To kick off the first episode of our second season, we're ecstatic to welcome the City of Madison’s Deputy Mayor Reuben Sanon. Reuben interned at the Morgridge Center as a campus outreach intern during his undergrad at UW-Madison. After graduating from UW–Madison with degrees in journalism and political science, Reuben worked in the nonprofit sector in Michigan for a few years before returning to the Morgridge Center as the Badger Volunteers Coordinator.

In 2019, he went on to work for the City of Sun Prairie as the communications and diversity coordinator before he was selected by Mayor Sayta Rhodes-Conway to be one of her deputy mayors. Today on GridgeFridge, we'll dive into Reuben’s time at the Morgridge Center, his work across Madison fostering community-based partnerships and ways students can prepare themselves to pursue careers in public service.

On this episode of GridgeFridge, we'll be speaking with Anya Piotrowski, the Morgridge Center's Badger Volunteers Coordinator. Although Anya has only been at the center for a year, she has spent the past decade engaging in community-based work across the country, including working as an AmeriCorps VISTA member.

Now as the Badger Volunteers Coordinator, she oversees the semester-long program that pairs teams of students with community organizations to volunteer one to four hours each week to foster meaningful and consistent connections between communities, partners and students.

On today's episode, we'll be welcoming F.H King. F.H King is a student organization on the UW–Madison campus committed to sustainable agriculture. Run by a student directors board, F.H. King grows and harvests produce on a two-acre organic farm in the Eagle Heights area. They run a variety of virtual and in-person programs surrounding growing and harvesting, programming, community projects and activism.

In this episode, we’ll be learning about the Perspectives Project, which was awarded a 2021-22 Wisconsin Idea Fellowships. Wisconsin Idea Fellowships (WIF) are awarded annually to UW–Madison undergraduate projects working to address issues identified by local or global communities. 

Fellowships are awarded to semester-long or year-long projects designed by an undergraduate student or group of students in collaboration with a community organization and a UW faculty or staff member.

The Perspectives Project will collaborate with the National Alliance on Mental Illness of Dane County to provide a culturally sensitive mental health workshop series and social media campaign specific to Asian Americans and people of color as a mental health resource at UW–Madison. Today, we are here with Amita Doiphode, Anusha Ray Dey and Vaishnavi Gundamraj, the founders of the project.

In our final episode for the spring 2021 semester, we're ecstatic to welcome Millennial Action Project Founder Steven Olikara. Steven graduated from UW–Madison as a Truman Scholar in 2012 and went on to found Millennial Action Project — also known as MAP, for short. 

MAP is the largest nonpartisan organization of young lawmakers in the US working with over 1600 elected officials in Congress and state legislatures to encourage post-partisanship and innovative policy solutions across party lines. Steven has also worked for two multi-platinum recording artists on Global Youth Empowerment and sustainable energy.

Today on GridgeFridge, we'll dive into Steven's work in public service.

In this episode, we'll be catching up with Morgridge Center intern Danielle Wendricks. Dani is a senior at UW–Madison majoring in community and nonprofit leadership and history. 

In her three years at the Morgridge Center, Dani worked first as a peer advisor and now his Community-based Learning intern. In addition to being a Wisconsin Idea Fellowship recipient, Dani recently received the Ginsberg Family Award for outstanding leadership and service contributions to the University of Wisconsin and the surrounding communities.

Today on GridgeFridge, we'll discuss how the Morgridge Center interns contribute to community-engaged initiatives across campus and some of Dani's favorite parts of working at the Morgridge Center in addition to celebrating all the work she has done for the Morgridge Center over the years.

In this episode, we'll be hosting Hannah Stowell, the United Way of Dane County's corporate and community engagement program manager. She previously served as a corporate and community engagement coordinator and HealthConnect specialist at the United Way of Dane County. She has over five years of experience in community engagement and nonprofit work in the greater Madison area. 

Today on GridgeFridge, we'll discuss community engagement work amid the COVID-19 pandemic, work to confront systemic barriers to community engagement and how students can volunteer to make a difference in the Dane County community.

In this episode, we'll be chatting with League of Women Voters interns Angela Maloney and Makayla Pesch. Angela is a sophomore at UW–Madison majoring in community and nonprofit leadership and international studies.

Makayla is a junior studying human development and family studies as well as social welfare.

To learn more about the April 6 election and how you can cast your ballot, check out resources available on vote.wisc.edu or myvote.wi.gov.

Today on GridgeFridge, we’ll dig into the details of the upcoming April 6 election and how students can break through barriers that contribute to historically low youth voter turnout.

Djamal Lylecyrus is a sophomore studying political science and communication arts at UW-Madison. Djamal is the founder of the Instagram account BIPOC at Wisco, which he formed in the midst of the Black Lives Matter movements spurred by the death of George Floyd. The account's goal is to share the experiences of black indigenous and people of color on the UW campus in order to increase the visibility of issues faced by BIPOC students.

Since founding the account, Djamal has become an advocate for social justice issues on campus through his work as the Wisconsin Alumni Student Board Diversity and Inclusion Chair, the media coordinator for Juliana Bennett's District Eight Alder Campaign, and as a student vote organizer for the BadgersVote Coalition for the November 2020 election. He was also recently elected to serve as an Associated Students of Madison representative for the College of Letters and Science for the 2021-2022 school year.

Today on GridgeFridge, we'll dive into Djamal's activism, key issues surrounding racial equity on campus and what students can do to create a more inclusive campus environment and culture.

On our first ever episode today we will be welcoming Lily Zander. Lily is a senior studying environmental science and Spanish at UW-Madison. In 2019, Lily and her project partner Akshat Khanna were awarded a Wisconsin Idea Fellowship grant through the Morgridge Center and an American Family Insurance Social Entrepreneurship Award. 

Wisconsin Idea Fellowships better known as WIF are awarded annually to undergraduate student projects working to address issues identified with a local or global community partner.

Their WIF project proposed the creation of the Aqua Circuit Prototype. Aquaponic systems use waste produced by fish and other aquatic animals to supply nutrients for plants to grow without soil. The self-sustaining system provides nutrient-rich water as a natural fertilizer for the plants to grow. While the plant simultaneously purify the water for the fish to live in. Lily's project aims to bring this idea of aquaponics into classrooms. 

The student team will examine how learning by doing promotes curiosity and improves STEAM literacy in middle school students. Ultimately, this team hopes to spark new opportunities for multi-sectoral career exploration among young students.