Campus Cutie: Carrie Dobbins
Year: Junior
Major: Interpersonal Communications and Psychology
Hometown: Kinston, NC
Coldstone or Yopo? And your favorite flavor?
Yopo, peanut butter with chocolate sprinkles. “That’s easy.”
Where do you study most?
“Probably Caribou Coffee.”
Why?
“I like the coffee there better than Starbucks.”
Favorite way to cool off in the heat?
Laughing she said, “Air conditioning . . . or a fan.”
What are you involved with on campus?
– Dance Marathon Sub-Chair and on the fundraising projects committee
– Phi Mu Philanthropy Chair
– Involved with the Eve Carson fundraiser
– Freshman year she started an Autism Outreach Club with her friend, Drew Breithaupt. She is now co-director of the club with Drew.
What does the club do?
They volunteer with TEACH, which is a type of autism therapy that started at UNC. They have family fun days where kids with autism play together while their parents meet and talk to each other. They are also connected with the Autism Society of North Carolina. Carrie interned there this summer. She helped set up the walk/run that the society holds in October. It’s called the Autism Raleigh Walk Run.
Interests/passions: “I’m really interested in interactions with people and disorders like autism.” Other interests include non-profit work and dance. “I mean I danced all my life.”
Favorite dancing song: Spice girls or backstreet boys. “Wanna Be” is her favorite.
Words to live by: Having just finished Eat. Pray. Love. Carrie posted this quote from the book on her facebook page.
“It is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else’s life with perfection.”
When asked what appealed most to her about the book, Carrie replied, “I just connected with the book. There were so many things that were just connectable to my life. I wanna do that someday [travel]. I think it would be cool.”
Favorite Chapel Hill hangout:
“I love Jack Sprat! It’s like one of my favorite places.”
Why she’s the Campus Cutie:
It’s Carrie’s passion and joy in serving others that makes her this week’s Campus Cutie!
Ever since the whole Jenny McCarthy craze, autism has become a hot topic in the celeb news world. Carrie’s interest in the disease began way before McCarthy started her campaign for awareness of childhood autism. Not many people are aware of the profound affects of autism in children; Carrie is not one of these people.
“Well, I began working with twin boys when they were first diagnosed when I was an 8th grader. They lived next door and their father had recently passed away. I didn’t know much about autism, [but] I was over at their house every day cooking meals, changing diapers, playing with them and trying to understand them even though they were nonverbal. I just became extremely attached to them and they are like my brothers. And ever since then, autism has been a passion for me.”
Carrie’s enthusiasm for community service led her to her position as philanthropy chair for Phi Mu sorority. Her current “baby” is the Rock-a-thon which benefits the Children’s Miracle Network. The Rock-a-thon will be held in October in the Pit and entails volunteers literally “rocking” in rocking chairs for a 24-hour period. She’s been working tirelessly to make sure the entire Chapel Hill community is involved in the event—families, students, everyone. Habitat builds, volunteering at Duke Children’s Hospital and Dance Marathon are among the other service projects Carrie is involved with through Phi Mu.
Around campus and the sorority house, Carrie’s upbeat personality and easy smile go a long way. Her laugh is contagious and frequently heard at all times of day. When asked to describe Carrie in just two words, Phi Mu president Kendall Walsh said, “caring and energetic.”
It’s exactly those two qualities that her peers and elders admire in Carrie. She leads by example and stands for what she believes in.
Suffice it to say, if more people followed their passions as Carrie has, the world would be a much kinder place.