September 18, 2012

Page 1

Your student newspaper

THE APPALACHIAN TheAppalachianOnline.com

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Vol. 87, No. 06

Watauga County works to eliminate child hunger by KATELYN BYNG

Intern News Reporter

O

Maggie Cozens | The Appalachian

Mellow Mushroom is one of the thousands of restaurants across the country participating in the Dine Out For No Kid Hungry campaign. The campaign is taking place throughout the month of September and aims to raise funds to help end childhood hunger in America.

ne in every four kids goes to bed hungry in Watauga County, Todd Carter, director of development at the Hospitality House, said. “Almost half of Watauga County isn’t making it,” Carter said. “That’s why our Food Box program saw an 82 percent increase last year.” The Food Boxes are stocked with food from the Second Harvest Food Bank, a division of the Feeding America Program, available to those in the community who qualify for low-income assistance, according to hospitalityhouseofboone.org. The Hospitality House assists in attempting to decrease child hunger by serving about 11,000 meals a month, Carter said. “The most important thing to know about it is that it’s very well hidden,” Compton Fortuna, ex-

ecutive director of the Hunger and Health Coalition, said. “Things may look great, but at home there are children that don’t have enough food to eat.” Fortuna said some causes of hunger are the high cost of living and the rising prices of food and gas. The Hunger and Health Coalition has several assistance programs to help such as the Food Pantry, Healthy Start and Snacks for Scholars, all of which provide food to families and children in need. Food is often shoved to the end of the list of priorities when income is low, Fortuna said. Other efforts are being made to stop child hunger through Mellow Mushroom’s Dine Out for No Kid Hungry program. For the month of September, for every Bruschetta purchased $1 is donated to Dine Out for No Kid Hungry, a national charity geared toward eliminating child hunger.

“I think it addresses a lot more of the problem than, let’s say welfare and food stamps,” Chase Luddeke, general manager at Mellow Mushroom, said. “If you’re educating children in low-income families on how to eat well, while providing them with access to those foods, you’re kind of killing two birds with one stone.” Residents of Boone and students can help to lower the child hunger rate by participating in Dine Out for No Kid Hungry, serving meals at the Hospitality House and getting involved with helping the Health and Hunger Coalition through Appalachian and the Community Together office, on the second floor of Plemmons Student Union. “I think probably the most important thing is awareness,” Fortuna said. “I think so often people think of hunger as something in a third world country, and that’s definitely not the case here.”

Fiftieth anniversary brings alumni, memories to The Rock by ANDREW CLAUSEN

as Jackson, class of 1989, helps work the concessions during game days. “It was a lot smaller Despite The Citadel’s upset to Appalachian, the game but the crowds were still was more than winning and packed,” Jackson said. “We losing -- Kidd-Brewer Sta- didn’t have any national dium turned 50 years old. championships but it was Previously named Con- all good.” Jackson said the stadium rad Stadium, the stadium opened on September 15, was almost twice as big as it used to 1962 be and fans We s l y n be Snuggs, 1986 “It was a lot smaller should on the lookalumna who but the crowds out for more helped work were still packed. seating in the the funnel We didn’t have any future. cake stand, national championMike Flyremembered ships but it was all nn, assistant her fondathletic digood.” est memory rector, said of The Rock Thomas Jackson, ASU alumnus although during the there was no football set dates, it games. “It was something every- was on their minds. “It started out as a 10,000 body went to, it was one big seat facility back in 1962,” party,” Snuggs said. The stadium today is Flynn said. “A lot of the nothing like it was in the changes have come in the 1980s when Snuggs attend- past couple of years. As ed, she said. Then, the sta- demand requires, we’d be dium had a seating capacity looking to increase capacity.” of 15,000 maximum. The goal, in the future, is Currently, Kidd-Brewer Stadium has a 24,050 seat to add more seats, but there are no firm plans or timecapacity. Another alumnus, Thom- table, he said. Intern News Reporter

Paul Heckert | The Appalachian

The Mountaineers run onto the field Saturday for their match-up against The Citadel. The game took place on the 50th anniversary of the first ever football game played at The Rock.

New campaign of ‘Gay? Fine by me’ aims for further reach with students by R. SCOTT MORRIS Intern A&E Reporter

Last year, the university’s LGBT Center won an in March award from the Atticus Circle, the equal rights organization and creator of the ‘Gay? Fine by me’ national campaign. This year, the LGBT center decided to go a different route with the movement. Mark Rasdorf, graduate assistant of the university’s LGBT Center, said the idea had come to him a while ago, after he saw multiple people with the ‘Gay? Fine by me’ T-shirts. He said he hoped to get some of the more recognizable campus figures involved in the campaign. A month ago, Rasdorf ran into Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Lori Gonzalez, and asked her if she might be willing to make an appearance in this project. A short while later, he got his answer. “Then she came back and said, ‘I’m in, and so is the Chancellor,’” Rasdorf said. “I hadn’t even asked her about him.” Soon after, Chancellor Peacock was smiling in front of a camera

Michael Bragg | The Appalachian

Marie Freeman | University Communcations

while sporting a bright, neon yellow T-shirt. “To have someone like our Chancellor, who obviously has a lot of pull on campus and is a public figure, it’s great,” said Drew Bennett, ‘Gay? Fine by me’ photographer. “It shows other people that someone who’s im-

Chancellor Peacock was among the participants in the LGBT Center's 'Gay? Fine By Me' photo shoot last Thursday (left). Senior global studies and technical photography major Drew Bennett takes a photo of Dean of Students J.J. Brown for the LGBT Center’s ‘Gay? Fine By Me’ photo shoot last Thursday (above).

portant, who has to worry about his reputation, is still for this type of equality,” Bennett said. One of the campaign’s coordinators and senior management major Jeremy Billow said the Chancellor’s involvement “is huge.” “It shows that he really does

keep up with what’s going on around campus and wants to get involved,” Billow said. “I also believe it’ll be a great way for App to encourage prospective students who are a part of the LGBT community that there’s always support for them here.” But recently, there has been a

succession of anti-LGBT related vandalism across campus, ranging from ripping down posters to inflammatory wall graffiti. “The message of the campaign is for everyone to stand up for equal rights,” Rasdorf said. “For the most part, this is not for the LGBT community. It’s for the straight community, the quote unquote “norm,” who maybe support LGBT rights, but have yet to stand up for them.” He said “make no mistake, though, whether straight, bisexual, gay or whatever you may identify as, everyone can stand up and be an ally”. This year, the LGBT Center has around 300 T-shirts, and they will sell on Sept. 25, starting at 11 a.m. in the Student Union in the foyer near Cascades. Shirts are for sale for $5 and to those who sign the pledge. “I hope that this event creates more awareness for LGBT equality,” Bennett said. “And I hope that those who aren’t open to it reconsider, after they see this type of acceptance on this scale.” The ‘Gay? Fine by me’ campaign will be advertised around campus for the rest of the fall semester.

ON THE WEB Wanna be in the loop with the ASU athletes and games? Check us out on Twitter at @theappsports.

VIDEO: View football highlights from The Citadel’s game online www.theappalachianonline.com/ interactive/video

Follow us on our social media accounts! @theappalachian www.facebook.com/theappalachian

theappalachian.tumblr.com


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.