Alumni
Roundup Popular webinar series delivers powerful life lessons
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ALK OF FALL TAILGATES QUICKLY TURNED to coronavirus and its impact on Black and brown communities during an April planning conversation among leaders of USF’s Black and Latino alumni societies. African-Americans and Latinos were falling ill from COVID-19 at much higher rates than other ethnic groups, and African-Americans were far more likely to die from it. The four Bulls realized they could make a difference, and they needed to act fast. By June, Erica Daley, ’96, Life Member; Melizza Etienne, ’08, Life Member; Luz Randolph, ’06 and ’MEd ’08, Life Member; and Tina James, ’00, Life Member launched “Our Health,” a wildly popular webinar series offering tips and resources to address participants’ physical, financial, mental and spiritual health needs amidst the pandemic. Before the series had even ended, the organizers were seeing dramatic results. “We had people who started losing weight, and were paying off cars and other debt,” says Daley, chair of the
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Black Alumni Society. “One gentleman who was pre-diabetic stopped drinking soda and by the end of the series, he’d lost weight and dropped his A1C [average blood sugar] level to the normal range.” The four Zoom sessions featured experts who donated their time, offered free tools and took questions. They included certified health coach Beverly Grandison on nutrition; mental health therapists Justin McClain and Reuben Faloughi, staff clinician at the USF Counseling Center; health-care attorney Rafael Gonzalez and financial advisor Jorge Soriano, ’11; and theology professor and minister Chonta Haynes. Capped at 100 participants, all of the sessions filled up, with people tuning in from as far away as England. (Watch the sessions on Facebook at USF Black Alumni Society; click Videos.) “People were so excited, they started pitching more topics, so now we have a whole lot more to talk about,” Daley says. Next up, from 12:30-1:30 p.m. EST, Sept. 21-25, the Black Alumni Society will team with Moffitt Cancer Center for “MY Health,” a series addressing the impacts of cancer and other health topics. Register at www.usfalumni.org/ MYHealth.
– PENNY CARNATHAN, ’82 | USF Alumni Association
Six leading experts in their fields donated their time to appear on the “Our Health” webinar series.
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UNIVERSITY of SOUTH FLORIDA