Hello! We hope you, and your family, friends, and colleagues are doing well. For the 23rd consecutive week, the Ball State University Center for Peace & Conflict Studies (www.bsu.edu/peacecenter) has compiled a list of acts of kindness and peace, as a response to COVID-19 and the racism pandemic. Please share these stories. If you have stories of positive acts people/organizations are taking in the midst of our pandemics and you would like to share them, please email them to Brandon Miller at peacecenter@bsu.edu. All the stories starting from week 1 are available online. Additionally, you can follow the Peace Center on social media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter) at bsu4peace.
A California Dad and a Local Grocer Team Up to Supply Area Families with Desks for E-Learning
With the funding of a local grocery outlet, Mitchell Couch of California, has turned what started into a small DIY into a major act of service to his community. Like many parents whose children are navigating the e-learning experience, Couch has been forced to adapt to a new mingling of school time and family time (not to mention the creeping of school supplies throughout the living area). And, like many others did during quarantine, Couch decided to undertake a small DIY project. He wanted to build a dedicated study space to help his kids establish a more structured routine. Drawing on two decades of professional carpentry experience, the project only took him a couple hours start to finish. Proudly, he posted his finished work to social media, but soon he was drowning in requests for tutorials and blueprints. Word continued to spread after Couch posted a YouTube video explaining the process in detail. A few days later, a local grocery outlet approached Couch with a proposition: if he would build more of his now-famous desks for other families in the area, they would fund the project. Within a week (and with the assistance of his family, whom he calls “the Couch Factory”), he had built 40 desks. The project now has a GoFundMe page to help the expand their reach to local schools throughout their district.
Source - KMPH News: https://kmph.com/news/local/lemoore-man-builds-desks-for-distance-learners
Source - CNN: https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/04/us/california-father-builds-desks-trnd/index.html
Student Raises Over $85,000 for Coronavirus Relief by Climbing Colorado’s Toughest Peaks
Brittney Woodrum, a graduate student studying humanitarian assistance, was forced to take some time off from her summer travel plans due to the coronavirus. So she got creative and found a way to combine her love of the outdoors with her passion for humanitarianism by way of mountain climbing. Woodrum made it her mission to summit Colorado’s “Fourteeners” – the 58 peaks in Colorado that are at least 14,000 feet in elevation. By soliciting sponsors and partnering with ShelterBox, a humanitarian nonprofit, she realized she could use her forced time off to raise money and awareness for an organization that was providing relief to those who had lost their homes during the pandemic. ShelterBox delivers “the essential aid people need to begin rebuilding their lives in the aftermath of a disaster.” They provide family-sized tents designed to withstand harsh elements to equip people with temporary shelter. They also provide tools to repair and rebuild permanent structures, cooking sets, solar powered lights, and activity sets for children. Woodrum spent more than two and a half months climbing the peaks during which she raised more than $85,000 from her sponsors.
Source - ShelterBox: https://www.shelterboxusa.org/fourteeners/
Canadian Research Project Discovers that Cash Payments to Homeless Persons Led to Long Term Food Security and Decreased Substance Use
The New Leaf Project, a research project developed by the University of British Columbia and Foundations for Social Change, a Vancouver-based charitable organization, may challenge stereotypes about the impact of social welfare on people in dire economic distress. To be eligible, participants must have been homeless for at least six months and could not have a diagnosis of a severe mental health or substance use disorder. A portion of the participants were randomly selected to receive a cash payment of $7500. According to the researchers, most participants who received the payments became food secure within a month and showed a remarkable ability to manage that money over the following 12 months. Some had $1000 remaining at the end of the 12 month follow-up period. On average, spending on alcohol, cigarettes, and drugs, decreased by 39%. One participant was able to obtain housing. He also took a computer literacy course to further his career goal of working with people diagnosed with substance use disorders. The researchers said there is a stereotype that homeless people will mismanage money and believe these results will challenge those stereotypes, leading to more compassionate and humane ways of assisting people who “live on the margins.”
Source - CBC: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/new-leaf-project-results-1.5752714