Soles with soul
As a child, I was scolded if I drew on my clothes. For the first time in my life, I was actually encouraged to write on my brand new shoes at a Style Your Sole party.
Style Your Soles was created by TOMS, a shoe business that donates a pair of shoes to a child in need every time someone purchases a pair for themselves.
Last Saturday at ArtStreet, partygoers studied their own canvasses before drawing footprints, abstract designs and flowers on their shoes.
Elizabeth Wells, party planner and TOMS enthusiast, said “The customization process is so personal because you are the artist. The fate and design of the shoes is completely in your hands.”
I painted ducks on my shoes and I felt a high for both my new shoes and the shoes a child would soon receive.
Blake Mycoskie, the founder of TOMS, will be the keynote speaker at April’s Stander Symposium. A Universitywide Style Your Soles party is being planned for next semester.
“The small things make a big difference,” Wells said. “Ordinary people are capable of extraordinary things."
Super heroes for a day
What is the best way to get a workout? Dance for 12 hours to upbeat music while raising money for Dayton Children’s Medical Center.
At the 11th annual dance marathon, I joined more than 300 dancers and children from the hospital. We shared one goal: To support premature babies in the neonatal intensive care unit.
“The money raised went to the NICU to buy a giraffe bed,” said Grace Rodney, president of dance marathon. “This allows the baby to have a complete and safe environment without having to move it, because any movement can be harmful.”
A nurse from Dayton Children’s taught dancers about life in the NICU and showed us diapers smaller than my hand.
Each hour included a different theme to keep dancers excited and spirited. The last hour was the super hero hour, which was the dance’s theme. We danced in capes and tights and pushed through the last hour while dancing to 60-second snippets of today’s popular music.
“We really need that boost at the end,” said dancer Tracey Horan (pictured right as Batman).
We helped raise more than $27,000, breaking last year’s record. Those super heroes may be saving many future lives!
'I've got goosebumps'
That's what Meredith Hirt ’13, a student writer in our office, said when this video from athletics showed up this morning. After we tweeted it (@daymag), the retweets and praise rolled in:
"Wow. Just ... wow."
"Holy cow goosebumps at work"
"Freaking sweet"
"I'm flyered up"
See for yourself what they're talking about:
Remembering the Night of Broken Glass
A cellist played a grieving song as students, staff and faculty members lit candles in remembrance of Kristallnacht, the “Night of Broken Glass,” outside Humanities Plaza Monday.
Marking the 71st anniversary of what historians call the beginning of the Holocaust, Sister Laura Leming, F.M.I., and two students led a prayer for the 91 Jews who died that night, the millions who were killed during the systematic genocide that followed and for all who suffer persecution today.
Seven large candles were lit, six representing the six million Jews who died during the Holocaust and one for the Roman Catholics and others persecuted under Hitler’s regime. Then attendees lit each other’s candles to complete the prayer.
“[Tonight’s event] serves as a reminder of what can happen,” said Philip Titlebaum, a student. “The world might seem like a better place, but history reminds us what humanity is capable of doing.”
The price of a human being
More than a century after the Emancipation Proclamation, slavery is at an all-time high. Human beings, mostly young women and girls, are being sold today by the millions for a fraction of the price 150 years ago.
I listened to Benjamin Skinner, a journalist who investigates and reports on human trafficking, reveal his account of the black market human trade Monday in Sears Auditorium.
Since every seat was filled with students, faculty, staff and community members, I sat on the auditorium stairs listening to Skinner’s story about negotiating with a human trafficker for a 12-year-old girl in Haiti.
The trafficker's price for her: $50.
Skinner was one of several speakers — including specialists, victims of human trafficking, and activists against the trade — that spoke at the Dayton Human Trafficking Accords conference, hosted by UD Monday and Tuesday.
The conference served to educate attendees about modern-day slavery. According to Skinner, the State Department estimates between 600,000 to 800,000 people work in forced labor in the U.S. Worldwide, as many as 27 million of God's children are enslaved.
Sneak peek
Have a look at the commercial that we'll be airing during basketball games this season:
Regular season kicks off this Saturday at UD Arena against Creighton. Tip-off 1 p.m. Go, Flyers!
Disney Style
Whoever said college students are too old for Disney movies and singalongs must have been mistaken.
Over 50 students belted out Disney songs, including “Colors of the Wind,” “Hakuna Matata” and “Under the Sea,” during Disney Karaoke night at the Kennedy Union Pub last week. They spent two hours taking turns on the microphones and singing with friends.
Among my favorites were Sebastian from The Little Mermaid, Timon and Pumbaa from The Lion King and Aladdin.
Sponsored by Distance4Dreams, a student group that raises money for the Make-A-Wish Foundation, Karaoke night is one of several fundraisers the organization coordinates to send kids with terminal medical conditions and their families to Disney World.
Run, run, reindeer
It's getting cold outside, perfect weather for running in tights, antlers and a 1980s Christmas sweater. Last month, the annual Reindeer Trot 5K raised money to support Christmas on Campus and raised spirits for the holidays. Can you spot the jogging Christmas tree in this slide show?
Sometimes, Flyers don't like to give
Mandi Bäck and the Flyers blew by UMass 3-0 on Baujan Field Saturday. Bäck's second goal was the 36th of her career, tying her fourth all-time in UD history.
To the moon
Ever dream? Mechanical engineering grad student Margaret Ratcliff thinks this will be a feasible vacation within the next two 
generations. She is on one of 21 teams participating in the Google Lunar X Prize, a competition to land on the moon a robot that will travel 500 meters and send images and data back to Earth by Dec. 31, 2012. The first place prize is $20 million.
Team LunaTrex is based in the Midwest because it's a prime region for aerospace development. According to team member Rick Wills, Dayton especially has a strong pull; both Ratcliff and Wills work at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and LunaTrex shares ideas with UD Advanced Rocket Team, a University club.
LunaTrex team members — all of whom are volunteers — want to win, but they also see the competition as an outlet for collaboration, innovation, hands-on engineering and fun. The team hopes participating in this project at a local level will also help include the larger community.
When the grandchildren of today's UD students buy their tickets for a sub-orbital trip around the moon, remember that it's people like the members of LunaTrex that made it possible.
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