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Home > Initiatives > Awards Programs > Newman Civic Fellows Award 2013 > The 2011 Newman Civic Fellows > Janae Cummings, Adelphi University, NY

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Janae Cummings, Adelphi University, NY

Janae Cummings, a sophomore at Adelphi University, has spent the past two years organizing service-learning trips to Our School at Blair Grocery, a school and urban farm in New Orleans. Her primary foci are transformative learning and sustainability. She helps provide opportunities for Adelphi students to learn urban farming, teaching student-generated workshops through the winter and summer. She has collaborated with faculty and administrators to create a course focused on environmental justice. Janae is involved in her own non-profit, student-led national organization, Youth Coalition for Community Action, which encourages a replication of her trips to New Orleans.

I have always had a drive to serve others and work for the common good. But I never fully realized that I could go beyond volunteerism--that my opinion and hard work could influence policy decisions. My views changed when I sat in the office of one of my legislators in Washington, DC."

-Amanda Coffin, University of Maine at Farmington, Campus Compact student leader