Grinnell College Presents Wall Awards to Honor Alumni Who are Leaders in Service

GRINNELL, IOWA –-- Two Grinnell College alumni have been awarded Joseph F. Wall Alumni Service Awards of $25,000 each for service projects in their selected non-profit organizations.

The 2013 Wall Alumni Service Award winners are:           -- Jenny Dale, a 2006 Grinnell graduate who now lives in Xela, Guatemala. Dale will use her $25,000 Wall Service Award to support Una Vida Digna (A Dignified Life), a program that helps educate and find jobs for returned young immigrants through workshops, internships and mentoring. Dale has been deeply engaged in issues of immigration and human rights since she was a student at Grinnell. She was active in immigration issues for many years in the Chicago faith community, and recently moved to Guatemala to be closer to her work. Una Vida Digna is a project of DESGUA/Sustainable Development for Guatemala, a grassroots network of community groups in Guatemala and the U.S. working to create opportunities for Mayan communities in Guatemala.

          -- Latona Giwa, a 2009 Grinnell graduate now living in New Orleans. As founder of the Birthmark Doula Collective in New Orleans, Giwa will use her $25,000 Wall Service Award to launch the New Orleans Community Doula Program, allowing the BDC to provide quality doula support on a larger, more systematic scale. Through this effort, the collective will build relationships with hospitals and insurance companies in order to make doula care part of mainstream perinatal support in the region. Giwa was active in service as a student at Grinnell. After graduation, she moved to New Orleans to work as a Grinnell Corps fellow. She currently is studying to become a nurse midwife.

About the Wall Alumni Service Awards The Wall Alumni Service Awards were established during the college's sesquicentennial celebration in 1996 to honor the college's long commitment to social responsibility and public service. The awards are named in honor of the late Joe Wall, a professor of history at Grinnell who inspired an ideal of social responsibility in his Grinnell students. The Wall Awards provide financial support for Grinnell graduates to engage in service projects, programs and organizations that are dedicated to improving the lives of others. Projects may be original or supplement existing projects or programs; they may be local, regional, national or international in scope; and may be carried out domestically or internationally. Since the inception of the Wall awards in 1996, more than $850,000 has been distributed to the service projects of more than 36 Grinnellians.

The Wall Alumni Service Awards are open to all graduates of Grinnell College with a service commitment to benefit others. For more information, go to http://www.grinnell.edu/offices/socialcommitment/awards/wall/.

About Grinnell College Since its founding in 1846, Grinnell has become one of the nation's premier liberal arts colleges, enrolling 1,600 students from all 50 states and from as many international countries. Grinnell's rigorous academic program emphasizes excellence in education for students in the liberal arts; the college offers the B.A. degree in a range of departments across the humanities, arts and sciences. Grinnell has a strong tradition of social responsibility and action, and self-governance and personal responsibility are key components of campus life. More information about Grinnell College is available at www.grinnell.edu. 

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