2010-2011

Margaret Alabi, Xavier College of Pharmacy
Alabi will educate Central City adolescents about drug and substance abuse and its effect on the community. Through personal expressions such as poetry, dance, and music, she will work to build participants’ confidence in addressing signs of drug and substance abuse when faced with relevant situations. Community Site: TBD

Reece Alkire and Meagan Relle, LSU Health Science Center School of Public Health
Alkire and Relle will develop and implement a disease prevention and health education curriculum based at a homeless veterans’ transitioning facility in uptown New Orleans. Community Site: Volunteers of America

Megan Burns, LSU Health Sciences Center School of Public Health
Burns will develop a community-based school gardening program in an effort to increase knowledge and skills regarding growing, preparing, and marketing fresh produce. Community Site: James Weldon Johnson Elementary School

Sareeca Hoskins, Loyola University New Orleans
Hoskins will work to promote healthy attitudes and behaviors in adolescent girls by utilizing music therapy techniques to provide a creative outlet for accessing, exploring, and expressing issues relevant to their lives. Hoskins  will also provide opportunities to collaboratively create strategies for personal safety and success aimed at breaking the cycle of domestic and/or partner violence. Community Site: Metropolitan Center for Women and Children  

Jenipher R. Jones, Loyola University New Orleans College of Law
Jones will help to carry out the “School to Prison Reform Project” to assess the needs of families whose children have been asked to leave public school due to behavioral problems and disabilities. Community Site: Southern Poverty Law Center

Jessie Kittle, Tulane School of Medicine
Kittle will implement health and safety trainings for injection drug users aimed at reducing HIV/Hepatitis C infection and drug overdose, and increasing access to health care and substance abuse treatment programs. Community Site: New Orleans Syringe Access Program (NOSAP)

Emily Mabile, LSU Health Sciences Center School of Public Health
Mabile will utilize art therapy techniques to improve the mental health of youth in Central-City New Orleans. Through Mabile’s program, children and adolescents will work together to create a mural that represents themselves and their school. Community Site: TBD

Jerrine Morris, Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine
Morris will use group dialogue and peer counseling to teach responsible health behaviors within a local high school’s health curriculum. Community Site: TBD

John Moustoukas, Tulane University School of Medicine
Moustoukas will administer a program that will combine African drumming instruction with music and talk therapy at a New Orleans area charter school. This program will use creativity as an expressive vehicle to manage stress and aggression while building confidence and positive relationships. Community Site: TBD

Chelsea Singleton, Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine
Singleton will integrate health education about cardiovascular disease into an all girls step-dance team comprised of minority teenagers from local high schools. Community Site: TBD

2009-2010

Megan Hodges, Tulane School of Medicine
Megan will be starting up the Gulf Coast Center for Autism to integrate academics, speech, behavioral and occupational therapy, psychiatry and genetics testing and a few other areas in conjunction with Oschner Hospital. She will also use material that she developed in the past to help parents effectively communicate with autistic children.

Byron D. Hughes, Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine
Byron will be focused on motivating and assisting young men in applying, as well as aiding in the process of matriculation into a college or vocational school. His program will include mentoring and tutoring services, with a focus on mathematics, science and reading at the high school level.

Devinne James, Xavier College of Pharmacy
Devinne is going to introduce dance/aerobics class infused with lessons in basic nutrition and goal setting for schools in New Orleans East. The participants will learn age appropriate hip hop dance and aerobics routines designed to be entertaining and beneficial in combating childhood obesity.

Jon Pennycuff, Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine
Jon will be working with Tulane University Community Health Center  to recruit Latino individuals diagnosed with type-II diabetes from the Greater New Orleans community to participate in a culturally-sensitive health education outreach program that will focus on increasing medical literacy of diabetes and management of the disease and its subsequent complications..

Emily Rogers and Shannon Speeg, LSUHSC School of Public Health
Emily and Shannon are working together to develop an exercise program and health education program to be implemented at various assisted living facilities and senior centers in the Greater New Orleans area for the elderly.

Jay Shukla, Tulane School of Medicine
Jay would like to address the need for weight loss amongst the people of the 9th ward by offering a series of 4 "healthy eating" cooking classes. He will be working with the Daughters of Charity Clinic in the area to implement the program.

Amy Thierry and Lauren Cole, LSUSHC School of Public Health
Amy and Lauren are developing an after-school program for local public schools that hopes to improve the oral health of elementary school aged children with a curriculum that includes topics such as proper dental hygiene, like brushing and flossing, and healthy eating habits to ensure healthy teeth and gums.

Alice Williamson, LSU School of Medicine
Alice is working with Langston Hughes Academy to develop a health class curriculum called Healthy Kids 2010. Topics covered will include simple topics like hand-washing and more in-depth topics like the Food Guide Pyramid, all presented at a teaching level appropriate for the specific level of student.

2008-09

David Canales, Tulane University Law School New Orleans
Pro Bono Project: David will offer bilingual legal counsel to the immigrant worker community that arrived post-Katrina on issues such as wage claims, divorce, foreclosures and bankruptcy.

Emily Donaldson-Fletcher, Tulane University School of Medicine
New Orleans Healthy Start Program: Emily will work to decrease the incidence of low birth weight babies in New Orleans.

Valerie Fontenot and Tyra Toston, LSU Health Sciences Center School of Public Health
Valerie and Tyra are working together to provide health education that focuses on responsible sexual behavior for at-risk adolescents in the Greater New Orleans Area, specifically minority female populations.

Jonathan Howe, LSU Health Sciences Center School of Public Health
Jonathan will introduce dance intervention, teaching hip hop dancing to at-risk and high-risk, overweight, and obese adolescents and young adults (ages 17-22).

Erika Lindholm, LSU Health Sciences Center School of Medicine
Erika will continue to develop CORE, a student organization designed to offer medical students opportunities to be involved in projects that would improve community health, as well as dedicate 100 hours to participate in new direct service activities with CORE.

Kemi Olaide Orekoya, Tulane University School of Public Health & Tropical Medicine Kemi will start an after school program for female adolescents to learn about their bodies through a Health and Reproductive Female Initiative Project at a charter school in New Orleans.

Kaari Riley, Tulane University Law School
Kaari will provide a mentoring and job readiness program that includes tutoring for middle school and high school students who actively attend school or are in a GED program.

Holly Scheib, Tulane University School of Public Health &Tropical Medicine
Latino Health Access Network: Holly will coordinate bilingual training opportunities in parenting and early childhood development for Hispanic parents and childcare providers.

Rohini Singh, LSU Health Sciences Center School of Medicine
Rohini will work to improve the emotional, behavioral and physical health of children with special health care needs through “Creative Outlets Promoting Empowerment, Project COPE.“

Deshawn Stevenson, Xavier University School of Pharmacy
Daughters of Charity: Deshawn will work with the pharmacy at the new Daughters of Charity Clinic to counsel patients on their medications, organize a health fair, and distribute flyers promoting the clinic and health information around the neighborhood.