NetNews

First-year students Kate Farrington and Kateryna Samoteskul are making the news with their efforts to raise money to fund a semester break trip for charity, not revelry.

Farrington, of Brattleboro, VT, and Samoteskul, who is from the Ukraine but graduated from Leland & Gray High School in Townsend, VT, as an exchange student, are roommates in Buys College (First-Year Program course title: Political Economy and Identity in the Age of Globalization) at St. Lawrence. Both are trying to earn the money to go to Ocean Springs, Mississippi, during the January break to assist in hurricane relief efforts. Samoteskul's host parents during her time in Vermont, Bob Crego and Jean Pollack, have organized a trip to the Hurricane Katrina-affected area though the Christus Victor Lutheran Church in Ocean Springs.

Samoteskul was quoted in the Bradenton, Florida Sun Herald newspaper as stating, "As soon as I heard about what Bob and Jean are doing, I wanted to get involved. We don't really have the idea of volunteering in Ukraine."

The pair's fund-raising efforts have been chronicled in newspapers in both the Gulf region and in their hometown Vermont areas; they hope to raise enough for plane fare. For information or to contribute, call (802) 348-7777.

Posted: December 7, 2005