Download - SCCC Better Together | Winter 2013
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W H A T ’ S I N S I D E
3 EXECUTIVE D IRECTOR’S WELCOME
4 A DREAM REALIZED
6 MARTIN LUTHER K ING, JR. DAY OF SERVICE
8 SOUTH CAROLINA’S HUNGER GAMES | SNAP’S EVOLUTION
10 HUNGER AND HOMELESSNESS AWARENESS WEEK 2012
11 D ISCOVER VITA | NSLVE STUDENT VOTING INITIATIVE
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S O U T H C A R O L I N A C A M P U S C O M P A C T M E M B E R I N S T I T U T I O N S
Benedict College
President Dr. David Holmes Swinton
Ms. Tondeleya Jackson
Charleston Southern University
President Dr. Jairy C. Hunter Jr.
Dr. Rick Brewer & Dr. Hester Young
Claflin University
President Dr. Henry N. Tisdale
Ms. Carolyn Snell & Ms. Jennifer Holliday
Clemson University
President James F. Barker
Ms. Jennifer Shurley & Ms. Jennifer Goree
Coastal Carolina University
President Dr. David A. DeCenzo
Ms. Whitney Comer
College of Charleston
President Dr. P. George Benson
Ms. Stephanie Visser
Columbia College
President Elizabeth A. Dinndorf
Ms. Mary Carlisle & Dr. Ned Laff
Converse College
President Dr. Elizabeth A. Flemming
Rev. Jason Loscuito
Greenville Technical College
President Dr. Keith Miller
Ms. Susan Gasque & Ms. Sandra Hartsell
Midlands Technical College
President Dr. Marshall White, Jr.
Dr. Diane Carr & Ms. Mary Rawls
Newberry College
President Dr. Maurice William Sherrens
Dr. Joseph McDonald
The Citadel
Lt Gen John W. Rosa
Dr. Conway Saylor
The University of South Carolina
President Dr. Harris Pastides
Dr. Susan Alexander, Dr. Jimmie Gahagan,
Ms. Theresa Harrison & Dr. Dottie Weigel
The University of South Carolina– Beaufort
Chancellor Dr. Jane T. Upshaw
Dr. James Glasson & Ms. Kate Torborg Vermilyea
The University of South Carolina– Upstate
Chancellor Dr. Thomas F. Moore
Ms. Kara Ferguson
Winthrop University
President Dr. Anthony DiGiorgio, Chairman
Ms. Laura Foster & Ms. Ellin McDonough
Wofford College
President Dr. Benjamin Bernard Dunlap
Ms. Jessalyn Story
W E L C O M E We have just crossed the halfway mark for this academic year and the efforts of South Carolina Campus Compact members to civically engage students and positively impact community challenges have been remarkable. During the past six months, August through January, our member institutions have reported the recruitment of 7, 393 campus volunteers and 420 community volunteers. These vol-unteers served 20,790 individuals, 267 of whom were reported as veter-ans, through various projects and events for a total of 42,145 hours of service.
A major portion of the recruited volunteers and service hours reflected in our mid-year report were in direct response to nationally and internationally recognized days of service. Each year volunteers join together in the call to action in November and January to serve others during Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service, respectively.
SCCC could not be more impressed with the dedication to service and student development demon-strated by the staff and faculty of our member institutions. Throughout this issue of Better Together we highlight these inspiring and impactful events.
Thank you for your continued support of South Carolina Campus Compact and our mission to improve “the ability of higher education institutions to partner with their communities to collectively impact community needs and provide real world learning for college students.”
Jessica Lynn
Executive Director
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MARTIN LUTHER K ING DAY OF SERVICE SERVES AS A DAY ON , NOT OFF ,
AND AIMS TO STRENGTHEN COMMUNIT IES , EMPOWER INDIVIDUALS ,
BRIDGE BARRIERS , AND CREATE SOLUT IONS ACROSS SOUTH CAROLINA .
5,201
DREAM "This is not a black holiday; it is a people's holiday," said
Coretta Scott King after President Ronald Reagan signed the
King Holiday Bill into law on Nov. 2, 1983. But in the compli-
cated history of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, it has only recent-
ly been a holiday for all the people, all the time.
Fifteen years earlier, on April 4, 1968, Mrs. King had lost her
husband, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to an assassin's bullet.
In the months after the death of the civil rights icon, Congress-
man John Conyers, Jr. of Michigan introduced the first legisla-
tion seeking to make King's birthday, Jan. 15, a federal holiday.
The King Memorial Center in Atlanta was founded around the
same time, and it sponsored the first annual observance of
King's birthday, in January 1969, almost a decade and a half
before it became an official government-sanctioned holiday.
