The Davis campus community deserves a big round of holiday applause for donating more food than ever in the Mail Services drive, and to the men and women who deliver, pick up and process your mail — for doing all the heavy lifting.

And we mean heavy: The haul surpassed 1,000 pounds for the first time in the drive’s seven-year history, and by a long shot: 1,408 pounds.

“Our delivery personnel get all the credit,” said Jen Carmichael, general manager of Mail Services. “They marketed the program in person” as they made their rounds.

Mail Services makes donating easy: faculty and staff simply bring in food to donate, and leave it with their outgoing mail.

All of the Davis campus donations went to the Food Bank of Yolo County, just in time for Thanksgiving.

Another food drive starts next week. Read more about it, and also see how you can donate to Toys for Tots, Coats for Kids and Hurricane Sandy, and to holiday baskets for the pets of homeless people (in a project run by volunteers at the Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital).

‘Changing Landscape of Latino Communities’

Associate Professor Michael Rios plans a talk next week on “The Changing Landscape of Latino Communities in California and Beyond,” drawing on his role as co-editor of a new book of essays, Dialogos: Placemaking in Latino Communities.

Rios is a member of the new Department of Human Ecology, the result of the merger of the Department of Human and Community Development, and the Landscape Architecture Program.

The Routledge publishing website describes Dialogos as a response to Latinos’ growing presence in the character of urban, suburban and rural places. Dialogos “will help readers better understand the conflicts and challenges inherent in placemaking, and to make effective and sustainable choices for practice in an increasingly multiethnic world.”

Rios’ program is set for Wednesday, Nov. 28, in two parts:

• 11:30-noon — book signing and refreshments, 152 Hunt Hall
• 12:10 to 1 p.m. — Rios’ presentation, 166 Hunt Hall

Aggies donate 1,070 pints in Causeway blood drive

The Aggie win in the Causeway Classic over the weekend made up for a loss in the Causeway Classic blood drive. It wasn’t much of a loss, though, what with the UC Davis community donating more than 1,000 pints of blood.

Sacramento-based BloodSource determines the winner based on number of people who turn out and register at campus blood drives (Oct. 23-24 at Sacramento State, Nov. 13-14 at UC Davis), or who register at BloodSource donation centers and ask for their blood to be credited to either Sac State or UC Davis.

Here are the totals: Sac State, 1,774; UC Davis, 1,308.

From among all those prospective donors, BloodSource gathered 2,452 pints of blood (1,382 Sac State and 1,070 UC Davis).

Sac State has now won two Causeway Classic Blood Drives in a row, after UC Davis won the first three.

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