Virginia College Assists in Oil Spill Efforts
Posted: Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Students and staff at Virginia College campuses around the country are assisting in a number of ways in the efforts to fight the oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
Virginia College campuses in Pensacola, Florida, Mobile, Alabama, and Biloxi, Mississippi, have made available their classrooms for the training of volunteers and professionals who are assisting in the efforts. Campus presidents at each location have been a part of their local response groups from the beginning, monitoring the situation and responding with whatever they could offer to help.
Also, cosmetology programs at all Virginia College locations are making a special effort to collect hair and send to the area to be used in the special oil booms that are being deployed in the Gulf to protect beaches and estuaries. The students are participating through Matter of Trust, an organization that has arranged for warehouse storage for hair and other fiber material that can be used to help soak up the oil.
"I am proud of the response to this emergency by our staff and students," says Tom Moore, CEO of Virginia College's parent company, Education Corporation of America (ECA). "They were coming forward almost immediately to ask what they could do. Our campus management was involved with local groups at once after the disaster. Now, our cosmetology students, instructors, and the customers of our student-run cosmetology services are jumping in to do their part as well."