More Dispatches from the Summer of Awesome

In keeping with my continual efforts to get *other* Divinity School students' input onto this blog, we recently sent out a Dale Mail asking students to tell us if they were involved in something awesome this summer. The responses were, in fact, pretty awesome. Here are a few of my favorites so far:

"I am working with the Yale Presidential Public Service Fellows this summer. It's a core of 26 undergrad and graduate students from across Yale who are volunteering at various New Haven organizations over the summer.

I am volunteering at the Shubert Theater - the place where Julie Andrews, Robert Redford, Mary Martin, Marlon Brando, and others got their start. It was also the theater where they tried out the plays Streetcar Named Desire, My Fair Lady, Oklahoma, Jekyll & Hyde, and Death of a Salesman before taking them to Broadway. The walls backstage are covered with paintings, autographs, and pictures. Every show that has been through the theater since the 1970s has been given a space of wall to decorate.

I'm working with the Operations Division - helping with volunteer recruitment and starting an internship for local high school students. ..."

-Horace, MAR 2010


This summer I am working as an intern for the refugee service in New Haven. The organization which I am working now is called IRIS (Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Service), here is the link.

At IRIS, thinking globally and acting locally is our way of life. The only refugee resettlement agency is our community, IRIS is where New Haven meets the world and the world meets the New Haven. Refugees are the only immigrants invited by the U.S. government to resettle here. They are women, men, and children who were persecuted on the basis of race, nationality, religion, social group, or political opinion.

The recession is affecting nearly every nation on earth. But many worse thing are happening. Let me give you some examples, hundreds of thousands of refugees are on the move, trying to escape war, torture, rape, and kidnapping. Thousands of Iraqis who faced death threats for working the U.S. fled to Jordan or Syria, their futures uncertain. Terrorized Somali families have watched their country sink into a state of lawlessness, the "lucky" ones have found shelter in refugee camps in Kenya. Now is the time to stand proud for providing refugees a safe haven, one of America's noblest traditions. Our nation is stronger, at home and abroad, when we honor the ideals on which we were founded. I want to share with you guys what I have learned about the refugee, I am also eager to share my experiences with new class students if I have the chance. We in IRIS are also looking for more volunteers to the refugee & Immigrant Services.

-Kuo-Pin, MAR 2010


And one from my friend Delfin, reproduced in total:

hello there divas of righteousness

i hope all is bueno

i am working at the religious institute bringing together issues of sexuality and faith (reproductive issues, lgbt, women, healthcare). i am right now working on a project that is looking at bringing together international healthcare care organizations both secular and faith based in conversation about how to collaborate on issues together.

its cool stuff
paz,

delfin, MDiv 2010


Very cool stuff indeed. I'm sort of sad that grad school doesn't have the same show-and-tell "what I did with my summer vacation" as my third grade class did. For my own part, I'm reading the entire Divine Comedy with my friend Sean, training for a 5k (actually not a joke), and watching every single Mike Birbiglia video on YouTube. And, of course, planning BTFO...

What's really wonderful about being in New Haven in the summer is the chance to explore it beyond the context of YDS, as a resident rather than a student. I went for at three-hour walk in East Rock Park, saw Mavis Staples perform live on the Green(!), and watered a community garden plot. Next, I will actually go to a beach, and maybe even think about overcoming my decades-long fear of salt water. (Traceable to a traumatic crab injury, age seven. Also, there are sharks!)

-Kate