Leadership Stories
- Jenn Muster
- Feb 24, 2017
- 3 min read
Annette Clapsaddle ('14) served on a NPR panel in Asheville. The panel discussed "When Your Hometown Gets Hot" as part of the national touring series NPR Presents Michel Martin: Going There. Annette was joined by: Ron Rash (Award winning author and professor at WCU), Chris Cooper (Head of Department of Political Science at WCU), Oscar Wong and his daughter Leah Wong Ashburn (Highland Brewing Company), Julie Mayfield (Co-Director of Mountain True), and Scott Dedman (Executive Director of Mountain Housing Opportunities.
Michelle Pearson tours The Goodness Project throughout NC & Abroad
For over a year, Black Box Dance Theatre has been seeking out stories of goodness. Where is it, who is it, how can you hold onto it? What good will it do anyway?
Cranberry Middle School, Avery County, NC:
A middle school student literally walked on the shoulders of 20 of her peers as she traversed the risky path. “I really had to trust them”, she said. “The people are the mountain.”
Teens from 4 high schools in Columbus County, NC: two weeks after the flood, … “We still have many families living in temporary locations. I know someone whose grandfather was swept away in the waters. I know it is not much, but I went to the nursing home and painted an elderly woman’s fingernails. It gave her something bright to look at.”
Gunagzhou, China:
A performance in a public book store included local dancers and children with disabilities. An audience member comments, “I’ve never seen this…the children are beautiful!”
Shenyang, China:
Three afternoons of privacy in the U.S. Consulate’s backyard invited young men suffering from various mental disabilities to come and dance with their mothers. The translator tells us one woman did not want to come, but her friend said she must. Dancing the day before was the happiest she ever felt in her life.
Southminster Senior Residence, Charlotte, NC:
A 102 year old dancer: “It is good when someone stops to smile at me…at eye level”
I cannot express in words the impact of your program yesterday afternoon. Our residents’ response, participation, and overall enjoyment was so overwhelming, emotional, and heartwarming to watch unfold. The ability to reach into so many different levels of mental, physical, and social ability, and result in a response together as “one” was so very touching. You were able to “bring out” the person inside the condition/disease one by one until the entire group was “Telling the Story”. This event will be difficult to surpass! -Ellen Rozak, RN
Keith Martin's ('01) Student form a Chapter of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights Aids
The students in Keith Martin's ('01-03) Arts Management and Cultural Policy course at Appalachian State University have taken his "servant leadership" lecture to heart by forming a High Country Chapter of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, one of the nation’s leading industry-based, nonprofit AIDS fundraising and grant-making organizations. During their annual trip to the Appalachian Loft in Manhattan, the students met with senior staff at BC/EFA to learn about grassroots advocacy and the basics of service organizations.
BC/EFA helps men, women and children across the country and across the street receive lifesaving medications, health care, nutritious meals, counseling and emergency financial assistance. By drawing upon the talents, resources and generosity of the American theatre community, since 1988 Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS has raised more than $285 million for essential services for people with HIV/AIDS and other critical illnesses in all 50 states, Puerto Rico and Washington DC.
Now that their campus organization is up and running, Appalachian students are forming chapters at Watauga High School and Lees~McRae College in Banner Elk. Their first fundraisers and audience solicitations are scheduled for this spring and summer.
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