Student Run Project: Books Through Bars

Our Special Olympics project wasn't the only service happening at Haverford this past weekend. One of our Student Run Projects, Books Through Bars, was also active, spending their Saturday working with a Philadelphia organization of the same name to fill book orders from prisons across the country. Isabel Clark, one of the project's chairs, sent us some information and some pictures:

With a van full of volunteers and books, donated by the Haverford College Bookstore, we headed into center city Philadelphia to The A-Space, a community space where Books through Bars is located. Books through Bars is a non-profit organization that promotes literacy and education within prisons, as well as awareness of the current status of the educational systems in prison to those outside its walls. Letters with requests for books come from all fifty states with a variety of interests--anything from GRE prep books to mystery novels. Receiving nearly 2,000 letters a month, Books through Bars always need volunteers to help read letters and fill requests, which is what we did while we were there. Books through Bars operates every Tuesday night out of The A-Space, as well as the first and third Saturday of every month. We hope to take another trip in the spring after the success of this year's fall trip.

Special Olympics at Villanova!

This weekend, 8th Dimension and the athletic department joined forces to send a huge group of Haverford student-athletes to volunteer at the Special Olympics. A special thanks to the athletic department for making sure this event was successful, and a note from staff member Gili Freedman, the event's main organizer, with more information:
On Saturday, November 3, one hundred eighty-eight Haverford varsity athletes volunteered with the Special Olympics, which is "an international nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering individuals with intellectual disabilities to become physically fit, productive and respected members of society through sports training and competition" (http://www.specialolympics.org). Saturday was the second day of the Pennsylvania Special Olympics Fall Fest, which is held at Villanova University every year. The day began for Haverford athletes at 6:30 a.m. when the first group of forty-seven athletes left for Villanova on the bus. All of the Haverford students arrived to Villanova by 8:00 a.m. and immediately began helping at the various sites. At the Fall Fest, our athletes helped with soccer, volleyball, power lifting, and long distance running. They were judges, score-keepers, security personnel, and most importantly, they were there to cheer and support the Special Olympics athletes in their various athletic competitions. Participants found the time they spent to be both fun and meaningful, and we hope to continue Haverford involvement in future years!

Barclay Haunted House

On Friday, October 26th, 8th Dimension held its annual Barclay Haunted House. Staff member Mitra Eghbal shares her thoughts:

The tortuous halls of Gummere might be riot-proof, and I maintain that Magill Library is the best building to survive a siege from a hostile neighboring kingdom, but Barclay is definitely the perfect place for a haunted house, as evidenced last Friday. Families from Haverford and surrounding neighborhoods can support this assertion.

By daylight Barclay looks innocuous enough; by night, those huge arching doorways make it look rather forbidding from the outside. Especially when it so happens that everyone in the dormitory has switched off their lights. Add to that a heavy rainstorm and we were all set.

Dante’s hell had nine levels; Barclay Haunted House is populated by just the sinners-in-training, so it has only four levels. But perhaps orange-and-black crepe paper streamers and plastic spiders were enough to tantalize the visiting children into a lifetime of evil. We can only hope. We can only hope that Beatrice is as benevolent as a tired, rain-drenched parent holding on to their child’s wooden sword as they are dragged by their offspring back into the haunted house for a third go-around.

The denizens of Barclay generously loaned us their home for a whole evening, and they decorated it, to boot. Though it must be said that the 8D staff members nearly had a heart attack when we saw that one hall had absolutely no decorations up fifteen minutes prior to the start of the event. When I came back later, the lights were all out and the residents of the hall were popping out of their rooms and shrieking at the kids. The Customs Person walked up to me and enthusiastically bellowed in my face until he realized I was not a five-year-old, then explained that they didn’t decorate the hall because you couldn’t see the decorations in the dark, anyway. I was initially skeptical, but in retrospect I must concede to its effectiveness, as I think this was the only hall the year that actually made a child cry. (Should causing children to cry make a hall successful or not? You decide.)

Whenever a howling ghost materialized in front of a kid, they would invariably ball up their fists, look the monster in the eye--chin quivering just a bit--and exclaim, “I’m…not… AFRAID OF YOU!” That is a great tactic and I want to try it out next time someone is intimidating me. Overall the kids held up pretty well… really, seeing the children in the clutches of demons worried me less than seeing the children attempt to fit entire popcorn balls into their mouths at the refreshment table in the “exorcized sanctuary” (Barclay lounge, our safe zone).

One sophomore resident of Barclay, replete with candy corn and face smeared with ghoulishly green paint, declared that it was nice to have an excuse to celebrate Halloween the way he used to as a kid. For me, though, the Haunted House wasn’t so much about regression as it was about accomplishment. I rejoice, for I have finally fulfilled my dream of commanding of a horde of zombies.