Alternate Spring Break
Bloomberg reports on students using Spring Break to do community service:
Williams College, in Williamstown, Massachusetts, has seven public service field trips this year, involving about 65 students, said Rick Spalding, the college’s chaplain and community service coordinator. The ranks of student volunteers swelled after Katrina, and the numbers have remained high because of students’ awareness of their own impact on issues such as climate change, he said.
“This is not a selfish generation,” Spalding said. “If their parents — people in my generation — had been as conscious, we might not be in the mess we’re in.”
I was drawn into my first such trip during freshman year because I was told that dorms would be closed over spring break, and I needed an inexpensive way to spend two weeks 8000 miles from home. Cabo was not an option, but going on a service trip was free. It turned out to be one of the most worthwhile things I did during my time at Williams.
I would be extremely wary of for-profit companies such as STA Travel who “market community-service themed trips”. Given the generosity of existing institutions at Williams, you really shouldn’t have to pay much out of pocket in order to do community service; our trip was funded entirely by a combination of an alumni gift and the Chaplain’s Office.
I also found a tremendous amount of help from Rick Spalding in getting funding to spend a summer working for SOME in Washington, DC. As this was a mostly-unpaid position with a small charity, I remain grateful to Rev. Spalding for his support. Students interested in doing similar projects, whether over spring break or summer or during the academic year, need only approach the Chaplain’s Office with their idea.
What I’d Really Like to See: Improving the give2williams Website
So I just got poked by my good friend, cribbage nemesis, and class agent/secretary Zach who reminded me I hadn’t given to Williams this year yet. To get my attention, he actually joked that I earmark my donation for everything David Kane decries, and furthermore said he’d specified his go towards restoring the Odd Quad to its pre-Neighborhoods glory. Unconventional as it may seem, he got my donation . . . but when I popped over to give2.williams.edu I got to thinking . . .
As I sat there for an inordinate amount of time wondering which digit to put in the ones column, I came up with an idea that I’d really like to see implemented on the giving site: live-updated, humorous, cleverly chosen giving levels based on my intended gift. If you’re into fundraising, web development, or just (self-proclaimed) cool ideas, read on!
Not Stopping at $400 Million
Williams, via Ephnotes, just sent out an e-mail saying that even though The Williams Campaign has raised its stated goal of $400 million (18 months ahead of schedule), it’s going to keep raising money for the capital fund for the next 18 months.
For those of you who figure the college said, “Hey, we’re on a roll, let’s keep going”–which it did, of course–I can tell you that this was a considered decision. Over a year ago it started to become clear that the fundraising was taking a hockey stick trajectory that was not in the plan. At one of the Vice Chair meetings of the Alumni Fund, Steve Birrell described how well the fundraising was going. Since it was clear that the Campaign would hit its goal at least a year ahead of schedule, I asked the question, “So what’s the college going to do? Declare victory early or keep going?”
Reaching Out To Alums
NYC teacher Danielle Lerro ‘05 is looking for ways to contact alumni
who might be interested in adopting her 6th grade classroom in the
Bronx:
The school year is going great. My students have already made over a year of progress in reading (some have made over 2 years), which is a good thing, considering many of them came in reading at a first or second grade level. I’m having trouble finding books and supplies for my classroom–I’ve already spent over 1,000 dollars of my own money on things and it’s still not enough. We need books and other materials. It’s frustrating because my students want to learn, and we live in one of the richest cities in the world, and there still aren’t enough resources to go around. Even though they’ve made a lot of progress, my students are still hovering around a 4th grade reading level and it’s a constant battle to keep their literacy skills up, given the shoddy education most of them have received in the past. Many of them don’t have a lot of books at home, and unfortunately the local public library isn’t the safest place in the world (a kid was shot in front of it last week). I’m trying to make our classroom library a friendly, inviting place to encourage good literacy skills. I’m specifically trying to set up a “book corner” in my room. I want to stock the library with lots of good books and a few beanbag chairs to encourage students to want to read. I set up a request at adoptaclassroom.org. Any ideas on how to reach out to other Williams alums who might be looking to support urban education?
