Workshop expert lists keys to tornado recovery
Tuscaloosa News – June 30
Representatives of Tuscaloosa and Jefferson County local governments, neighborhoods, community agencies, businesses and faith-based organizations met on the University of Alabama campus Wednesday afternoon for the first of a two-day workshop on reconstruction in the aftermath of the April 27 tornadoes. The workshop, which continues today at 8 a.m. at UA’s Childhood Development Research Center, is being led by Adenrele Awotona, a national expert from the Center for Rebuilding Sustainable Communities After Disasters at the University of Massachusetts at Boston…
University of Alabama student wins 3D campus film award for tornado movie (video)
Birmingham News – June 30
A University of Alabama student has won an award at a college film festival for a movie he made about the tornadoes that swept through Alabama on April 27. Xavier Burgin, a UA senior, created “Portrait of the Storm” as an up-close look at the devastation the storm left in Tuscaloosa. He was one of 50 teams selected to compete. He received a $5,000 scholarship for winning the 3D Movie award at the finale of Campus MovieFest, which claims to be the world’s largest student film festival and is held in Hollywood, Calif. “I wanted to make this because this is something the media will talk about for a few months and then move on,” Burgin said in a news release. “People start forgetting what happened, but this is still going on.” The music for the film was an original score by UA student Sumerlin Brandon; the movie itself will be part of a documentary a group of UA students are working on under the direction of telecommunication and film professor Rachel Raimist. “Xavier told a compelling story with beautifully shot imagery,” Raimist said in a news release.
Run for Tuscaloosa organized by students from the Metro
FOX4 (Kansas City, Mo.) – June 29
While Missouri is still reeling from a number of natural disasters, the state of Alabama is also recovering from tornado damage that hit in April. That’s why some local college students are asking people to lace up their running shoes to help Tuscaloosa. A little over a dozen University of Alabama students who are originally from the metro, are putting together a 5K run to raise money for the city that lost dozens of its residents in the April tornado. These students who survived the storm that night say they want to help their “adopted home” by donating all the proceeds to the “UA Acts of Kindness Fund”- which helps staff and students from the university…