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BLOOMINGTON, Ill. –Not everyone can be on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, however this year several Illinois Wesleyan University students received the opportunity to participate in the show’s latest renovation. On August 18th, the program began filming its latest project.

Extreme Makeover: Home Edition surprises deserving families by demolishing their old home and building a new one in its place in just one week. It requires shifts of hundreds of volunteers, as well as designers and a local construction crew to work from early morning until late at night to complete the task.

The Montgomery family from Philo, a town nine miles south of Urbana, Ill., was selected to receive this new house and was selected for its contributions to the community. The winning homeowner, Nathan Montgomery, a former engineer, gave up his career to start a food pantry and clothing bank called “Salt & Light” in Champaign. The pantry helps feed over 250 families and provides clothing for over 300 families.

Bevin Cowie, a senior sociology major from Braidwood, Ill., was one of 18 Illinois Wesleyan students that volunteered along with Illinois Wesleyan’s Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students, Kathy Cavins. The students helped keep the site clean, move bricks, and supply lunch and water to the other volunteers. As Site Coordinator, Cowie was given a list of tasks that she could then delegate to other volunteers to help her.

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BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – With a deafening cry, hundreds of volunteers charged to destroy a worn down home in Philo, Ill., Thursday morning. Helping lead the charge was Illinois Wesleyan University alumnus Ed Brady. His act was one with charitable intentions. The owners of the demolished house have been chosen to receive a new home by the ABC television show Extreme Makeover Home Edition, and Brady’s construction company, Brady Homes, has been selected as the local building sponsor to donate his company’s labor and resources.

The television show chooses deserving families to receive a new home. Under the leadership of a local construction crew, the old home is razed and a new one built in about a week. For the home in Philo, shifts of construction workers and volunteers will be running from 6 a.m. to midnight in order to construct the house in seven days, a task that usually takes four months. Filming of the episode has been ongoing for the past week, and will continue until the completed home is revealed to the family next week. The episode is scheduled to air this fall.

Chosen for the show was the family of Nathan Montgomery, a former engineer who gave up a lucrative career to start the pantry Salt & Light that provides food, clothing and ministry to around 250 families in and near Philo, located southeast of Champaign. “This entire project is about the family, about communities coming together to provide food and shelter,” said Brady from the demolition site. “The Brady family is honored and happy to give back to this family who has given so much of themselves for others.”

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BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Beginning Tuesday, Aug. 18, Illinois Wesleyan University’s class of 2013 will officially “turn Titan” as part of the University’s annual “Turning Titan: New Student Orientation.” The program is designed to acclimate incoming first-year students to academic, residential and social aspects of college life. The orientation will culminate on Sunday, Aug. 23, and University classes will begin the following Monday.

The Titan Orientation schedule will combine support services with entertainment, offering events such as “Traditions Night,” where students can socialize while learning about the University’s history, and “Real World 101,” an onstage send-up of common student anxieties.

Other key events will include: New Student Convocation, an address to be delivered by Associate Professor of English Wes Chapman titled “The Right Kind of Confidence;” “One Stop Shop: a Campus Community Resource Fair,” which introduces students to local businesses and other services; and the Summer Reading Program, which invites students, faculty and staff to critically discuss a common literary work.

This year’s selection for the reading program is Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace… One School at a Time, by New York Times No. 1 bestselling author Greg Mortenson. Co-written by journalist David Oliver Relin, Mortenson’s novel chronicles his experience in Pakistan in 1993 after a failed expedition to climb K2, which inspired his efforts to establish over 75 schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan in the years since. Mortenson will be the guest speaker at the President’s Convocation on Wednesday, Sept. 9 at 11 a.m. in the Westbrook Auditorium of Presser Hall (1210 N. Park Street, Bloomington).

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BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Illinois Wesleyan University alumnus Danny Burke has been pioneering making fresh food available to low-income residents.

Burke, who graduated in the spring of 2009, developed a plan for benefits from SNAP, or Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly known as food stamps), to be used at the farmer’s market in downtown Bloomington. Now the Downtown Bloomington Farmer’s Market is one of just nine farmer’s markets in the state of Illinois approved to accept Link cards, which are the cards used to redeem SNAP benefits in Illinois.

“Healthy food is so connected to community development,” said Burke, who earned a double major in environmental studies and Spanish. “If you secure food and nutrition, you help develop a healthier society.”

As a member of the Illinois Wesleyan’s track team, Burke ran through many neighborhoods in Bloomington, and began to suspect several of them were what anthropologists call a “food desert” – pockets in developed countries where no fresh food is available. “Some areas do not have access to grocery stores, only corner stores and gas stations that carry mainly processed food,” he said. Burke decided to focus his senior seminar paper on providing options to alleviate possible food deserts in Bloomington.

Through his advisor Environmental Studies Director and Associate Professor of Environmental Studies and International Studies Abigail Jahiel, Burke discovered the idea of allowing low-income residents to use SNAP benefits at area farmer’s markets. With the help of Jahiel and Deborah Halperin from the University’s Action Research Center, Burke connected with several local organizations, including the West Bloomington Revitalization Partnership, the Heartland Local Food Network, Harvest of Hope, and Downtown Bloomington Association, which operates the farmers’ market. “Danny saw a need and studied and worked to answer that need,” said Marsha Veninga, co-chair of Heartland Local Food Network, who took on Burke as an intern. “He has gone way above and beyond any class project.”

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BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – A group of Illinois Wesleyan University students, faculty, and alumni will present a free of charge musical in Portland, Oregon this summer.

Tin Pan Alley Theatre Company (TPA), which was started by an IWU alumnus, will present the musical Triumph of Love at the Artist’s Repertory Morrison Street Theater in Portland. Although the production is free, tickets can be reserved by e-mailing iwantfreemusicals {at} gmail(.)com or calling (503) 708-7553. The show will debut on Friday, August 7 and run until Saturday, August 22. Performances are at 7:30 p.m. PST Wednesday through Saturday, and at 2 p.m. PST for the Sunday performance on August 15.

Tin Pan Alley’s co-founder and artistic director is David Rubin, a Portland native and 2009 Illinois Wesleyan graduate with a bachelor of fine arts. “The idea behind the production,” said Rubin, “is to dedicate Triumph of Love to the average person who is ready to have some fun this summer.” According to production promotional materials, the company hopes to continue to offer free musicals in the future with the support of donations through the Web site and at performances.

The show will feature extensive involvement by Illinois Wesleyan School of Theatre Arts students, faculty, and alumni. Assistant Professor of Theatre Arts Scott Susong is the director. TPA’s managing director Natalie Buccomini, ’08, will direct the music (with Rubin choreographing). The musical also features students Maia Diaz, ’10, Neil Stratman, ’10, Melina Rey, ’11, and graduate Tony Lopez, ’08, in lead roles.

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