Saint Michael's College sophomore Leah Ziegler, a biology major and peace and justice minor from Stowe, likes results. She and her younger sister worked for four years on bake sales, car washes, used book sales and raised $16,000 for Hurricane Katrina relief and other projects in her hometown. She is now on the board of directors of the Lamoille Community Food Share. A member of the core or leadership team of MOVE, Mobilization of Volunteer Efforts, the Saint Michael’s Campus Ministry service program, Ziegler started the Alliance of Students against Poverty on campus. Last fall they went trick-or-treating for non-perishable food for the Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf. She recruited teams, gave them google maps to scope out Burlington-area residential neighbors, and brought back 700 pounds of food in two hours time. Officials at Sodhexo, the college food service, had promised to match the most food collected by a student group that night. Thus, Ms. Ziegler and her helpers were able to contribute 1,400 pounds of food to the food shelf.
Because of her remarkable commitment to volunteer service, Ziegler and SMC senior Nicole Marshall were selected to be presenters at the Impact National Conference on college volunteering, held on at the University of Maryland March 19-22. Hundres of participants from campuses all across the country, although Ziegler and Marshall were the only Vermont representatives, gathered for the four-days of workshops and lectures. Ziegler and Marshall’s presentation,
“We talked about how MOVE’s 23 programs have a goal of working with the marginalized in the community and about our mission of education and service combined,” Ziegler said. “They were impressed that we have over 70 percent of our students participating in some kind of service work during their four years at Saint Michael’s,” she said.