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spring 2015 / 9
COMMUNITY NEWS
Chance meeting in Selma
—The final rehearsal for the 1,000-voice
Selma 50th Anniversary Jubilee Choir was held at Sixth Street Peace Baptist Church
in Birmingham on March 1, setting the stage for a serendipitous encounter between
Marcia Rogers Bentley ’75 (far left) and Ashley Tippit ’18 (second from right). When
Bentley found out that Tippit, who was sitting next to her, was a member of the
BSC One-A-Chord Gospel Choir, she excitedly told her that she had graduated from
the college long before Tippit was even born. It turned out that they were both
psychology majors and in the symphonic band (Bentley on clarinet and Tippit on
French horn). “We talked about how drastically the school has changed since I was
there, both in physical size and student population,” Bentley said. “There were less
than 1,000 students in 1975.” Tippit then asked whether the college had a Black
Student Union then and discovered that Bentley was one of the students who got
the BSU and its scholarship program started. Pictured with Bentley and Tippit at
the foot of Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge during March’s 50th commemoration of
“Bloody Sunday” and the Selma-to-Montgomery march for voting rights are One-
A-Chord choir members (from left) Allen Doyle, Willie Williams, Erin Snell, and Ryan Key. “Even though the full Jubilee Choir didn’t get the
chance to sing [too little room on the stage], I certainly appreciate my alma mater sending such a delightful contingent to this momentous
occasion,” said Bentley. The BSC choir members who were able to sing on stage were Erin Snell, Jordan Powell, and Laura Carbajal.
Young alum finds new form of nourishment—and crowdfunding
Chris Cage ’10 thought he was
on the right track after graduating
from BSC with an accounting
major and landing a job at
Alabama Power. But about a year
in, he was hungry for more.
So Cage saved up his paychecks,
quit his job, and began to
travel. He cycled the length of
New Zealand, taught English in
Thailand, and volunteered at an
orphanage in Cambodia. When
he returned to the states, he tackled another
challenge: hiking the Appalachian Trail from
Georgia to Maine.
“One of the biggest things that I took
away from Birmingham-Southern—which
I don’t think I realized until after I’d left—was the value of E-Term,
especially E-Term at Sea,” said the native of Peachtree City, Ga.,
who had run cross-country and been a Boy Scout before coming
to BSC. “That month at sea really exposed me to adventure travel,
and I absolutely fell in love with it. That taste of adventure travel
undeniably affected my decision to quit my job and travel.”
While he was trekking the trail, he came up with an idea for a new
business. Cage found himself struggling to eat well as he covered
miles on foot, and decided to develop his own meal substitute that
would be more substantial than the average energy bar.
“Creating a perfect meal became my mission,” Cage said. Thus,
Greenbelly was born. He got help from a chef and a dietician to
develop an all-natural meal replacement based on peanut flour,
whole nuts, and dried fruit that provided the energy he needed to
hike or bike long distances. He started making, packaging, and
selling the bars himself, sending them to outdoor outfitters and
bloggers to try to break into the market. He also built in a charitable
component: for every bar sold, Greenbelly buys a meal through the
Atlanta Community Food Bank.
When Bicycling Magazine wrote a favorable review, the business
took off, and Cage found himself in need of capital to scale up
his operations. (In his words, “getting out of my parents’ house
wouldn’t be bad.”) He used the skills he learned at BSC to research
all of his options, including loans and individual investors,
and landed on a plan for a 30-day crowdfunding campaign via
Kickstarter.com,a site that allows ordinary people to pledge a small
amount to projects of their choosing, often in exchange for a first
shot at the product.
Within 32 hours of launching the campaign, he’d already beaten
his $10,000 goal.
“In June, when I started this, I had no customers, no social media
accounts, no blogging or public relations connections… and I had to
figure out what makes a campaign go ‘boom,’” said Cage, who spoke
to students about his experience this spring.
Cage has a lot of work to do in the coming months: fulfilling
orders, designing new packaging, and working on a new production
facility. But although he does have targets for national distribution,
his definition of success also includes being able to travel while he
runs the company and continue having a good time.
Ultimately, Cage credits Birmingham-Southern with broadening
his world and giving him campus leadership opportunities that
positioned him to tackle this challenge.
“The type of courses I took forced some exposure on me that
I would never had had otherwise,” Cage said. “This exposure—
speakers from cultural credits, classes like beginning band, the
hands-on biology course, music of the world’s people, religion, and
history of the American South—all played a role in me wanting to
see more, try more, and learn more.”