By Shannon West
Staff Writer
t. Bonaventure will host a CNN 2015 Hero of the Year candidate Dec. 7.
Students are encouraged to vote for Maggie Doyne for CNN’s 2015 Hero of the Year. Students can vote once a day through Nov. 15. If Doyne wins the vote, her organization, the BlinkNow Foundation, will receive $100,000 to fund her work.
Doyne started the BlinkNow Foundation to support and grow her efforts of giving homes and education to children in need.
Maggie Doyne traveled to the war-torn Nepal after high school, where she met a young girl named Hima who wanted to find her family in Nepal. Doyne went with her and realized then that these children needed a place to call home, according to BlinkNow Foundation’s webpage.
Through the university’s efforts, it was decided that Maggie Doyne “would be somebody who would be an inspiration to [our] students on campus,” according to Sister Margaret Carney, O.S.F., president of the university. By learning about Doyne’s work, Sister Margaret said she believes that “[our] students bear a strong resemblance to her interests” because of the various student groups on campus such as Bona Buddies, ENACTUS, Bona Responds and the Warming House, part of the Franciscan Center for Social Concern.
“Because of her work and passion, Maggie (Doyne) is a young person who has been inspired to live out her own passion for justice and peace in a very extraordinary way,” said Maggie Morris, director of the Franciscan Center for Social Concern. “We would encourage students to learn more about her and how she got into this work and vote for somebody who is doing something extraordinary.”
Sister Margaret said Doyne is an example to other students.
“It’s all about reaching out to people, and that’s exactly what Maggie Doyne has done,” said Sister Margaret. “I think meeting somebody who dared to do this in another country and has given up her whole life, I think that might inspire students who perhaps haven’t been as quick to get involved with service.”
In 2010, the group opened its Kopila Valley School, which today educates more than 350 students, according to the BlinkNow Foundation’s webpage. Doyne lives in Nepal year-round, traveling to the U.S. a few times a year.
“Her visit will obviously be a chance for her to share her story with us, which is an inspiring one,” said Morris. “As St. Francis was dying, he said, ‘I have done what was mine to do, now go and do yours.’ I think that the call is not for all of us to go and be a Maggie Doyne, but for us to hear her story and hopefully help us to understand the work that we are being called to do.”
The event will be hosted by the Franciscan Center for Social Concern. For information about the CNN Hero of the Year contest, visit CNN’s webpage, http://heroes.cnn.com/.
westsm14@bonaventure.edu
