When it comes to the issue of hunger and food scarcity, college campuses are no exception, but the students at Stony Brook have a plan to address this by meeting the needs of both their peers and the local community in Suffolk County.

Students for Humanity’s Umair Azhar, Stony Brook alum, with his younger brother Haseeb Azhar. 

Students for Humanity and Distressed Children & Infants International (DCI) partnered with the Faculty Student Association (FSA) to organize and host a Seawolves Food Drive. The event took place from November 8 through December 3. Students were able to use their Dining Dollars to purchase non-perishable items to donate to the Stony Brook University Food Pantry and Suffolk County Shelters.

“The food drive is important for students that can’t afford a meal. Almost every spring semester, the food drive has been able to fill the food pantry on campus to its full capacity. When this occurs, we take the remainder of the donations to homeless shelters and help people outside of the Stony Brook campus,” says Students for Humanity Co-President Zenat Khwaja ‘22, Health Science.

The idea for a food drive first emerged when former Students for Humanity President Umair Azhar ’19, Applied Mathematics and Statistics, was in his first semester at Stony Brook. It was the end of the semester, and Umair and his friends had some extra Dining Dollars. They went to the old Union Deli, bought 50 sandwiches, and took a train to the city, where they spent the whole day giving the sandwiches to those in need. Upon Umair’s graduation, the food drive was run by both his younger brother Haseeb Azhar and Yusra Abdurrob, former co-presidents of Students for Humanity.

The inspiration behind doing so emerges from Umair witnessing poverty first-hand in Pakistan. His younger brother, Haseeb Azhar ‘21, Civil Engineering, co-president of Students for Humanity, explains, “He saw kids begging on the street for food or money to help support their families. This inspired him to start the food drive and provide for those that are too scared to ask for help and let them know that they are not alone.”

Read the full story: https://news.stonybrook.edu/community-outreach/seawolves-food-drive-works-to-turn-the-tables-on-hunger/

The Stony Brook Student Nurses’ Association collaborated with Stony Brook University Emergency Management, Outreach, and Training on STOP THE BLEED®, a course that allowed nursing students to learn different strategies to recognize what life-threatening bleeding is and how to intervene in a community setting.

Nursing students train at the Stop the Bleed event. 

The event was held Nov. 15 in the Health Sciences Center lecture hall. Students volunteered their time to become certified to participate in future STOP THE BLEED® events for the university and the local community.

University Police and Emergency Management staff demonstrated the proper ways to stop bleeding by applying tourniquets, showing nursing students how to use commercial tourniquets provided in ambulances and schools, and how to use everyday objects, such as neck ties, rulers, pens, and branches if they’re out in the community. Different anatomic locations were identified as the highest risk of bleeding and how applying pressure and quickly packing deep wounds can save lives.

“Educating competent nurses is key to protecting the health of the public who may unexpectedly be involved in a sudden motor vehicle accident on the road or a boating accident around Long Island or other sudden tragedy at home,” said Annette Wysocki, dean of the School of Nursing.  “Because nurses are the largest group of healthcare providers, roughly three nurses for every physician, they are the providers that are most likely to be the first ones on the scene to act during an emergency. These workshops are important for our students so we can be sure they are prepared to be the expert clinicians we expect and might all need in the future to help when an unexpected emergency happens to us.”

Tania Prudencio Martinez, a senior nursing student and the Co-Breakthrough Into Nursing director for the Stony Brook Student Nurses’ Association, organized the event, which included 50 nursing students.

More than 1.5 million people have now been trained to STOP THE BLEED®, and the national campaign’s goal is to train 200 million. The purpose of the campaign is to better prepare the public to save lives if people nearby are severely bleeding.

With the need for speech-language pathologists (SLPs) growing on the East End of Suffolk County and within the healthcare field at large, new facilities to train the next generation of SLPs have opened at Stony Brook Southampton. The School of Health Technology and Management’s (SHTM) Master’s of Science in SLP opened its high-tech facilities on September 17 with a ribbon-cutting and tour of the facilities.

At the ribbon cutting for the SLP program new facilities on the Stony Brook Southampton campus are, from left: Anthony Palumbo, NY State Senator; Renee Fabus, Chair of the SLP Program; Paul Goldbart, Stony Brook University Provost: Fredric Weinbaum, MD, Chief Medical and Operating Officer, Stony Brook Southampton Hospital; Maurie McInnis, Stony Brook University President; Stacy Jaffee Gropack, Dean of the SHTM; Stephen D’Amico, SLP graduate student, and Fred W. Thiele, Jr., NYS Assemblyman.

The expertise of SLPs helps optimize speech rehabilitation and clinical care for patients with stroke, neurological diseases, post-Covid issues, children with autism and other disorders, and individuals learning English as a second language.

“The challenges of the past year have served as an accelerant – bringing together different fields, departments, industries, and disciplines toward the common goal of protecting our community, and serving the health needs of our friends and neighbors,” said Maurie McInnis, President of Stony Brook University. “The opening of the Speech-Language Pathology Program facilities here on our Southampton campus is a great example of this. A collaboration between the Speech-Language Pathology Department and Stony Brook Southampton Hospital, the new facilities support an interprofessional model of learning that is critical to Stony Brook’s healthcare education mission.”

The new facility includes classrooms, labs, and a control room, with the latest technology for speech-language pathology education including simulation training and video-conferencing capacities. There is a bilingual component of the program which is crucial, as recent US Census data show that 22 percent of Suffolk households speak a language other than English.

“The addition of the SLP program complements our already strong educational programming in the areas of the health professions,” said Stacy Jaffee Gropack, Dean of the SHTM. “The SLP program adds to our nationally ranked occupational and physical therapy programs, rounding out programs related to rehabilitation, which are unique and much needed on the East End of Long Island.”

Read the full story: https://news.stonybrook.edu/newsroom/press-release/medical/stony-brook-speech-language-pathology-program-expands-meets-educational-and-healthcare-needs-on-lis-east-end/