Thirty University of Alabama students spent May 7-25 in Marion, Ala., carrying out projects aimed to help the small Black Belt community.

“[Community members] seemed really happy to be able to partner with the University Fellows Experience,” said Brianna Adams, a sophomore majoring in English who worked on a public relations project. “I think it’s a win-win…they expressed what a benefit it was for them when we come into the community because we provided fresh energy, new ideas and new perspectives.”

From incorporating exercise into classroom curriculums with the Exergaming Initiative to encouraging Perry County’s economic development with the Economic Development Project of Alabama, the freshmen from the University Fellows Experience spent their first year at UA developing these ideas and also spent three weeks working hands-on in the community.

The projects are created through a three-hour seminar the students take in the spring. During that time, community members from Marion visit the class to discuss the biggest issues facing the area. Students also visit Marion on the weekends to meet with other organizations about their ideas.

“It was a multi-step brainstorming process as a whole class where we took up a huge chunk of a three-hour seminar learning about the community,” said Jason Arterburn, a sophomore majoring in Spanish and economics who worked on the ACT prep project and the Exergaming Initiative. “It was a rigorous process of making sure the projects specifically met the needs of the community. The main goal isn’t about us being a savior or us doing cool things, it’s about targeting specific needs in the community with the resources, both intellectual and monetary, that we have to help Marion.”

In the program’s five-year history, each freshman class has gone into Marion to implement its own set of projects. While there, they sleep and eat at Judson College, aiming to become members of the community.

“The community is really our home for three weeks, so we’re at the local restaurants, eating dinner at Lottie’s or eating lunch at Jim’s Little Store,” Wellon Bridgers, coordinator of the University Fellows Experience, said.

Some projects, such as the ACT prep course, are done each year. Other projects, such as EDPA, are new to this group of students.

“Every time we visited Marion or had members of the community come to our class, our concern was always, ‘What are the issues you think need to be addressed?’” Kyle Leopard, a sophomore majoring in history, said. “There are a plethora of issues, including education and ACT scores, but at the core, everybody always mentioned economic development.”

In order to address the problems of economic development, Leopard and his partners established three economic profiles of different industrial sites in Perry County on the Economic Development Project of Alabama website. Going into Marion this summer, their goal was to create just one profile, so creating three just went above and beyond their expectations.

Bridgers agreed that EDPA, as well as all the other projects, accomplished the goals they set out to accomplish.

“One of the things we really talk about in the class they have to take is to look at the big picture and to define the key questions they have that relate to their projects,” she said. “In that sense, they have objectives and some very concrete goals, but they also have a larger sense of how it connects to the bigger picture and how it connects to the needs the Black Belt area has.”

Going into their sophomore years, the students will continue to work on their individual projects, keeping up with the progress. The projects Adams, Leopard and Arterburn worked on will on be ongoing, yearlong initiatives.