Before then, individual states including Illinois, Massachusetts
and Connecticut had passed their own bills celebrating the oc-
casion.
The origins of the holiday are mired in racism, politics and con-
spiracy. Three years after Conyers introduced preliminary leg-
islation in 1968, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
— which King headed from its inception until his death — pre-
sented Congress with a petition signed by more than 3 million
people supporting a King holiday. The bill languished in Con-
gress for eight years, unable to gain enough support until Presi-
dent Jimmy Carter, former governor of Georgia, vowed to sup-
port a King holiday.
The bill faced a somewhat tougher fight in the Senate, however.
In an opposition campaign led primarily by Senators John P.
East and Jesse Helms of North Carolina, some attempted to
emphasize King's alleged dalliances and his associations with
communists as reasons not to honor him with a federal holiday.
President Reagan signed the bill into law in November 1983
and the first official holiday was observed on the third Monday
of January 1986. In 1994, Congress designated the Martin Lu-
ther King Jr. Federal Holiday as a national day of service and
charged the Corporation for National and Community Ser-
vice with leading this effort. Taking place each year on the
third Monday in January, the MLK Day of Service is the only
federal holiday observed as a national day of service – a "day
on, not a day off."
In 2000, 17 years after the law's official passage and the same
year removed the Confederate flag from its statehouse dome,
South Carolina signed a bill recognizing Martin Luther King Jr.
Day as a paid holiday.
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104 COMMUNITY
PARTNER SITES
1,059 VOLUNTEERS
$35,965 PEOPLE SERVED
5,201 IN DONATIONS
A WAKING
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MARTIN LUTHER KING DAY OF SERVICE 2013
Top: USC Upstate,
Wofford College and
Converse College stu-
dents participate with
Operation Christmas
Child; Newberry Col-
lege and members of
the community march
across Newberry to
Bethlehem Baptist
Church.
Right: Columbia
College students do-
nate a pint of blood to
help save a life. Above: Winthrop University
partners with York Tech-
nical College and Clinton
Junior College students for
a highway clean up.
Far left: Benedict College
and Midlands Technical
College present a Health
and Safety Fair, including
Zumba lessons.
Left: College of Charleston
and Charleston Southern
University team up with The
Citadel to prepare food for
Crisis Ministries.
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Above: Claflin University participates in a Serve and
Watch Inauguration viewing. Top left: University of
South Carolina students clean up yards in the community.
Left: Greenville Technical College makes cards for sick
children and deployed service members. Coastal Carolina
University sorts clothing. Bottom left: Cadets at The Cita-
del work on a Habitat for Humanity build. Below:
Clemson University students build stairs and ramps for
local homes.
Step 1. The Poverty Line They told us we’d live in poverty. We must under-stand—really understand—the hurdles that those living in poverty must leap over in order to survive. “Brace your-self,” they told us, it’s going to be rough. I didn’t and it was. My name is Lauren Spinella and I am an Ameri-Corps VISTA. The AmeriCorps VISTA program is an ini-tiative geared towards sustaining and strengthening existing anti-poverty organizations. The people served by these or-ganizations live below the poverty line; as an AmeriCorps VISTA, so do I. Coming from a middle-class family and a financial-ly stable household, I had trouble wrapping my head around the whole idea of poverty. I had savings. I had sup-port. I wasn’t worried. I wasn’t worried until about two weeks into my VISTA term when I found myself holding up the check-out line at Publix, frantically digging through the bottom of my purse for pennies and nickels to pay for my Pop-Tarts and Ramen Noodles. Yes, I had savings and yes, I had support—but when my car was totaled (courtesy of a reckless driver) and my home was flooded (courtesy of Hurricane Isaac), my savings were no more. Life happened and I was broke. I could barely scrounge up enough pocket change to cover my $10 gro-
cery bill and after two weeks of running on sugar and hope, I could feel my body closing up shop.
My wallet and body agreed: it was time to ask Un-cle Sam for food stamps. Step 2: Apply In mid-September I started the process of applying for food stamps. The flooding had knocked out my inter-net access, but luckily, I could look up information online at work. The application process went as follows: 1. Google.com Google Search: “I need food stamps in South Carolina” 2. Click on: The South Carolina Department of Social Services. 3. Click on: Apply for benefits. 4. Fill out a short application asking for information on your income, rent payments, and other bills. 5. Submit. 15 minutes later, I was done and getting back to work. “This couldn’t be any easier,” I thought. I was wrong. Step 3: Phone interview I received a letter on October 4th asking me to call in to the Department of Social Services to complete my phone interview. Food stamp applicants must interview with a social worker to clarify any inconsistencies in their application and further express their need for assistance. I realized later how much this speaks to the whole process
THE SUPPLEMENTAL NUTRITION PROGRAM
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP),
formerly called the Food Stamp program, provides benefits to
people in households with low income and few assets to help
them purchase food to be eaten at home.
