From the Annual Report: Providing student leadership education, guidance, and experience is a core part of the Ginsberg Center’s work and our work supporting the Michigan Active Citizens-Alternative Spring Break (MAC-ASB) program provides a clear example. Under normal circumstances, Ginsberg supports a wide variety of student teams as they plan, prepare for, and participate in trips all over the country (and beyond) to do hands-on service work with community organizations.
With travel and most in-person service opportunities off the table this year due to Covid-19, Ginsberg’s MAC-ASB team was challenged to change its focus and determine how to support partners and provide students with meaningful service opportunities during a pandemic. For most of the MAC-ASB teams, the answer was service in the form of fundraising to support community organizations in a safe and accessible way.
The six teams raised more than $4,000 for nine different organizations across the country through methods that ranged from Giving Blue Day—U-M’s annual fundraiser for programs and causes—to restaurant nights, Instagram bingo boards, and a Mitten Miles 5K.
“It was a big challenge for our students to adapt to virtual fundraising, especially those who have been on our MAC-ASB team for three years,” says Alison Climes, Ginsberg’s Student Engagement Coordinator. “But they really take to heart Ginsberg’s mission of starting with community-identified priorities and that helped guide them as they made the transition, remembering that even if the means changed, the goal to support our partners remained the same.”
Sabrina Iqbal, a Ginsberg MAC-ASB team member, says that while pivoting to fundraising efforts was an adjustment, it also came at a time when organizations really needed it. “We knew the pandemic had put a financial strain not only on many of the organizations that we work with but also on the families and friends that usually are the ones who donate money to these organizations,” she says.
One of this year’s beneficiaries was Unity Gardens, a nonprofit community garden and education center in South Bend, Indiana, and a long-standing MAC-ASB partner.
For the MAC-ASB students, the experience provided a different type of learning experience. “The biggest message we as a team learned was the value of flexibility and understanding,” Iqbal explains. “None of us can predict what the future holds, especially during a pandemic, so we tried keeping the mindset of going with the flow. And we also learned the importance of thinking outside the box to overcome challenging situations.”
Read more from our Annual Report here.