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East Lansing Islamic Center, Peace Quest host Salaam Peace Festival

The East Lansing Islamic Center hosted the Salaam Peace Festival Sunday as a way to bring together different Muslim countries’ cultures through exhibits and food.

Partnered with the Peace Quest of Greater Lansing, the event gave community members the opportunity to learn and explore the culture of different countries that practice Islam.

“The idea is to bring community members for a day of festivity and to help educate people about the various different Muslim cultures around the world,” event spokesperson Areesha Shah said. “And we welcome the Greater Lansing community to the Islamic center in an effort to spread peace by building bridges of friendship.”

The event featured Islam 101 class sessions, country exhibits, henna and calligraphy stations inside the center, as well as food from Château Coffee Co., GoGi 2, Ozzy’s Kabob, PappaRoti, Sparty’s Kabob, Sultan’s and Tabooli in the parking lot.

The event had bouncy castles and face paint for young children, in addition to performances from students of the Greater Lansing Islamic School next door.

This is the first major event put on by the center since the pandemic, and event spokesperson Areesha Shah hopes they are able to hold more.

“We’re grateful for the church for letting us use their parking spots and we hope these events foster better ties and greater community harmony,” Shah said.

MSU kicks off sustainability month with Go Green Mini Fest

On Saturday, Oct. 1, the MSU Surplus Store and Recycling Center hosted their free Go Green Mini Fest.

Held inside the Recycling Center amid 15-foot piles of cardboard and plastic, the event allowed visitors to learn about MSU student organizations, tour the facility and browse through a collection of free clothes, books and CDs.

The event kicked off MSU’s sustainability month.

Directly through the center’s hangar doors, MSU’s student-run radio station Impact 89FM hosted a table. The organization DJ’d the event and displayed a large spread of free CDs.

Visitors perused shelves of free books and rummaged through bins of free clothing.

Several student organizations were present, including the Spartan Thrift Club. Human biology sophomore and club Vice President Meredith Bell said the club is as social as it is sustainable.

Tour guide and recycling and surplus operations manager Chris Hewitt said the facility receives about 5,000 pounds of cardboard per day, and 35,000 pounds during move-in. The 15-foot pile of cardboard near the entrance of the facility was about half a day’s worth, he said.

The tour showcased the facility’s new Material Recovery Facility, or MRF, a robotic sorter that quickly identifies and sorts different kinds of recyclable plastic. Facility workers nicknamed the robot Murph-E.

Back inside, journalism sophomore Bella Seigo helped crafty Spartans create Halloween decorations with surplus fabric — a ball of cotton stuffing, two sheets of laced gauze, a piece of string and a few buttons made a spooky sustainable ghost.

The MSU Recycling Center will host similar events in the future.

‘The Netflix for news’: ASMSU brings readership program to a mobile app

The Associated Students of Michigan State University, or ASMSU, launched a collaboration with a news app called Spotlight to give MSU students free access to over 200 news publications.

“Spotlight is a service that I best describe as a one-stop place for news,” ASMSU Chief of Staff Jack Harrison said. “In many ways, it’s sort of like the equivalent of Netflix for news.”

The app is an extension of the ASMSU-provided readership service that gives students free subscriptions to publications like The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and USA Today when they sign in with their MSU credentials. The Spotlight partnership was purchased using the $21 per semester tax that ASMSU charges students, ASMSU Vice President for Finance and Operations Vipul Adusumilli said.

Harrison said the intention of the Spotlight partnership was to make news more accessible to students.

Spotlight is similar to Apple or Google News, but has more publications available, Adusumilli said.

Within the app, users can customize their news feed depending on their topics of interest, preferred publications, and favorite authors. Additionally, the explore tab allows users to discover new articles and publishers.

“We’re always wanting to hear from students what services can we add, what services can we promote, how can we also help you know what services we have … that’s why we’re here,” Harrison said.

The Spotlight News app can be downloaded for free on the Apple App Store and Google Play.

Based on original reporting by Wendy Guzman, Jack Armstrong and Kayla Nelsen.