With one foot off the ground, and the other bent under their butts, the kids’ eyes begged Corey Jones and Anya Petrova to pick them.

Petrova and Jones aren’t teacher’s assistants or interns. For the day, however, they played the part.

Arriving as the sun began to peek out from the west, the dynamic duo waltzed in clutching lesson plans for the 20 children awaiting them.

“It’s JA [Junior Achievement] day,” Sexton said to the class.

“All day or just half?” one child asked.

“All day,” she replied, and he seemed delighted with the new instructors standing before him.

Moments like this happened throughout Gainesville and Alachua as Day of Difference began on Friday morning.
More than 200 University of Florida students mobilized to teach Alachua County’s elementary students about business, community and entrepreneurship, hoping to help them see the importance of education for their future.

“[The children] don’t realize that they can do anything as long as they have the education and the skills they need,” Bonnie DeVero, co-project manager of Day of Difference said. “They at least get a start with this program.”

The volunteers were broken up into teams of 2 or 3 that worked in individual classrooms in six different elementary schools; Joseph Williams, Alachua, Charles W. Duval, Marjorie K. Rawlings, Lawton Chiles, and Kimball Wiles.

DeVero, and her co-project manager Brett Rogers, members of S.I.F.E. (Students In Free Enterprise), led the charge this year, plugging volunteers and organizations into schools and working with site leaders to coordinate the event.

Day of Difference raked in more volunteers than ever by using a virtual application system and by creating flexible times for volunteers to pick up materials.

The volunteers used lesson plans created by Junior Achievement, an international education organization dedicated to enhancing what students already learn with innovative methods.

Each grade, kindergarten through fifth, had lesson plans that focused on separate principles, such as how to deposit and withdraw money, efficient production of goods, and market research.

UF students led games, such as the donut factory game, where second-graders got to see whether unit production or assembly line production was most efficient by racing to create paper donuts.

Mix this fresh, applicable material with energetic volunteers, and what do you get?

A day of fun, smiles and “ah-ha” moments, that make Valdenora Fortner, principal of Joseph Williams Elementary, proud.

“It helps them make connections of why I am learning math, why I am learning to read,” Fortner said. “Putting all of those pieces together is critical so that our students put together some deeper meanings as to why they are in school.”

Under the title “The OUT Project,” members of the LGBT and greater University of Florida community had an opportunity to express their thoughts and experiences about “coming out” on 5 ½-by-4-inch postcards.

Some include newspaper clippings and smiling faces. Others include colored writing and clip art, but all of them hold a central message: “This is what I feel about coming out.”

“It gives students the opportunity to be free to disclose anything that they feel comfortable disclosing,” said Steven Sweat, director of the OUT project. “Whether they are LGBT, they know someone who is LGBT or they are an ally, it gives them that freedom.”

According to Sweat, the goal of the project is to create a campus-wide dialogue about the coming out experience.

“One of the things I hope they walk away with is a sense of awareness,” he said. “Then that awareness can seep inside, lay within the people’s hearts and minds, for them to say ‘hmm, maybe I can be of assistance.’”

The project, however, isn’t solely about creating a campus-wide conversation.

Donnie Fields, president of Pride Student Union, hopes the OUT project creates a stronger bond within the LGBT community.

Although the cards are anonymous, he hopes participants will feel united.

“I think whenever people who did their cards go to the gallery and see, that’s mine and it’s right next to this one. I don’t know whose this is, but I can relate somehow. I’m not alone in this,” Fields said.

The OUT project began in the spring of 2010, and all the postcards collected since will be shown at 11 a.m. on the Plaza of the Americas.

Sweat and the OUT project team plan on hanging the postcards on clotheslines that will drape from tree to tree.

All of them waving in the afternoon breeze will create a rainbow of experiences that Fields hopes will teach the greater UF community about the uniqueness of the coming out process.

“I’m hoping that the greater UF community sees the diversity of experience,” he said. “Hopefully they are paying attention and not just saying, ‘Oh pretty, but all of these are the same,’ because they’re clearly not.”

Nov. 2, Election Day, is fast approaching, and he doesn’t plan on voting again.

“I voted in 2008 because it was a, I mean, it was the presidential election. It carries more weight to me than state politics,” Beekman said. “I don’t know if there is like a compelling reason for me to vote. If there was then I would.”

The third-year industrial engineering major isn’t alone.

According to studies done by Rock the Vote in 2010, 33 percent of young people who voted in 2008 don’t plan on returning for the midterm elections.

That’s why Rock the Vote, a nationwide get out to vote organization, has rallied its volunteers for an all-out campaign over next few months.

You’ve seen them in Turlington Plaza, sporting their white shirts with the huge red check across them, “fliering” and talking to people.

And apparently what they’re doing is working.

According to Molly Benoit, campus coordinator, our campus is right on track with Rock the Vote’s goal for the university. Rock the Vote hopes to register 15,000 new voters statewide.