I suggested contacting the Alumni Review to see if they’d be interested in a story on inner-city teaching, and also the tried-and-true Record op-ed/letter. Any other ideas from EphBlog readers?
EphsChoose
Hey Gargoyles! Have I got a project for you . . . (or anyone else who wants to fundamentally alter the relationship between Williams and its always-loyal alums).
Upon reading that Matt Furlong ‘10 lacked funding to participate in an unpaid internship this summer working for a “NYC-based NGO, uNight, which advocates and runs programs for the victims of Northern Uganda’s 20-year-long civil war,” Brent Yorgey ‘04 offered
to support his cost of living while doing the internship with uNight. If other readers of EphBlog were willing to do the same, we could probably raise a good amount of money. Do others think this is a good idea?
I think that it is an amazing idea but one which applies much more broadly than just to Matt and Brent. Consider the work of Donors Choose, “the future of American philanthropy.”
DonorsChoose has won several awards as the most innovative nonprofit in the United States. Best’s brainchild was to create a market in teacher proposals, which are posted on donorschoose.org in informal, non-grants-proposal language by the teachers themselves. So for example, this week a teacher in Richton, Mo., posted a request for a $392 camcorder for her kids to act out stories they’re reading; a teacher in New York City asked for a rug on which to read stories to kindergarteners ($474); and a teacher in a 100 percent low-income school in Los Angeles wants a $414 telescope to teach astronomy to her students. Donors scroll through the hundreds of proposals (searchable by region, subject, level of school poverty, etc.) and fund them in whole or in part with a couple of clicks. If there’s no market for the proposal, it doesn’t get funded, though most eventually do. DonorsChoose handles all of the discounted purchasing from vendors, so no money goes directly to the teacher.
Genius. If there had been a way for Matt to post his proposal (quick — someone check the domain status of www.ephschoose.org), Brent would have already donated him the money, and gotten a tax deduction. But, without a mechanism to easily coordinate the transaction, this is tough to pull off. More comments below:
Channel for Charity Diary (the home stretch)
It’s June 21st and we’re smack dab in the middle of our swim window. Our safety boat captain tells us that Thursday will be too windy, which is a dissapointment, but Friday and Saturday apparently both look very encouraging.
To take a step back, our group’s set…aching even…to do the swim. We’ve been training hard (I never thought I’d be able to swim a mile, let alone three), and are optimistic about our chances. At the same time, however, we realize that there are no guarantees when you’re talking about this sort of event. All we know is that we’re in about as good as shape as we could hope for.
I don’t know if it really hit me that I was about to swim the Channel until I picked up our wetsuits and flippers (the flippers were generously donated by SBR-Sports)…I thought I’d be terrified (I hate deep water), but I’m actually pretty excited now. I think the excitement among some of our swimmers helps–we kind of bounce it off each other.
With the swim so fast approaching, I haven’t had much time to put into the charity side of the swim over the past couple of weeks, but things seem to be rolling along fine now without my active involvement. One of the nice things about events like this is that they spread quickly through word-of-mouth. Many of the people who hear about what we’re doing tell their friends who tell their friends…which has led to some donations from people who we don’t know who aren’t affiliated with Williams or Oxford in any way, which is quite exciting. The Williams European alumni association has been particularly wonderful about spreading word of our swim and supporting us, and I hope that word spreads through other alumni associations as well. We hope to continue fundraising even after the swim is over.
So, it’s 2am and early in the morning of the 22nd now which means that there’s a very good chance that I’ll be swimming in about 30 hours time. I guess I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t a little nervous, but knowing that what you’re doing will make a huge difference for so many people really helps calms the nerves…I can’t wait until we can officially present our donation to the Mothers Programmes and the Williams in Africa Program.
On that note, it’s definitely not too late to donate. In fact, it won’t be too late to donate next week, next month, or even next year. While we will formally “present” our donation to our charities sometime in the early fall–a donation that will go far in helping prevent the spread of HIV from mothers to their children–so much more is needed before this is no longer a problem in Africa. Please do donate–you can donate directly and US tax deductibly to the Mothers Programmes at www.mothersprogrammes.org (please specify that your donation was inspired by our swim–it’s necessary to help us keep track of the numbers), or securely online via our website www.channelforcharity.org. 100% of your donation will go to the charities.
