2015 / 9春季
社区新闻
在塞尔玛偶遇
—The final rehearsal for the 1,000-voice
Selma 50th Anniversary Jubilee Choir was held at Sixth Street Peace Baptist Church
in Birmingham on March 1, setting the stage for a serendipitous encounter between
Marcia Rogers Bentley ’75 (far left) and Ashley Tippit ’18 (second from right). 当
Bentley found out that Tippit, who was sitting next to her, was a member of the
澳门新葡京官网 One-A-Chord Gospel Choir, she excitedly told her that she had graduated from
the college long before Tippit was even born. It turned out that they were both
psychology majors and in the symphonic band (Bentley on clarinet and Tippit on
法国号). “We talked about how drastically the school has changed since I was
there, both in physical size and student population,” Bentley said. “更少了。
1975年有1000多名学生.” Tippit then asked whether the college had a Black
Student Union then and discovered that Bentley was one of the students who got
the BSU and its scholarship program started. Pictured with Bentley and Tippit at
the foot of Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge during March’s 50th commemoration of
“Bloody Sunday” and the Selma-to-Montgomery march for voting rights are One-
A-Chord choir members (from left) Allen Doyle, Willie Williams, Erin Snell, and Ryan Key. “Even though the full Jubilee Choir didn’t get the
chance to sing [too little room on the stage], I certainly appreciate my alma mater sending such a delightful contingent to this momentous
宾利说. The 澳门新葡京官网 choir members who were able to sing on stage were Erin Snell, 约旦鲍威尔, 劳拉·卡巴哈尔.
Young alum finds new form of nourishment—and crowdfunding
Chris Cage ’10 thought he was
on the right track after graduating
从平衡计分卡毕业的
并在
阿拉巴马州的权力. 但是大约一年之后
现在,他渴望得到更多.
So Cage saved up his paychecks,
辞去了工作,开始
旅行. 他骑了一圈
New Zealand, taught English in
Thailand, and volunteered at an
柬埔寨孤儿院. 当
he returned to the states, he tackled another
challenge: hiking the Appalachian Trail from
从乔治亚州到缅因州.
“One of the biggest things that I took
away from Birmingham-Southern—which
I don’t think I realized until after I’d left—was the value of E-Term,
especially E-Term at Sea,” said the native of Peachtree City, Ga.,
who had run cross-country and been a Boy Scout before coming
对二元同步通信. “That month at sea really exposed me to adventure 旅行,
and I absolutely fell in love with it. That taste of adventure 旅行
undeniably affected my decision to quit my job and 旅行.”
While he was trekking the trail, he came up with an idea for a new
业务. Cage found himself struggling to eat well as he covered
miles on foot, and decided to develop his own meal substitute that
would be more substantial than the average energy bar.
“Creating a perfect meal became my mission,” Cage said. 因此,
绿肚皮诞生了. He got help from a chef and a dietician to
develop an all-natural meal replacement based on peanut flour,
whole nuts, and dried fruit that provided the energy he needed to
hike or bike long distances. He started making, packaging, and
selling the bars himself, sending them to outdoor outfitters and
bloggers to try to break into the market. He also built in a charitable
component: for every bar sold, Greenbelly buys a meal through the
Atlanta Community Food Bank.
当 Bicycling Magazine wrote a favorable review, the 业务
took off, and Cage found himself in need of capital to scale up
他的操作. (In his words, “getting out of my parents’ house
也不坏.”) He used the skills he learned at 澳门新葡京官网 to research
all of his options, including loans and individual investors,
and landed on a plan for a 30-day crowdfunding campaign via
Kickstarter.com,a site that allows ordinary people to pledge a small
amount to projects of their choosing, often in exchange for a first
射击产品.
Within 32 hours of launching the campaign, he’d already beaten
他的1万美元目标.
“In June, when I started this, I had no customers, no social media
accounts, no blogging or public relations connections… and I had to
figure out what makes a campaign go ‘boom,’” said Cage, who spoke
to students about his experience this spring.
Cage has a lot of work to do in the coming months: fulfilling
orders, designing new packaging, and working on a new production
设施. But although he does have targets for national distribution,
his definition of success also includes being able to 旅行 while he
runs the company and continue having a good time.
Ultimately, Cage credits Birmingham-Southern with broadening
his world and giving him campus leadership opportunities that
positioned him to tackle this challenge.
“The type of courses I took forced some exposure on me that
I would never had had otherwise,” Cage said. “这暴露,
speakers from cultural credits, classes like beginning band, the
hands-on biology course, music of the world’s people, religion, and
history of the American South—all played a role in me wanting to
see more, try more, and learn more.”