Honoring Service

The application period for the Joseph F. Wall ’41 Sesquicentennial Service Awards for 2014 is fast approaching.

The awards were established during the College’s sesquicentennial celebration in 1996 to honor Grinnell’s commitment to social responsibility and public service. They were named in honor of Wall, the late Grinnell history professor who inspired an ideal of social responsibility in his students.

The College typically gives awards of $25,000 to each of two graduates to carry out a service project that is of tangible benefit to others. Since the inception of the Wall awards in 1996, more than $850,000 has been distributed to the service projects of more than 36 Grinnellians. Applications must be sent to Doug Cutchins ’93, cutchins@grinnell.edu, by 5 p.m. CST on Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2014.

Jenny Dale ’06 and Latona Giwa ’09 received Wall Service Awards in 2013. Dale, who now lives in Xela, Guatemala, is using her Wall award to support Una Vida Digna (A Dignified Life), a program that helps educate and find jobs for returned young immigrants through workshops, internships, and mentoring. Dale has been deeply engaged in issues of immigration and human rights since she was a student at Grinnell. She was active in immigration issues for many years in the Chicago faith community and recently moved to Guatemala to be closer to her work. Una Vida Digna is a project of DESGUA Sustainable Development for Guatemala, a grass-roots network of community groups in Guatemala and the United States working to create opportunities for Mayan communities in Guatemala. 

Latona Giwa is the founder of the Birthmark Doula Collective (BDC) in New Orleans. She is using her Wall award to launch the New Orleans Community Doula Program, allowing the BDC to provide quality doula support on a larger, more systematic scale. Through this effort, the collective will build relationships with hospitals and insurance companies in order to make doula care part of mainstream perinatal support in the region. Giwa was active in service as a student at Grinnell. After graduation, she moved to New Orleans to work as a Grinnell Corps fellow. She currently is studying to become a nurse midwife.

The Wall Alumni Service Awards are open to all graduates of Grinnell College with a service commitment to benefit others. Projects may be original or supplement existing projects or programs; they may be local, regional, national or international in scope and may be carried out domestically or internationally. For more information, see the Wall Alumni Service Award application.