Suzanne Curtiss ′14 has been running things at International Child Care (ICC).

Literally, running.

Curtiss is the ICC student intern working out of the Christian health development organization’s headquarters in downtown Kalamazoo this summer. ICC is partnering with the Warrior Dash II mud run in Walker, Mich., near Grand Rapids on an event in September, and Curtiss has been charged with getting the word out. So she laced up her running shoes and has been running the streets of Kalamazoo to deliver news releases to Kalamazoo-area news media, running clubs, and anyone else who will listen.

She encourages everyone to join ICC′s Labou Pou Timoun (Creole for “Mud for Kids”) running event to help raise money for ICC’s childhood poverty and health initiative in the Dominican Republic and Haiti. The mud run, held September 21, is a 3.1-mile obstacle course that includes man-made obstacles and “tons of mud,” she says.

Working with ICC on the mud run has been Curtiss′s first real public relations experience and the English major (with a business minor and concentration in media studies) loves it.

“The work that ICC does is really inspiring, and I feel very honored to be able to spend my summer working to promote the organization and its international projects and involvements” said Curtiss.

ICC operates in both the Dominican Republic and Haiti with a children′s hospital and another that serves tuberculosis patients. It’s working to change the conditions of poverty that impact health and well-being in those countries.

Curtiss′s classmate, Zoe Beaudry ’14, also has an internship with ICC and will head to Haiti in August to work at ICC′s Grace Children’s Hospital on art projects with the patients. At the end of her six weeks there, she will compile the projects into a photo book for distribution in Haiti and back in Kalamazoo.

Keep running, Suzanne and Zoe!

Story by Mallory Zink ′15.