircar ‘12 work to produce a self-autonomous and sustainable series of digital literacy workshops. Technology Without Borders, a committee of the Campus Y, focuses on putting self-autonomy and sustainability into a series of digital literacy community workshops. These workshops are held weekly at the Joblink Career Center on Franklin Street, in partnership with the Community Empowerment Fund, and the program aims to freely connect people with the resources and equipment to find employment or pursue their own interests.

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Healthy Girls Save the World spent
an afternoon teaching young girls
field hockey skills.

Chancellor Thorp presents Webster Hughes ‘14 and Gautam Sanka ‘14
with Robert E. Bryan Social
Innovation Fellowship award for El Fondo de Apoyo Comunitario Internacional.

HOPE Cooks teaches women and children nutrition, exercise and how
to stay healthy on a budget.