In 2011, 14% of Americans— about 1 in 7— received SNAP
benefits. On average, SNAP’s 45 million participants re-
ceived $134 per month.
KEY SNAP LEGISLATION
1996 Welfare reform produces
major cutbacks to the Food
Stamp program
2002 Farm bill offered states
opportunities to streamline the
application process
2008 Farm bill increased benefits
and changed the name of
the program to SNAP
1960
560,000
participants
1964- Formally
established federal Food
Stamp program
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SOUTH CAROLINA’ S HUNGER G AMES In South Carolina over 100,000 households depend on SNAP (Supplemental Nutri-
tion Assistance Program) each month to get the food they need for good health.
College of Charleston VISTA Lauren Spinella explains her trials and tribulations of
receiving SNAP benefits in South Carolina. Her experience was covered in conjunc-
tion with College of Charleston’s 2012 Food Stamp Challenge.
1970
4,300,000
participants
1980
21,000,000
participants
1990
20,000,000
participants
2000
17,200,000
participants
2010
40,300,000
participants
1971- Established uniform
national standards of eligibility
and work requirements
1996- Major
changes: eliminated
eligibility for many
legal immigrants;
placed time limit on
food stamp receipt
for certain groups;
and reduced the
growth of the maxi-
mum benefit
1977- Established income
eligibility guidelines;
formalized income exclusions
and deductions
2009– Temporarily
increased the current
maximum benefit by
14 percent
1982– Added the
gross income test and
allowed states to
require participants to
look for work
1989, 1990-
Established
Electronic Benefit
Transfer Card as an
official alternative
to issuing benefits
2008– Increased benefits by
raising the minimum standard deduc-
tion and increased minimum benefits
for one– and two-person households
Under subsequent
amendments, the
maximum benefit will fall
back to its unadjusted
amount in November
2013
2002– Offered
states opportunities to
streamline the appli-
cation and reporting
processes and reinstat-
ed eligibility for certain
groups denied bene-
fits under the 1996
legislation
of applying for food stamps. Having to provide a detailed description of how you are struggling to barely get by and how badly you need assistance to a total stranger can feel in-credibly humiliating and frustrating. I had until October 24th to call in for my phone inter-view. With our big event “Dash for Trash” coming up, I barely had time to eat lunch, let alone spend two hours on the phone with Social Services. “Dash for Trash” was on Oc-tober 20th. I planned to call in immediately afterwards. However, I didn’t get that far. On October 15th, I received a letter saying I had missed my phone interview. “What? How is this possible?” I double checked the first letter. “Please call by Octo-ber 24th to complete your phone interview.” I double checked the date on the calendar-- October 15th. At the bottom of the new letter, it said “Call in by October 31st. Social Services had already taken the liberty to extend my interview deadline. The next day at work, I rushed to get the bulk of my work done in the morning. At 3:00 pm, I called in to the Department of Social Services. “Thank you for calling. Your wait time is approxi-mately 45 minutes.” I put my phone on speaker and left it on my desk while I continued working. 32 minutes into my wait, the call was disconnected. At this time, it was just after 3:30 pm. The phone lines closed at 4:30. I knew that by the time I waited for another 45 minutes and finally got through to a representative, it would be too late to conduct the interview. The next day, I finished my work by 1:30 pm, leaving plenty of time for me to call (and call back if the call was dropped) and complete the interview. After about 45 minutes of fumbling through an automated menu and waiting on hold, I finally got through to a human being and began the interview. At the end, my interviewer told me that she would be sending me a letter listing all of the documentation she needed me to send back in. “Can’t you just tell me what I need to send now so I don’t waste any time waiting for the letter?” I asked. She couldn’t, so I waited.
Step 4: The Letter About two weeks later, I received the letter. They asked me to send back a copy of my lease, proof of income, and a copy of my electric bill. I had to wait two more weeks waiting for a letter that listed only three things? I received the letter on Monday, October 29th and had to get the documen-tation in by Friday, November 2nd. Just one business week. Question: How was I going to take off work to drive to North Charleston and wait in line for an hour just to hand in three papers? Answer: I wasn’t.
