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E-mail me Emmy. I’d like to find out more about the food bags. I work with group of high school students that help with a service project each month. I can talk to the students and see if they can help.

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The soup kitchen is a great place to help out. Volunteering always leads to meeting people and finding other things to do. Our church is giving out food bags this Saturday at Lineweaver apartments downtown and at Mosby Court. We do it the third Saturday of every month and would welcome any willing hands.

Also if you stay here in the summer and like to play softball there are tons of teams all over the place that would be happy to have you.

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Thanks for sharing all your thoughts. I can’t help but re-emphasize Dave’s point that it is the person not the town. When I visited other schools (in other states even) everyone complained about their towns and went and drank at the same bars or house parties each week. I had the same feelings you did while at JMU – I don’t feel the same way just three years removed.

I am a 26 year old JMU grad that grew up in the D.C. area. For some perspective – I have lived in London, England, spent months in Ireland, traveled to Italy, France and Germany. I have been up and down the east coast and hit major cities like Seattle and San Fran on the west. I was actually in Cambridge, MA a month ago and had a good time there, got to catch a Sox game in Fenway. I have lived in Harrisonburg since I graduated in Dec. ’04 and really enjoyed it. I wouldn’t think twice about moving to any of those places.

There is definitely a disconnect between JMU and HB, but a lot of people on both sides are working to change that. In fact the biggest reason my technology company is in town is because the director of ROTC at JMU and the mayor of Harrisonburg (at that time) were working together to keep a young company of JMU grads in the city.

As for Tutu, I agree most are poorly done, but I thought that event was well advertised. I believe I saw an ad in the Rocktown Weekly and my business received a flier in the Chamber of Commerce monthly package (several hundred local business members). Many local business owners were talking about it at networking events days before and several were present for the event (myself included).

I also check back on the JMU site from time-to-time – that’s how I was able to catch the Divided We Fall documentary at Grafton last week. I thought that event was very poorly advertised. It was sad to see that JMU couldn’t fill the venue on such an important topic. JMU is the least involved school for the United Way of the various colleges in the area (EMU is the largest giver). There are people working to change that as well.

The JMU Service Fraternity has over 100 students and they visit several area non-profits in need. That might be a good way to get plugged in. I help out at the little grill every Monday at 12 with their soup kitchen. JMU students always come down to help out, you are always welcome to go there. A few JMU students helped at Community Mennonite Church this past Saturday morning – putting up insulation and helping with a few projects for them. None of us were members of the church or even Mennonite. I know of several needs in the community so feel free to contact me if you’re interested.

All: in regards to the preacher if it is the same guy as when I was a student (three years ago) not only is he not indicative of Harrisonburg, he’s not from here nor am I even sure if he is Christian. He travels around to several colleges on the east coast hoping to incite someone to an act of violence so that he can sue them. You can look it up, someone created a website and people have posted pictures from several schools. I haven’t been able to track it down again, but we found it when I was a student.

This weekend there is a UFC fight at the Fairgrounds and you’re welcome to join us for a pickup soccer game at Oakdale Park – every Sundays at 2pm. We had 16 players yesterday about half-JMU and half-local.

Feel free to send me an e-mail, I’d be glad to talk more.

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The people can be a bit stand off-ish, but they are hardworking honest and friendly folks if you take the time to actually talk to them.
For other cheap outdoor activities:
Whitegrass in Davis serves up some of the finest snow, best views and greatest XC skiing in the east! Less than $30 will get you rentals and a trail pass for the day. You won’t pass any one on the trails that doesn’t say “Hi” and have a beaming smile on their face. Only 2 hours(or less from H-burg). A lot of people go over every weekend to ski, so catching a ride or car-pooling is easy.

Drop in to SBC, talk to Thomas, Tim or any of the other great people down there. They’ll set you straight on some great biking or hiking… the short list:
Kennedy’s peak
Braley’s
SMT
Chestnut Ridge
Grooms Ridge
Whetstone Ridge
Douthat State Park
Hearthstone/Big Hollow
Big Schloss (fantastic views)

The Shenandaoh Bicycle Club has several weekly rides, from road to Mountain for all abilities. Meetings are the third Tuesday of the month, 8 PM upstairs Dave’s Taverna. Great group of folks who are active in the community and the area. Lots of social activities all year round.

Been to any of the local waterfalls?
Way back up in Hone Quarry.
St. Mary’s Wilderness
Lost River State Park, Mathias, WV
Rip Rap Falls
and many more.

Local hikes are plenty.. as you seem to know, but not limited to just the park. Find the Gnarly North Fork trail above Franklin, WV and follow it north, absolutely spectacular.

To say you like the outdoors, and are bored with the hiking doesn’t cut it in my book. You need to look a little farther afield, and change your views. Town may not be hip and happening, but there is always plenty going on within an hours drive.

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http://www.eightyone.info/?page_id=12

Our rates are beyond reasonable and include great ad design. We reach do-ers, not couch potatoes. AND non-profits don’t have to sign a contract to get our lowest rate.

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Kai: First, I saw your speech for 1787 Convocation (hoping this is the same Kai) this year…amazing…between that and the Be the Change video (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7418185117680644595) I was basically in tears. There are some students trying to change things, hopefully we’re making an impact.

Christa: These “nightclubs” for lack of a better term actually help (to a point). Students are going to drink. period. (I personally don’t, and a surprising number of others don’t considering the perception, but a lot do, only the best things will get them to resist that simple temptation) Some students are trying to get a bus to run between the Pub and Highlawn (or I guess Rocktown Grill) and the main apartment complexes to cut down on having to drive. If students can prevent driving they will and they are more likely to get a DD or call a cab if they’re going someplace like one of these nightclubs than just going to their friend’s place for a couple hours to have some drinks. JMU organizations like SafeRides are also trying to cut down on this number.

Thanh: Thank you! You’ve given a lot of great ideas and helped so much!

Roger: Thank you for your perspective. To all those other readers out there, this is probably the majority perception of JMU students, at least the younger ones. By the time they get to be seniors most realize that going camping is tons of fun and they explore a little more, but it takes a couple years for this to happen (and a lot are pretty scared of WV haha). And I don’t know who you’re talking to, but I don’t know anyone who thought that crazy preacher was from the local area. And I’m sorry your main source of info about JMU may be the Breeze…ughh… So let’s settle on this, if we can convince Roger there are even 20 fun things for him to do, this project will be a success :)

Roger and others: Do you know how difficult it is to advertise to Harrisonburg? It’s also kind of an unknown. Advertising in the DNR is just ridiculously expensive and Rocktown is also pretty pricey. Other than that it’s kind of difficult. Plus that means spending extra time on advertising that I usually don’t have, that what I get for being way too overinvolved haha. Advertising in all of JMU’s mediums is time-consuming enough. Another note: I’m on the UPB exec board as finnegan mentioned and since our main focus is on the students (and our budget comes from their tuition) we serve them first and have to focus on them. I would love to do more community stuff for UPB, but we can’t. That said we do offer most things to the community including our movies every Wednesday-Saturday nights and some acts like Josh Gracin on Nov28 (shameless plug) though we do have to charge a little more for the bigger performances if you aren’t a student.

So thank you to everyone that’s posted so far, keep it up! I’ll keep you updated on the status of this project. If you have any questions again please feel free to email me or post on here!

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Oh, and one thing that hasn’t been mentioned is church. My church has an enormous amount of college students every Sunday (heck its held in a JMU building) so that’s an option for meeting new people. You don’t even have to dress up.

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