Since leaving the island 6 years ago Maggie Cissel (SP’06) has been in search of a way to give back what The Island School gave her and an avenue to channel the important lessons she learned here of empowerment, sustainability and community work. Recently, she and her two friends launched a Kickstarter project that aims to fulfill these three things.

Maggie graduated from Elon University in North Carolina this past spring with a degree in Strategic Communications and an emphasis on video production. In January 2012, she had the opportunity to travel to India with Elon’s President, his wife and a professional video producer to film several documentaries for Elon’s Study Abroad office. As a result of her time there, Maggie and her two friends have decided to return to India and start a global community photography project. You can find out more about Maggie’s project on her blog, Facebook, and Twitter pages.

In reflecting upon her Island School experience, she says “I feel indebted to The Island School, its faculty, staff, administrators, and students for everything I learned both during the semester in Eleuthera and after. The Island School provided me with a platform to grow as a seeker of challenges, community activist, and lover of the environment and for this I am eternally grateful. Because of my time down there, I continue to look at the world as a place where miracles can happen, perspectives can change, minds can be opened, and where people can learn to make positive changes in their communities. It is with these thoughts in mind that my two friends and I have decided to take on this project. Knowing how important global community service projects are to The Island School I think that this will be of interest to other alumni.”

Good luck reaching your goal, Maggie! We look forward to seeing the final product.