This Christmas season, Sarah Kelly, Salve Regina University’s community service coordinator, had the important job of decorating the Christmas tree in Miley Hall’s lobby. It is not garland or a star on top that makes this tree so special. It is the 250 tags, adorned with the names of needy children, that hang from its branches.

Even before Tasha Taylor completed her education at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minn., three years ago, she was determined to be a social worker.

She had watched her mother heroically raise six children after losing a business in her 40s, and Taylor wanted to help welfare recipients rebuild their lives the way her mother had.

As I sat in the third row, hearing the magnificent and enchanting voice of one of my biggest role models, it was hard to imagine a day that went perfectly according to plan. But like my role model said, “When it looks like the sun won’t shine anymore…God put a rainbow in the clouds.

She insists it isn’t really a solo album. Merely “a collaborative side project,” a lark that snowballed into something more.

And no way is No Doubt over.

Yet that lark- “Love, Angel, Music, Baby,” the first album issued under Gwen Stefani’s name- comes with trepidation about the future.

Six Salve students are doing their part to incorporate the Salve Mission Statement into their academics, and on Wednesday, December 1, so can you. As part of an ongoing class project for their Social Policy class, six Social Work majors are determined to help with AIDS in Africa.