By Lacey Ezekiel
Since March 1, The University of Alabama Women’s Resource Center has offered an event for women, by women and about women – the Lunafest Lecture Series and Film Festival.
To bring women together through film and each other is the goal of the national organization Luna Bar, which Lunafest is a part of. Luna Bar makes whole grain bars for women who want nutritious snacks and who want to support the Breast Cancer Fund at the same time.
The Women’s Resource Center is the organizer for the Lunafest Film Festival and Lecture Series in Tuscaloosa. There is a volunteer student committee group under Jenny Suarez, who is a graduate student and has been in charge of Lunafest at the University for two years. These women who volunteer are made up from different backgrounds and organizations around the Capstone.
“A lot of volunteers came from the business school, sororities, undergraduate and graduate students,” Suarez said. “Some faculty and staff members would help on their lunch breaks.”
Melissa Sudduth, a senior majoring in human development of human studies, is a volunteer for the WRC and was involved with Lunafest.
“I got started with Women’s Resource Center through a class that required community service hours with the Resource Center,” Sudduth said. “I get to go from reading and learning to being the solution.”
Lunafest has been running on the campus for the past six years and this year was the first for the “brown bag series” with two guest speakers that talked about different women’s issues.
“We wanted to get the word out to different student groups who are not involved or know about the services of the Women’s Resource Center,” Suarez said.
The profits from the ticket sales and silent auction items will be allocated to the Luna Fund for Breast Cancer Awareness and the Women’s Resource Center. On-campus organizations and nonprofits are the only organizations that can host an event.
Some of the money will go back the WRC for future funding of projects and resources to help young women. Items put up for silent auction ranged from spa treatments to football items donated from the community members.
This year’s silent auction items were donated by women in the Tuscaloosa community. Some of the items were hand-crafted, such as quilts and pottery. The most sought-after item was a football signed by head football coach Nick Saban.
The featured guest speaker was Cassandra Simon, a breast cancer survivor who is a faculty member in the school of social work. Simon is an advocate for early screening for young women, and she said she was diagnosed at 35 years old.
“Early detection is what truly saved my life.” Simon said.
There were four different short films showed following the silent auction. The films covered different areas that concern women. The films focused on living in a different culture, self-image, learning that being single is about being happy and love.
