With the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti mounting, students are still making efforts to remain committed to helping those affected. The same is true for Eric Fotheringham’s Introduction to Nonprofits class.
Under normal circumstances, the class is committed to volunteering with a local nonprofit for three to five hours in order to gain experience with service learning. This semester, however, the class decided to do something a bit different.
“The first day of class was held on the day of the earthquake,” Fotheringham said. “We talked about it in class, and the students expressed a strong desire to help, so I changed the lectures to focus on international aid and broke them into groups to find ways to help Haiti.”
Instead of simply asking for money to fuel aid, each group was assigned the task of creating a way to generate money that focused more on its skills and connections. The groups were asked to assess the amount of time they had available to donate to the cause, and the outcome has been impressive, according to Fotheringham.
“We’re still in the beginning stages, but I’ve been incredibly impressed with how excited and creative some of the groups are,” he said.
The groups of students have created ideas that range from selling ribbons for Howl for Haiti, a campus-wide effort to raise money for Haiti, to selling tickets to a benefit dinner. Some students have even decided to do research on the history of Haiti and stem their donation-making ideas from there.
Some Haitians have become so impoverished that they must literally derive their nutrients from cakes of mud, a concept that clearly hit home for the students as one group chose to sell “mud pies” – pudding with gummy worms and Oreo cookie crumbles – in order to raise awareness.
Another group chose to raise money for Haiti by selling heart-shaped cookies in keeping with a “Hearts for Haiti” theme. Taylor Elkins, a sophomore in psychology, is a part of this group.
“We’re capitalizing on Valentine’s Day,” Elkins said. “We’re selling them in packs around campus closer to Valentine’s Day and will also reach out to organizations on Hillsborough Street.”
The profits, according to Elkins, will be donated to Kids in Distressed Situations, or KIDS, which provides toys, clothes and educational materials to children who are in impoverished conditions or have been affected by a natural disaster.
This cause is especially important for Elkins, who was planning to volunteer at an orphanage in Haiti over spring break before the catastrophic earthquake hit.
“I’m really excited about this because kids are one of my biggest passions and with my trip to Haiti over spring break disrupted, I’m glad to be able to reach out to kids in Haiti regardless,” Elkins said.
For many students like Elkins, this volunteering experience has been like no other. According to Fotheringham, the fact that students are able to develop their own projects instead of just volunteering with one that has already been developed will enable students to better apply these skills to creating change in their future.
“Hopefully after this project is over they will continue to help with relief efforts in Haiti,” Fotheringham said. “The help needs to be long term and sustainable, and the students seem to understand that. For them, it’s not just a grade, it’s a passion.”
