LiveLearning honored with $19,000 gift

The LiveLearning program is pleased to announce an unrestricted donation of $19,000 from an anonymous donor. The gift, initiated in early 2007 and fully realized in December, has allowed LiveLearning to invest the considerable resources required for researching, visiting and developing potential community partners throughout Latin America. Additionally, the gift has contributed towards support of our in-country community partners, and was critical in subsidizing a recent educational expedition with the Gailer School to Peru. A small percentage has been used to cover overhead and administrative expenses, which LiveLearning has been able to keep to just several hundred dollars per month. "This gift has been of extraordinary value to LiveLearning," said Alex Graham, Executive Director. "it's allowed us to achieve both our educational and community-buidling goals at a high level, far sooner than exepected."

UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT STUDENTS TAKE CREAR BY STORM

On January 2nd, a group of 13 University of Vermont students, led by John Hayden of the Plant and Soil Science Department, arrived in the Dominican Republic for a Service-Learning program. Their primary goal: to help initiate a community garden project in Batey Libertad. (A "batey" is a Haitian community, typically quite poor, within the Dominican Republic). To do so, they first visited CREAR with the LiveLearning Program to gain an introduction to local techniques of organic agriculture, to engage in cultural exchange with a Dominican community, and to learn about the complex and difficult relations between Haiti and the Dominican Republic that face this remote border region, and the country as a whole. Thanks to rain-soaked roads, the group’s arrival in the town of Rio Limpio was a triumphant, muddy adventure.

The UVM group brought as their guests two Haitians from Batey Libertad, Franklin and Yanliko, who took part in the training and cultural exchanges and were welcomed into the community of Rio Limpio. UVM also brought seeds for CREAR, donated by High Mowing Seeds, (as did LiveLearning -- donated by Gardener’s Supply) and equipment for Rio Limpio’s baseball and softball teams, generously collected and donated by the students of Edmund’s School.

The expedition was a great success, in large part because the UVM students proved less-than shy when it came to dancing. The expedition moved on to visit and live in Batey Libertad while helping to begin the work for the community garden. Two of the group remain there through March to help guide the process and teach more about agricultural techniques and garden management.

May, 2007: LiveLearning Honored by Outstanding Service-Learning Student

May 31, 2007. Valerie Esposito, a third year Ph.D student at the University of Vermont’s Gund Institute for Ecological Economics, selected LiveLearning to receive a $500 honorarium made in her name. The award is given annually by the UVM office of Community-University Partnerships and Service-Learning (CUPS) to highlight the work that is being done to infuse curricula at UVM with a value of civic participation.

Esposito was selected as this year’s Outstanding Service- Learning Student Award recipient in recognition for her performance in multiple roles as a service-learning student, Teaching Assistant and Ph.D researcher. Awardees are given the chance to designate a financial honorarium of $500 to the non-profit of his/her choice in recognition of the award. Esposito said, “I chose LiveLearning because I've heard great things about this nascent organization and couldn’t think of a more appropriate place to donate this honorarium. I wanted to support the values of service-learning which LiveLearning promotes.”

Esposito, 32, originally from New Jersey, is a Graduate Research Assistant at the Gund Institute where she studies ecological economics and ecosystem management. She has been a Teaching Assistant for three different service-learning classes with which she has traveled to Peru, Costa Rica, and the Dominican Republic. The majority of the service-learning programs which LiveLearning runs work with social entrepreneurs in Peru and the Dominican Republic.