“Our main goal is to get people informed and to register voters,” Benoit said. “We aren’t telling someone who to vote for, we are just saying why it is important to cast a vote.”

But how is Rock the Vote being effective you ask?

Simple answer: its making it easy for potential voters.

At its table, Rock the Vote has voter registration forms. Once completed, the forms are sent directly to the supervisor of elections, free of charge.

These forms are for people who have never registered and for those who have changed their address.  This includes UF students who live in Gainesville for part of the year.

Its newest feature, text message alerts, allows students to register using a “pledge to vote” card and receive reminders about the election electronically.

Students can register to vote up to the deadline, Oct. 4.

In 2008, Rock the Vote registered over 2 million voters nationwide. Whether or not its success will repeat has yet to be seen.

“I think we have a generation that is very passionate, but at the same time we are so ignorant,” Kimberly Lent, Rock the Vote intern, said.  “But like, we need people to get out and vote and realize that what happens in the world does affect you even if you don’t see it.”

For more information visit: http://www.rockthevote.com/

Within five or 10 minutes of arriving, a group of prepubescent seventh-grade males huddled against a wall and began to stare blankly at the empty dance floor and onward to the girls on the other side of the room.

Middle school sucks, doesn’t it?

That memory of dance is a far cry from the intricate footwork and crisp routines of Sabor Latino, the Hispanic Student Association’s dance group.

Sabor Latino is scheduled to perform for free at the Hispanic Heritage Month talent show on Tuesday, Sept. 28, in the University Auditorium.

In Spanish, Sabor Latino means “latin flavor,” but to Simmi Kaur, captain of Gator Fusion, it means something else.

“One of the hottest teams in Gainesville, that’s what it means,” Kaur said. “I’ve always seen them, always been like they are so sick. I always look at them and I’m like, God, they are so good.”

She and 34 others are hard at work perfecting their eight-minute routine, which includes merengue, salsa and hip-hop dances with traces of tango, rumba, samba and West African dance sprinkled in.

The theme of Sabor’s performance this year is a modern homecoming dance. The men will be wearing tuxedo shirts and the women will be wearing white dresses accessorized with leggings and vests.

Doors open at 6:30 p.m. and the talent show starts at 7 p.m.

Larry Rosalez, co-vice president of Sabor, is choreographing a contemporary hip-hop routine that dramatizes the cat and mouse relationship between men and women.

He feels confident in his teammates’ ability to execute the show.

“This year we are getting dancers that have trained in studios,” he said. “They have taken classes, they have been on teams before so they have more discipline.”

With a roster of all-stars, Rosalez touts that Sabor will perform the most technically difficult show at the HHM show since he’s been on the team.

Besides the HHM show, Sabor Latino has performed at Gator Growl, the VISA talent show, SoulFest and CaribSA.

Simmi Kaur likened the rush of performing to being a completely different person.

“It’s not you,” Kaur said. “You won’t be like oh, that’s Simmi, you’ll look at her and be like oh my god, who is that?…You feel totally different. You just let loose. Whatever worries you have, whatever is hurting from all these practices, is nothing.”

Rosalez encourages all those who have rhythm to come to the show and audition for Sabor Latino in the spring.

“If you can dance, you can dance. I don’t care if you audition for salsa. “

You walk in, kick off your shoes and take in the silence. Just for a second, the sky-blue walls, leather chairs and floor cushions deceive you. You’re relaxed, free to think, pray and meditate.

How does that sound?

The University of Florida’s department of Housing hopes it sounds serene.

Thursday, Sept. 2, the UF Department of Housing opened a Serenity Room in Broward Hall.

Inspired by incoming international students, the Serenity Room was designed as a multi-faith, multi-purpose room for the greater UF community.

“It’s a place where you get away from the hustle and bustle,” said Ayesha Rizvi Mian, residence life coordinator of Broward and Yulee halls.

The room is open to people from all walks of faith, life and relation to the university.

Equipped with a bidet, footbath, and small waterfall, the Serenity Room allows its patrons the freedom to pursue whatever spiritual beliefs they have in a quiet, enclosed setting.

“I’m excited to get in there and read my bible,” Laura Cook, a junior special education major, said.

The idea for the room stemmed from the recruitment of international students, whom requested a place to pray in private.

Once the need was discovered, the Department of Housing jumped on it, giving the task of interior decoration to recent graduate Amanda Young.

Young said, “ I feel like this is room says, we welcome you… this is a place to get in touch with yourself and/or your personal higher power.”

Six months later, the room was unveiled.

About 75 people attended the opening celebration, admiring the functionality and beauty of the room.

“I felt like I don’t want to go back to the office,” Adam Jordan, researcher for administrative services, said.

If you want to experience the room for yourself, it will be open 7 days a week from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. for use by anyone.