March 29, 2024

The everyday man and woman can do some pretty heroic deeds. And sophomore Camila Quinones wants to give these people a chance to be recognized with what she’s calling “The Hero Project.” Inspired by her love of superheroes, Quinones is in the process of forming an organization that will honor an individual every month.
“I was talking with my mom one time,” Quinones said. “[She promotes using] your passions to change the world, affect something bigger than yourself. She suggested I take this idea of my love for superheroes and change it into something that really impacts people.”
The idea started out as a blog intended to showcase people doing great things – “heroic deeds” – in their communities. But Quinones didn’t want to do it alone, and thought this could be something great for her school community.
“[I wanted to] bring it to our community just as a way of showing, ‘hey, we have really cool people at Wittenberg that are doing really cool things,’” Quinones said. “Creating an organization that highlights these people, and they aren’t necessarily the people that you see on the big screens every day at Wittenberg, or maybe quiet heroes that you don’t really know about, but they’re doing something really cool on our campus.”
At the initial informational meeting, 15 people came and expressed an interest in the organization, but people outside of the organization have given Quinones positive feedback.
“Whenever I tell people about it, everybody sounds really excited,” she said. “It’s just been really cool to hear the support from people that may not necessarily be actively involved in the organization, but feel like it could be a good addition to our community for organizations.”
The group plans to meet every week, and will send out a monthly newsletter that expands on that month’s “hero.” The group intends to appoint committees that will research and/or nominate individuals in the Wittenberg community that are doing extraordinary things.
“Once these people are brought to our committee, we will vote together who we feel is a story that we really want to tell and share with campus,” Quinones said.
The organization will be supervised by D’Arcy Fallon, professor of journalism. The group hopes to promote people and their good deeds, while also encouraging “creativity” and “dreams.”
“My hope is just that people see the Hero Project not as only seeing that there are a couple heroes, but that there are so many people on campus that are doing incredible things that we don’t always celebrate,“ Quinones said. “Maybe the Hero Project will act as a springboard to others.”
As of the time of publication, Student Senate had not determined whether or not this project will become a reality. According to sophomore Zach Lough, president of Student Senate, the project will be voted on Tuesday, Mar. 3, “assuming there is a motion to vote for it and that we have a quorum of 2/3 senate to meet.”

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