For most students Thanksgiving is essentially about being home with your family and the people you love, but Cabrini’s unique way of Thanksgiving has provided students another way of celebrating with their second family, Cabrini College.
Cabrini College has provided for numerous years a unique experience for all students during the official “kick-off” of the holiday season. This year the Dining Hall is providing students with an activity called “Thanksgiving in Our Community.”
This November-only promotion is an event where students are invited to being friends and family into Cabrini’s dining hall. Bring-a-friend coupons will be distributed so your friends can receive a dinner for half the price. The Dining Hall is also offering invitations where students can bring a senior citizen on Thanksgiving Dinner, which is Wednesday, Nov. 16. These guests will eat for free. If your guest cannot make it that night, they are welcome to join Cabrini at supper time during any dinner that week.
Dr. Mary Laver, the director of applied social teaching, said, “The main project the campus sponsors relating to the Thanksgiving season is the Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Campaign, which is a long tradition at Cabrini and many other campuses around the country in November.”
According to Laver, The Hunger and Homelessness Campaign allows Cabrini students to come to the realization that many of us have as we gather around the Thanksgiving table that, “We are all one human family, and we have the ability and duty to reach out and make a difference in each others’ lives, especially people who are ignored and forgotten in the world.”
On the week of Oct. 30, Cabrini’s service program planned a week of activities to help people in need. The week included a Hunger Banquet where Dr. Kathy McKinley, a professor in sociology, spoke about world hunger and another speaker from Catholic Relief Services spoke to the audience about hunger and violence in the Darfur region of Sudan, Africa.
A student sleep-out, with the theme “Lost” similar to the hit TV show, raised close to two thousand dollars. This money went towards buying Thanksgiving turkeys and other holiday food for 40 needy families in the Philadelphia and Norristown areas. The programs money also was sent to CRA to help with relief efforts in the Sudan.
Laver also provided an excellent point that the campus can educate each other about the causes of poverty and “then using our votes and our influence together to change public policies so more people fit around the table of life.”
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Posted to the web by Shane Evans
