Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Wilmington, N.C. - This holiday season, the University of North Carolina Wilmington continues its tradition of giving back to the community. To provide simple pleasures to those in need and spread awareness, faculty, staff and students are collaborating with multiple local non-profit organizations like for programs like National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week, Adopt-a-Family, the Angel Tree and Make It a Wonderful Life.

"We are honored to help with these worthwhile programs in our backyard. They are student-led and hundreds of students get involved," said Donna Chapa Crowe, Director the UNCW Center for Leadership Education & Service (CLES).

National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week, Nov. 12-16

Events include a canned food drive, a hunger awareness film and a panel discussion on homelessness and the annual campus Oxfam Fast for a World Harvest. Additionally, the annual Hunger Banquet, coordinated by the Department of Social Work, will dramatize the unequal distribution of food in the world on Nov. 14 in the Warwick center Ballroom at 6p.m. All canned goods donated as part of Hunger & Homelessness Awareness Week will be donated to the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina.

Adopt-a-Family, through week of November 19

More than 50 local families in need will enjoy a Thanksgiving dinner because of this CLES and St. Mary's Tileston Outreach Center meal drive and food delivery partnership program.

Angel Tree, through week of December 5

Around 75 children at the Boys and Girls Home at Lake Waccamaw will have Christmas presents this year thanks to the UNCW community that adopted them as part of the Angel Tree program. Givers receive detailed information about their child for personalized gift(s).

Make it a Wonderful Life, commences with film showing December 21 at 6:30 p.m.

This annual partnership between the CLES, Film Studies and the Salvation Army, collects new, unwrapped toys for children in the Cape Fear region. Donation boxes across campus will be available. The collection will culminate at the annual showing of It's a Wonderful Life in Kenan Auditorium.

Community members are also encouraged to bring items to campus donation centers.

Media contacts:

Donna Chapa Crowe, Director of the UNCW Center for Leadership Education & Service, 910.962.3877 or crowed@uncw.edu

Joy Davis, UNCW Marketing and Communications, 910.962.3616 or davisjc@uncw.edu