I printed out the three documents they asked for (thankfully, I have a printer at work), put them in a stamped envelope, and sent them off to the Department of Social Ser-vices. Steps 5, 6, and 7: Wait.
I was actually denied after sending in my documenta-tion. I sent the materials through certified mail and while they were signed for, indicating that they were received, I was sent a letter soon after saying that my application was denied be-cause that documentation was never received.
After speaking with a DSS representative, I was able to sort it out—though it did push my process back a few weeks, ultimately resulting in me receiving my SNAP benefits in December. To clarify, I am grateful for the assistance I receive from the Department of Social Services. I recognize the challenges of applying for SNAP and how I was lucky in a lot of ways: to have familial support after the flooding in my apartment and the flexibility I have at work, for starters. However, someone else in the same situation might not have been able to print out their documentation, or take time off work to go to Department of Social Services. What if you don’t have a car to drive to the office? What if you’ll lose your job if you take time off of work? What if your process is pushed back and you just can’t go a few more weeks without food security? I was lucky that I could afford to wait a few
months while waiting for my benefits to be processed. Not
everyone can.
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NATIONAL
HUNGER AND
HOMELESSNESS
AWARENESS
WEEK 2012 Each year, one week before Thanksgiving, the Na-
tional Coalition for the Homeless and the National
Student Campaign Against Hunger and Homeless-
ness co-sponsor National Hunger and Homeless
Awareness Week. During this week, schools, com-
munities and cities take part in a nationwide effort
to bring greater awareness to the problems of hun-
ger and homelessness. In November 2012, South
Carolina Campus Compact’s 17 member institu-
tions held over 45 events dedicated to Hunger and
Homelessness Awareness Week. Take a look at a
few highlights of the week.
From Top: Coastal Carolina students spend a night outside by recreating shanty towns. Newberry College holds a candle light vigil as
part of their “Hunger Games” themed series of week-long event. Greenville Technical College and USC– Upstate team up for 60 Sec-
onds of Service by preparing sandwiches to be donated to the local soup kitchen. Right: The Citadel’s cadets show their appreciation on
Veteran’s Day by volunteering at Charleston’s Crisis Ministries.
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SCCC RESOURCE : V I TA (VOLUNTEER I NCOME TAX ASS ISTANCE)
CAMPUS COMPACT PARTNERS WITH CIRCLE IN AN EXCITING
STUDENT-VOTING INITIATIVE Campus Compact has partnered with The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) in a
new initiative to study student-voting rates from the recent 2012 elections correlated with data from educational programs across
the country. Designed to increase student civic learning and engagement in a democracy, the National Study of Learning, Voting,
and Engagement (NSLVE) will offer participating institutions the opportunity to receive information in aggregate form that can be
utilized to assess engagement on their campuses as well as make comparisons to similar institutions, who have also chosen to par-
ticipate.
South Carolina Campus Compact member institutions have moved quickly to obtain approval to take part in this initiative. Many
departments, from Political Science to Career and Civic Engagement, have joined together to show their support and to begin look-
ing at ways this information can be used to evaluate current programs and to gauge the overall civic engagement of students.
South Carolina Campus Compact is encouraging all of our members to participate so that we might also compile statistics from an
organizational standpoint. Our member campuses are truly dedicated to civic engagement and democratic participation and this
could offer data to support that fact. Please share this information with your counterparts at other universities and colleges through-
out the state and nationally as any accredited educational institution can join the initiative. For more information, please contact
Nancy L. Thomas, Director, Initiatives for the Study of Higher Education and Public Life at Tufts University at
[email protected] or learn more online at http://www.civicyouth.org/nslve-faq/.
January through April is traditionally known as tax time,
and the VITA Program is in full swing. Originally found-
ed 1971 by Gary Iskowitz at California State University
Northridge, the concept was to provide local taxpayers
with free tax return preparation by accounting students, in
effort to provide both a valuable community service and a
powerful hands-on learning experience for the students.
The program grew from a small group of dedicated stu-
dents to what is now a nation wide program that serves
thousands of taxpayers and provides a valuable learning
experience for accounting students.
The VITA Program generally offers free tax help to people who make $51,000 or less and need assistance in preparing their
own tax returns. IRS-certified volunteers provide free basic income tax return preparation with electronic filing to qualified
individuals in local communities. They can inform taxpayers about special tax credits for which they may qualify such as
Earned Income Tax Credit, Child Tax Credit, and Credit for the Elderly or the Disabled. VITA sites are generally located at
community and neighborhood centers, libraries, schools, shopping malls, and other convenient locations.
There are thousands of VITA sites located across the country. To locate a site near you between January and April call
1-800-906-9887.