LEWISTON – Maine Campus Compact has given six Maine undergraduate students the Heart and Soul Award. Jeanine Alberto, Catherine Haase, Sarah Mountcastle, Leah Malav, Katherine Mullin and Jared Wheelock were selected on the basis of outstanding contributions in community service, service-learning and/or activism.

Maine Campus Compact is a statewide coalition of college and university presidents established to encourage and enhance campus engagement in the community. The Student Heart and Soul Award is presented annually to undergraduates who have demonstrated a depth and breadth of involvement in community service, service-learning, and/or activism. The students have achieved significant results through involvement, and have demonstrated leadership and innovation on their campus and in the community.

The area student named was Jared Wheelock of Monmouth, a freshman at the University of Maine at Augusta. He helped found and serves as the president of UMA’s College Democrats and Independents.

Wheelock saw the energy around the November election but noticed the need to organize a campus outreach program around the presidential election. Wheelock and the group coordinated live showings of the presidential debate and held open forums to discuss the issues facing our country’s leadership.

Alberto of South Walpole, Mass., a junior at the University of Maine at Farmington, helped to establish a local chapter of the League of Pissed Off Voters.

She and the other members created pamphlets with information on all the candidates and referendums so that students would be armed with information to make educated choices.

Unity College sophomore Catherine Haase of Denville, N.J., founded and serves as president of the campus’s chapter of the Rotaract Club.

Sarah Mountcastle of Orono, a senior at Bowdoin College, has been selected to serve as a leader in a pilot Alternative Spring Break program supported by Bowdoin’s Community Service Resource Center. Through fund-raising, benefit events and presentations in preparation, Mountcastle returned to Nicaragua in March as a trip leader for 16 participants.

Leah Malav of Greenbush, a junior at the University of Maine Augusta: University College of Bangor, is working to address the creation of multiple service learning programs throughout the University of Maine System, increasing campus and community relationships and increasing student access to campus resources.

Bowdoin College senior Katherine Mullin of Cumberland is a regular volunteer with multiple organizations at Bowdoin College.


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