A very memorable day for the gardening volunteers

By: Amber BrookmireAmber is a graduating senior at the City College of New York, majoring in Anthropology and Jewish Studies. She is participating in the 2012 CCNY-InteRDom Service Learning Program, and will serve as the InteRDom Correspondent in the CUNY system. To read more about Amber and her participation in the Correspondent program, see her profile here. Week four has sadly come and gone for my stay in Santo Domingo. Our strong start this past week led us to reach our gardening goals and finish early! Tuesday was our last day working with the families that participated in the project. It was a very memorable day for all of the volunteers as we looked back... Read More

And the gardening continues!

By: Amber Brookmire Amber is a graduating senior at the City College of New York, majoring in Anthropology and Jewish Studies. She is participating in the 2012 CCNY-InteRDom Service Learning Program, and will serve as the InteRDom Correspondent in the CUNY system. To read more about Amber and her participation in the Correspondent program, see her profile here. We have continued our gardening project this week in Bayona, an urban community neighboring Cielo. Most families do not have a space with soil to begin a garden, so we have shifted our approach to accommodate their situation. Rather than planting directly into the ground as we did in Cielo, we have created raised boxes within which... Read More

Who would have thought gardening is quite an adventure!

By: Amber Brookmire Amber is a graduating senior at the City College of New York, majoring in Anthropology and Jewish Studies. She is participating in the 2012 CCNY-InteRDom Service Learning Program, and will serve as the InteRDom Correspondent in the CUNY system. To read more about Amber and her participation in the Correspondent program, see her profile here. After spending two weeks working alongside the families of Cielo, we have successfully reached our gardening goals! Each day, we divided ourselves into two groups and headed into the depths of the village to meet a new family and to discover new plot of land. It was quite an adventure to reach some of these gardens. This... Read More

One Week, Many Good Experiences!

By: Amber Brookmire Amber is a graduating senior at the City College of New York, majoring in Anthropology and Jewish Studies. She is participating in the 2012 CCNY-InteRDom Service Learning Program, and will serve as the InteRDom Correspondent in the CUNY system. It is amazing how much I have seen and learned after spending only one week, in Santo Domingo. During the first few days we met our team of volunteers, learned to make “huertos” (small gardens) at the National Botanical Gardens and helped create organic compost at a university in Bonao. With my notebook and camera in hand, we boarded the big, white bus and headed for Cielo, the first community in which we... Read More

Santo Domingo, Here I Come!

By: Amber Brookmire Amber is a graduating senior at the City College of New York, majoring in Anthropology and Jewish Studies. She is participating in the 2012 CCNY-InteRDom Service Learning Program, and will serve as the InteRDom Correspondent in the CUNY system. As I prepare for my month-long adventure to Santo Domingo, I look forward to the people I will meet, the knowledge I will gain and the projects that I will be a part of. The materials and information provided at the orientation session have been a valuable reference in forming my idea of what to expect and how to best prepare. With the patience of my study abroad advisers and the InteRDom team,... Read More

Category: Amber Brookmire

From a Dream to a Reality

by: Amber Brookmire Amber Brookmire studies Anthropology at The City College of New York. She hopes to participate in InterDom’s service-learning program this June to further develop her cross-cultural studies and improve Spanish language proficiency. I first heard about the InteRDom service-learning program through The City College Study Abroad Office. I had always wanted to study abroad during college, but I didn’t think it was a financial possibility for me. I began to research more information and was amazed by all that I could gain, personally and academically, from the Dominican Republic service-learning program. As a senior, I realized this could be my last chance to have this experience. So, I sat down with the... Read More