The front page of Grinnell College’s website is currently urging students, parents, prospective students, and alumni to help SEG win the Campus Champions of Change Challenge! SEG’s Local Loans Project, selected for the competition, works to combat poverty in the Grinnell community through emergency, no-interest microloans to pay for things like medical expenses, automobile repairs, education, and repayment of high-interest
Former group member Jamie Zwiebel initiated SEG’s first ever direct international partnership with Centro Promocional Christiano (CPC). After graduating from Grinnell, she continued her work while getting her Masters degree and the Scarlet & Black took notice! “Ultimately, I ended up helping them get funding to build a medical clinic and have helped facilitate several other projects, especially a women’s
“It’s very rewarding that your work has gone towards something good and it’s worked out the way you wanted it to work and you get to look back and use that to do more work,” said SEG Member Noah Most ’13.
“Now imagine if, in addition to funding cows and yarn in distant Third World countries, the money you donated went toward fixing up a broken car that enabled someone in our town of Grinnell to drive to work when they had no other means of transportation.”
Having just achieved nonprofit status, Grinnell College’s Scarlet & Black newspaper wrote in support of SEG. This is an incredible accomplishment, considering the fact that SEG came from such humble beginnings—a student’s Wells Fargo bank account. SEG grew in numbers, in terms of both student involvement and money, and in two short years gained status as an international NGO. Not