Brick Awards continued...

David Fajgenbaum

Image courtesy Joe Santa Winner in the Health Category

Anne Marie Fajgenbaum lost her battle with Brain Cancer in 2004. Her death devastated her son, David, who was away at college at the time. In response to his loss, David Fajgenbaum created a small support group at Georgetown University, where he was studying. Ten of David's peers joined him, each of whom was dealing with a personal loss of their own. This was the beginning of Students of Ailing Mothers and Fathers (AMF).

The group quickly spread into a support network of more than 400 members of the Georgetown community, but David realized that students across the nation were going through the same things. It is estimated that between 35-48 percent of all college students are grieving the loss of someone who passed away within the last 24 months. So he expanded Students of AMF into the National Students of Ailing Mothers and Fathers Support Network in April of 2006.

The response has been overwhelming, with chapters sprouting up across the country. Losing a family member or someone close to you is always hard, and it can be especially difficult when you're away at college, which is often the first time you've been away from home. National Students of AMF works to give every grieving student the support he or she needs to keep going, stay in school, and deal with his or her personal tragedies. David has discovered that people want to get involved, they want to help each other; no one needs to be alone.

Jennifer Zwilling

Image courtesy Joe Santa Winner in the Health Category

At age six, Jennifer Zwilling was diagnosed with Tourette syndrome. In many ways, she was lucky. Her disorder was relatively mild, her tics not overly noticeable. Still, the disorder was omnipresent in her life, and she became involved with first her local chapter, then the National Tourette Syndrome Association. There she met people with much stronger disorders, and saw first-hand the pain they went through, socially ostracized by an uneducated public. So she began speaking to her class, her school, peer to peer, about Tourette syndrome – talking about what it is and what it involves. Eventually, she started the Tourette Syndrome Association Youth Ambassador Program, taking her presentation on the road to schools across the country.

Her presentations challenge the students to break out of the stereotypes. She will have them write down the pledge of allegiance. But she asks them to erase every third word and stop and tap their pinky whenever she claps her hands. This puts students in a position to experience what it might be like to live with a disorder, if only for a few minutes. Often times, she gets a request to speak at a school from a student who has Tourette syndrome. After her talk, the other students understand the disorder better. They understand how hard it can be to live with the disorder. And the student suffering from the disease is seen in a whole new, positive light. That's her main goal, helping make kids feel comfortable in an environment that they ought to feel comfortable in, like school.

Jennifer Staple

Image courtesy Joe Santa Winner in the Health Category

Yale college student Jennifer Staple was working in an eye doctor's office the summer after her freshman year. There she became aware of the huge number of patients suffering from glaucoma, a very preventable cause of blindness. She immediately decided to do something. The result -- Unite for Sight, an organization that provides eye screening and education to people who might otherwise never get the eye care they need.

Upon graduation in 2003, Jennifer expanded Unite for Sight at colleges across the country. International chapters soon followed. Today, Unite for Sight delivers eye care screening and education to more than 180,000 people through 90 chapters. Working mainly in North America, but also in developing countries around the world, they have sponsored more than 2,600 sight-restoring surgeries and have provided treatment to thousands.

Jennifer recently expanded Unite for Sight’s mission with the creation of the Microenterprise program. Starting in the African nation of Ghana, the organization pays local villagers to create jewelry and eyeglass cases. The items are sold on university campuses across North America and Europe, as well as over the Internet. One hundred percent of the proceeds are used to fund eye care expenses in the villages.