Beading for hope
For the past four years, a group of University of Wyoming students and Laramie residents has been regularly meeting for beading. They gather at somebody’s home or on campus, lay out bags and boxes filled with beads of various shapes and colors, and get down to the craft.
Made from various seeds, plant pods or tree bark, the beads make unique jewelry items that the students, volunteers with Partners of the Americas, sell around town and the state in an effort to help women in Goias region of Brazil.
On Saturday, they decided to engage the Laramie community in their efforts by hosting a Cesar Chavez Service Day at the Lincoln Community Center. From 9 a.m. until noon, the students beaded and showed a documentary about the life of Cesar Chavez titled “Viva la Causa!”
“Today we probably had about 15-20 people (from the community) come through. Not too many, but it is Easter weekend and it’s pretty cold. We are pretty happy with this number,” Aimee VanCleave, one of student organizers of the project and Americorps volunteer, said. “Anybody can walk in. This is the first time we’ve ever done Cesar Chavez service day but there’s nothing to say that we wouldn’t do it again next year.”
The event is organized by the UW Service, Leadership and Community Engagement office.
“In January, we always do MLK service days and we thought this year we should also include other people who have been noteworthy community organizers and are known for their activism, so this year we decided to do one for Cesar Chavez and do something related to community organizing,” VanCleave said.
Polished and colored in Brazil, the beads travel across borders in backpacks of Partners of the Americas volunteers. Here, the volunteers use them to make jewelry they sell to raise money to help women in Goias buy a mammogram machine. Partnership between Wyoming and Goias is established by the Partners of the Americas and is one of the examples of various programs that the international organization provides to foster relationships between North America, Central America and South America.
“The women in Goias are simultaneously fundraising to get a truck and with the truck they are going to take the mammogram to rural areas to try to do early breast cancer detection,” VanCleave said.
Thursday, Lincoln Community Center will host another event to commemorate Chavez – Cesar Chavez Blood Drive Challenge. The drive is scheduled from 4-8 p.m.
The blood drive challenge will also take place from 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesday and from 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Wednesday in the Union Ballroom of UW Union Building.