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Basketball program founded by Jennifer Weber ’11 gets specially designed uniforms, MN Daily reports

MN Daily - logoThe Minnesota Daily recently covered the Cedar Riverside Community Traveling Basketball program, which provides coaching, practice, and competition for six teams of local boys and girls ranging from sixth to 10th grade.

The program was founded by Augsburg College alumna Jennifer Weber ’11, who recognized a need for such programs. “The kids here in the neighborhood need more quality programming,” she said. “The kids want it. They go to open gym all the time.”

Another need Weber recognized dealt with a lack of functional athletic attire that was culturally acceptable for the many Muslim girls in the program.

Luckily, design students from the University of Minnesota had already been working to solve that problem. Working with the players and other partners, the students designed uniforms with adjustable hijabs, knee-length skirts and breathable leggings. A grant from the Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station provided funding to donate the completed uniforms to the program.

The article concludes with a statement from coach and co-founder Muna Mohamed ’16, an exercise science senior at Augsburg who grew up in the neighborhood.

“These girls are getting an opportunity to have culturally appropriate clothing, at the same time … [as] enjoying sports,” she said. “They don’t have to worry about fixing their scarves. They don’t have to worry about ‘How can I play basketball and also respect my culture?'”

 

Minnesota Daily interviews Yasameen Sajady ’11 for story on Sisterhood Boutique

MN Daily - logoMinnesota Daily, the student newspaper of the University of Minnesota, recently published an article about Sisterhood Boutique, a secondhand clothing store in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood of Minneapolis that serves as a hands-on entrepreneurial experience for young women in the area. The program, which offers four-month internships that help build and develop the business skills of young women aged 16-21, recently celebrated its second anniversary.

Included in the article was an interview with Yasameen Sajady ’11, an Augsburg College alumna who was hired as the social enterprise manager at Pillsbury United Communities, which owns the store and oversees the internship program as the business grows. The internships begin in the classroom, but quickly shift to the storefront. “In the first two weeks, we really hit hard on the skills that you would need to be successful,” Sajady said. “And then they’re put on the job.”

Read A ‘multilayered’ enterprise on the Minnesota Daily site.