Ana Vieira is not only a busy scientist at the University of Illinois, she’s also a passionate advocate for children.
She helped found the local charitable organization FACET (Friends Against Children’s Empty Tummies), which is dedicated to helping feed hungry children in the Champaign-Urbana area. Every year FACET holds a fundraiser at Market at The Square, and this year, it raised more than $4,000.
See why we think Viera is a Chambana Mom To Know!
Chambanamoms: We know that you’re very active in fundraising for hungry kids in the local area. Can you tell us how you got started working with FACET and the Eastern Illinois Food Bank?
Vieira: FACET was born in 2007 after learning about Share Our Strength’s Great American Bake Sale. I remember my shock as I learned that 12 million children were facing hunger in America then.
The Great American Bake Sale seemed like a great idea for our family to get involved since we’re foodies and love to bake. In a nutshell, folks host a bake sale in their communities, turn in all proceeds to SOS who will allocate those funds in your community through grants to non-profit groups working to alleviate childhood hunger.
So we got an initial group of 20 people from the Champaign-Urbana area together, brainstormed a team name and one of our bakers came up with FACET . It was unnanimous. All of us loved it. On July 14th that year we hosted our first Bake Sale and were happy to break our, very humble, goal of $500 and turned in $1,200. After two very successful campaigns, it dawned on me that the community groups that work with childhood hunger already have too much to deal with to worry about writing a grant to get money that was generated here in first place.
I had one of those “wait-a-second-here” moments while waiting for my turn on a lovely 4-way stop. After brainstorming ways to raise locally and making it work locally in a seamless way, I learned from our pastor, Robert Rasmus at St. Matthew Lutheran Church in Urbana, about a program from the EIF to alleviate childhood hunger in the community: the BackPack Program.
Went online, checked the EIF page and sent a detail email to Jim Hires and Cheryl Precious at EIF. They were excited about our ideas. This year will be FACET’s fifth raising funds to end childhood hunger in our community.
Chambanamoms: So many people tend to give to and support charitable organizations at the broad national level, and that’s great. But why is it so important to be active in your local community?
Vieira: In our family we think of a local community as a body. How hard is for a person to walk and go about his/her daily life with a painful knee? Same thing in a community. When any part of the community body hurts the entire community body suffers. So the same way we would take care of our hurting knee, we should all take care of the hurting members of our community. We are all one.
Chambanamoms: FACET’s biggest fundraiser of the year is a bake sale — do you bake for it, and if yes, what’s your favorite treat to bake at home?
Vieira: Oh yes. We do bake a lot for the FACET Bake Sale. This past year our boys joined the team baking their favorite giant cookie. Husband is not a baker but he loves canning his homemade Marinara Sauce for FACET every year. At home I also bake quite a bit. I absolutely am crazy about cakes and cupcakes. Something about home made cupcakes melting in your mouths with all sorts of fun layers of flavor and instant trips to heaven and back. Yum! First thing my kids say in the morning when there’s no school: “Mommy, what will we bake today?”
Chambanamoms: We know you’re a scientist — can you tell us a litte bit about your work?
Vieira: I’ve been a scientist for 22 years and currently I work at the Chemical and Life Sciences Laboratory at University of Illinois with Phil Newmark. Our lab studies Regeneration Biology and use planarians as a biological model. My specific part in all that is the ultra structural analysis of regenerating tissues and cells using Electron Microscopy.
Chambanamoms: Both Laura and I have young daughters — as do many chambanamoms.com readers. How can we help foster an interest in science in our girls?
Vieira: This is just the perfect community to give your girls all sorts of opportunities to learn about science. I would definitely recommend an annual visit to the several open houses at the U of I Campus. They offer a plethora of hands-on kid-oriented activities. Contact your child’s school and let them know that several research groups on campus (The Newmark Lab being one of them) either bring their research to the schools or have the school groups come and visit the Labs. Some outreach opportunities from U of I include the Physics Van () and The Brain Awareness Day from the Neuroscience Program. The Orpheum is another amazing resource for providing kids with Science opportunities. Keep stimulating your kids to ask questions, be inquisitive and curious about the world around them. That’s what scientists are: incurable curious people!
Chambanamoms: You’re a busy mom with two kids, an active charitable organization and a full-time job in a demanding field. How do you find balance in your life?
Vieira: Balance? Hahahahaha… I don’t even know. I just do it. It gets really crazy at times, specially as the FACET Events date approaches as school year starts. But we manage. We have eternity to rest. The memories we make, even in this roller coaster, are the true legacy in life.