Cross your fingers for us–hopefully next time I post on here will be with good news and maybe even some pictures!
Channel for Charity Diary (fundraising help)
I was wondering if anybody has any ideas about other ways that we might be able to connect with alumns and get alumni involved in our swim. With all of the levels of involvement between students, alumns, faculty, all working to help provide future educational opportunities for ephs and to support an alumn-founded charity, this swim seems like the exact sort of thing that alumni would be interested in being involved in (and in supporting through their donations). Now obviously few of you will actually be able to swim with us, but I think that this can be a project that extends beyond simply the swim–and I was wondering if any of you might be interested in helping me with this.
I think that Channel for Charity can be one in a series of events in which alumns and students work together to raise money for the Mothers Programmes and Williams in Africa. Regarding future events…well, I think that’s something to think about after we’ve made our way through this one. For this one, I can see other alumns being involved helping with publicity or fundraising. I could also see alumns helping to sell Mothers Creations (read about them at www.mothersprogrammes.org), organizing small charity dinners for this swim, corresponding with the swimmers and with the Mothers in Africa…there are so many different ways alumns can be more involved in this.
One of the things we’re hoping to accomplish with this channel swim is to get more people more involved in these sorts of things. Do you have any ideas how to better get people more involved? Also, if you have any ideas about how best to get alumns to donate, we’d appreciate help there too ;)
Some alumni are already involved, and many of our donations have come from Williams alumni in Europe (which we have been able to connect to with the help of Rob Swann, Elizabeth Goldring, and Karen Bowen). Given the positive reception we’re getting from these alumns, I think that it would be wonderful to spread word of what we’re doing among other alumni communities.
Anyways, as always you can read more about our swim or donate online at www.channelforcharity.org.
Channel for Charity Diary
12 May 2006
Our new website is up! You can see it at www.channelforcharity.org. It’s still not finished, but it’s far closer to the eventual final version than it was previously.
What do you guys think about it? We’ve edited a lot of the text and added more now…and obviously redone the design.
We also had an article about us in the Record last week (http://www.williamsrecord.com/wr/?view=article§ion=features&id=7924). While we’re certainly hoping for more publicity, the Record’s piece is an exciting start. One of the many challenging things with this swim is knowing exactly where or how to get publicity (and to fundraise for that matter).
Anyways, I’ll post when the website’s done–we still need to get our About Us section up, which I’m sure will be interesting to a lot of alumns (many of you are probably wondering who are these students crazy enough to swim the Channel haha).
I’d write more now but, well, I’m pretty beat from the training we’re doing. More later!
Channel for Charity Diary (first entry)
30 April, 2006
I’m back from Oxford spring break and that means it’s time to start training. For everyone who missed Dave’s first post on what I’m training for, I’m getting ready to swim the English Channel. So why am I undertaking such an insane feat? Well to begin, I’m not doing it by myself. In fact, I will only be swimming 1/10 of the English Channel and 9 of my fellow Ephs (well, 8 and a professor) will be helping me finish the rest; we’re doing the swim as a relay. By swimming the English Channel we’re trying to raise $18,000 for the Mothers Programmes and Williams in Africa. In one sentence: money given to sponsor our swim will go to help prevent the transmission of AIDs from mothers with AIDs to their children, as well as helping to sponsor a student fellowship to work with the Mothers Programmes in Africa (read more about the Mothers Programmes at www.mothersprogrammes.org).
So as of this week, we’re now within two months of the actual swim, and we still have a lot of work left to do. We have a rough website up, which allows donations through paypal, but it’s not finished yet. Having just begun training, it’s a little overwhelming to think about the amount we still have left to do. However, people have been incredibly supportive and encouraging, and despite the series of enormous tasks still ahead of us, things have gone fantastically so far and we’re all very optimistic.
If you’re interested in learning more about this or donating, you can visit our still-under-development website www.channelforcharity.org
