Summer Bonner Love

Summer, summer, summer time!!!

summer is here my dear bonners and I, liam, am the sole bonner congress coordinator remaining :(!!!!
But that does not mean the Bonner Love need go on holiday!!!!!

No, in fact I have a request to get the summer off right. I want to know about your year with Bonner. what were some of the awesome things you did? what were some of the disapointments you had? what things did you learn? What will all this mean for next year?

I WANNA HEAR FROM YOU!!!!

So I am asking you to either leave a comment here, on the bonner blog of love, or to email it to me at
liam@bonner.org

I look forward to hearing from all of you.

stay tuned to the Bonner blog as our summer interns start soon, and will be updating yall with much Bonner Love.

A Message from COOL/Idealist

Hello again!

Though the 2006 C.O.O.L. Idealist National Conference is over, we hope the ideas incubated there have inspired continued action. We'd love to hear from you regarding what you've accomplished or planned as a result of people you met or skills you learned at the conference. Feel free to share your updates with us anytime by emailing us at campusconference@idealist.org.

We've recently posted all of your Conference Commitments online. Get re-inspired here:
http://www.idealist.org/conferences/cool/2006/commitments.html

Also, check out our new Conference Resource Center to download materials and resources from your favorite workshops or from the sessions that you couldn't attend:
http://www.idealist.org/conference/cool/2006/resourcecenter

Finally, we put up two amazing videos that were created during the weekend. Those of you who were able to stay for the closing session had a change to see them, but we want to give everyone the opportunity! Thanks to filmmakers Tony Clark, Mark Hand, Nic Van Horn, and Amy Atkinson for the Commitments Video and James Hersch for the 'REACH With Me Video. You can access the videos from the conference homepage:
http://www.idealist.org/conference2006

We look forward to seeing you at the 2007 C.O.O.L. Idealist National Conference, to be held March 23-25th at DePaul University in Chicago, IL!

Stay in touch!

Best,

The 2006 C.O.O.L. Idealist National Conference staff and Student Planning Committee

Student Update yall

In February, a group of 10 Lees-McRae College Bonner Leaders drove to Washington, D.C. The trip was planned by our Bonner Director and our Senior Intern. We helped out at a food bank called “Bread for the City” (http://www.breadforthecity.org/)- which was really awesome and we got to experience both of their sites, in Northwest DC and Anacostia. We packed up bags with food items as they passed them out to the people in the community. Check out their website above to find out more.
We stayed at a church and got to eat dinner with an organization involved with homelessness issues. It was awesome just hearing the stories of their lives. The next morning we visited the largest homeless shelter in the country and the world-”CCNV”. They gave us a tour of the shelter, and it is huge! It has a bed capcity of 1,350 for homeless men, women, and children. DC Central Kitchen even prepares the food for them. We were even fortunate enough to meet the Director - Mr. Terri Bishop. (http://users.erols.com/ccnv/_)- visit their site to learn more-it is just amazing to see what they do on a daily basis and how many people they help. Even though we did get lost a few times while driving around (since we are used to little ol’ Banner Elk, NC), it was just such an amazing experience. We learned so much and it was an awesome time-and we got to see the city. I highly reccomend that you try and work up a trip, even if it’s only a little weekend helping out-you will love it.

-Sheena Allen

WHAT UP SPELMAN???

Liam here with some digital shout outs to the amazing ladies of spelman as they have sent me some awesome pictures from the cool conference, and I felt the need to give them some support for the awesome seminar i went to that they ran. (they actually did two but I was unable to attend the other one)
I will start with the pics of the seminar and go from there






Now if you look closely at these two pics you can see why i posted them...because I am in them!!!!!
I attended the seminar "hipadvocacy" a work shop dealing with the political power of hip hop, and how it can be a tool for change
I will evaluate the work shop in the following plus and minus format...
PLUS-

fun format
great activity
interesting content
well prepared presenters
amazing creativity
did i mention i got to shake my booty?
over all great presentation
Minus
nelly

so i think that about says it, a very well put together seminar, and I was very impressed.
MORE PICS!!!




Oh spelman, how shall i deal with thou coolness?
Again I was only able to attend one of the workshops done by the spelman ladies, but if they were anything like this one I am sure they were amazingly good.
I also want to point out the spelman bonner blog link now in our links section. Spelman were the pioneers for bonner's in the blogosphere, and you should check theirs out.
well liam out, but with a question...well two
1. what were some awesome workshops you went to at cool?
2. what are some awesome workshops we should be thinking about for sli?
oh one more
3. why am I so cool?
I mean really?

A Failure of Philanthropy?

From the good folks at Idealist.org:

In a provocative piece, Stanford’s Rob Reich asks whether charitable giving—historically rooted in helping the poor and disadvantaged—is now effectively helping the rich get richer. Reich analyzes U.S. laws regulating philanthropic giving and nonprofit tax-exemption, and posits that present charitable tax deductions serve as a subsidy to wealthier donors, who benefit more from giving than the less affluent do. Are current philanthropy policies failing the neediest?

Drought-hit Somalia's race against time

Somalia is now in the grip of one of the worst droughts to hit the Horn of Africa for decades. The country has been without a functioning government for the past 15 years.

We are DIGITAL!!!!!!

Hey friends, Liam here and I am very excited for our new bonner blog. This is the place to check for news, program updates, awesome resources, and THE place to communicate with fellow bonner students. Feel free to rock the comments section to add your own input and ideas to the bonner dialogue. We are currently in the testing phase of this blog, so please be patient with changing content and slowed response. we look forward to this blog being a new chapter in the digital life of the bonner community.