Fifteen NCC students celebrated their hard work at the Student Leadership Graduation Ceremony on April 23. The students, who were chosen at the beginning of the spring semester for the leadership development program through a competitive selection process, met every week for presentations and exercises led by NCC faculty and staff. They took on a daunting challenge that at first they were a little intimidated by: leading the way in flooding awareness and education.


“Many of you didn’t know a lot about this subject at first,” Melissa Starace, director of alumni affairs and a member of the leadership advisory board said as she addressed the students. “It was a little overwhelming and hard to get excited about. But this is what true leaders do. They rise to the challenge, and that’s what you all did. Initially you weren’t sure, but you worked together and made it happen.”

In February 2007, NCC received a State Farm grant to promote service learning. The grant enabled students in the program to develop their leadership skills while raising awareness about flooding. The students divided into three teams to work on three different flooding concerns.

Eden Fimiano, Anastasia Junda, Tereza Knudson, Ellen Stocker, and Shi Zhao created a website to educate people about the economic impact of flooding. “We decided to do a website because we thought we could reach more people,” Eden said.

The site, http://flooding.nccptk.org/, contains some alarming statistics about the cost of flooding, including the totals of claims paid to residents of Northampton and Lehigh County towns after Hurricane Ivan in 2004. Easton had the highest dollar amount with $1,718,269 in claims. The interactive site has a quiz, photos of flood damage, flood myths versus facts, and a resources page with links to FEMA and other organizations.

Now that the project is over, the students will turn the website over to Nick Henshue’s eleventh grade environmental science class at Easton Area High School. The high school students will continue to work on the site and add content to it to keep it current.

To demonstrate staying safe during times of flooding, Barbara Andrews, Jennifer Bruno, Joshua Kaminski, and Paola Mero created a board game. The Team FSI (Flood Safety Issues) 101 Board Game fosters flood safety awareness through educational materials.

“To fully impact the community we needed to make it in a fun and interactive way,” Joshua said.

“Anyone of any age can play the game and learn about flood issues,” Barbara added. “It’s for kids and adults.”

Team members took turns reading questions from the game to the audience. One revealed that it takes a mere two feet of water to float a bus or car, and that only six inches of rapidly moving flood water can knock a person down.

How land use impacts flooding was explored by Kayla Davis, Cori Feller, Robyn Henry, Diana Hernandez, Carlos Ortiz, and Jorge Picado.

“We wanted to raise awareness in our community about how land use can impact flooding,” Diana said. “We created this model to demonstrate the different types of land and how run-off can be reduced.”

The model contained depictions of wetlands, developed land, and examples of what can be done to reduce flooding. One of the suggestions was to collect water run-off using a rain barrel. During the peak summer months, using one to water a garden can save 1300 gallons of water.

“We can’t control the rain, but we can control where it goes,” Jorge said.

All of the projects will be donated to a new flood museum that will soon open in the Easton area.

The key note address was given by Daytona Simpson, a 2007 leadership graduate and the 2008 recipient of NCC’s Board of Trustee Award. Daytona noted that the leadership program helped her when she worked as an intern in the District Attorney’s office this year.

“It was fast-paced and chaotic. No matter what pressure they were under, they still came together and supported one another,” she said. “I know that is what you learned how to do here. Use your leadership skills. Continue your good work and go strong into the community.”

Each group thanked Kathleen Nelson, the leadership class instructor, and Laurie Rosenberg, the State Farm project manager, for all of their help and support during the program.

Frank Pologruto ended the ceremony by relating an incident that moved him. “I’ll never forget something I witnessed with this group. After a visit to the Children’s Home of Easton, I overheard a couple of the students talking about mentoring some of the children there. This was not something they were asked to do or was part of the program. They wanted to help and immediately starting thinking of what they could do. This is what true leadership is about.”

The Monroe Campus Student Leadership Program, held in the fall, also focused on flood awareness. To read about their projects, visit the Top Stories archive.