The University of Southern Mississippi recently partnered with the Fannie Lou Hamer Cancer Foundation and the Mississippi Network for Cancer Control and Prevention on an effort to distribute thousands of free protective face masks to residents of the Mississippi Delta in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

MNCCP director and FLHCF founder and president Freddie White-Johnson organized the project, which aims to provide Delta residents with five-packs of reusable face masks. MNCCP and FLHCF teams traveled to Quitman County in August and distributed more than 2,250 masks to residents of Marks, Miss.

The organizations also distributed 6,000 face masks in Leflore, Sunflower, Humphreys, Bolivar, Montgomery and Carroll counties and plan to visit Washington, Yazoo, Coahoma, Holmes and Tallahatchie counties in September, a release from USM says.

For more information about MNCCP, visit usm.edu/vice-president-research/mnccp.php. For information about the FLHCF, visit flhcf.com.

JSU and UVM Partner on Remote Course About Lead Poisoning

Jackson State University and the University of Vermont recently partnered for a remote program to study the dangers of lead online during the COVID-19 pandemic.

UVM hosted the three-week summer class, which had students study lead pollution. UVM geology professor Paul Bierman created the program in response to the ongoing water crisis in Flint, Mich., and UVM's own efforts to remove lead from its older housing stock, a release from JSU says.

JSU student Kayla Gorden, a senior biology major, worked together with a UVM student to create a public service announcement video to warn her residents of her community in Atlanta, Ga., about the dangers of lead poisoning. Gorden and the PSA went on to be featured in a story by a television station in Vermont.

The three-week online course was hands-on and provided equipment for students. Bierman used video lectures to show students how to take water samples, which they then mailed to UVM. Bierman tested the samples in the university's labs and sent the results back to students to analyze.

For more information about JSU and UVM, visit jsu.ms.edu or uvm.edu.

Tougaloo Taking Part in #VoteHBCU Competition

Tougaloo College has partnered with The Collective, a national organization that leads civic engagement efforts to support political causes that impact the Black community, and historically black college and university leadership organization Xceleader to take part in the #VoteHBCU voter registration competition. The competition is part of a nationwide effort with HBCU’s to register and mobilize Black voters.

The Collective, in partnership with youth voting nonprofit Rock The Vote, uses its own voter registration tool to assign all participating HBCU’s and their alumni associations a unique code as part of the event, and each school competes to have the highest percentage of registered voters within a specific time period. The competition began on Friday, Aug. 21, and runs through Oct. 7. The Collective will reveal the school with the highest percentage of registered voters at a virtual event.

All 2020-2021 Student Government Association leaders from HBCUs and their National Alumni Associations can participate in the competition, which is part of The Collective’s Vote To Live campaign. The campaign has a goal of registering 250,000 voters before the November election.

For more information on The Collective, visit hbcucollective.org. For information on Xceleader, visit xceleader.com.

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