UMD’s Best Student Changemakers Compete at Do Good Finals

During February and March, hundreds of students across University of Maryland worked to "do good" for their favorite cause in the 4th annual Do Good Challenge. The six most impactful and innovative ventures and projects from a field of 60 teams have advanced to the Do Good Challenge finals where they will compete for more than $20,000 in prizes. Each team will pitch their venture or project in front of a live audience and panel of judges at the Riggs Alumni Center on April 28 from 7-9 p.m. 

Ben Simon, co-founder and executive director of the Food Recovery Network - and first place winner of the inaugural 2012 Do Good Challenge - will serve on the judges panel with Sandra Richards - an executive director at Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, and Devin Schain – founder & CEO of Campus Direct, Inc.

In addition to competing for a $5,000 grand prize, Do Good Challenge finalists will also be eligible to win the $2,500 Finalist Audience Choice Award determined by audience text-to-vote. Come out and support your favorite Do Good Challenge team. No RSVP is required! Learn a little more about the finalists here:  

PROJECTS:

Help Kids Be Kids

Help Kids Be Kids is an initiative started by UMD psychology students to support children who have experienced domestic violence. Help Kids Be Kids partnered with the Family Crisis Center of Prince George’s County, and for three days every week provided 3.5 hours of interactive play and psycho-educational groups to the children living in the shelter. They also raised funds to renovate the playroom at the shelter, providing these children with the space to “be kids,” equipped with fun and educational materials that the volunteers, staff and mothers, can use with the children. To finance the playroom, Help Kids be Kids created an online crowd-funding page, held an on-campus bake sale, midnight grilled-cheese sale, and an art show where they displayed artwork created by the children at the shelter. Through their efforts, the team provided 419 hours of volunteer service and surpassed their fundraising goal of $7,500, raising a total of $8,815.74.

Miles for Smiles

In support of UMD Global Dental Brigades (GDB), Miles for Smiles raises money and awareness to address the lack of oral health care for children in rural Honduras, where dental clinics and oral hygiene supplies are scarce. With education and daily care, the dental health issues experienced by these children can be prevented, leading to improved quality of life. The Miles for Smiles team conducted various campaigns on social media to rally community awareness and action, created an online fundraising site to facilitate donations and held their first-annual Miles for Smiles 5k at UMD. All proceeds from the event will fund the preparation and shipping of dental hygiene kits that will allow children living in El Paraiso, Honduras to adopt healthy dental hygiene habits. 150 UMD students and community members participated in the 5k event, and the team raised a total of $4,000 far surpassing their initial goal of $1,000.  

Terps Against Hunger

The mission of Terps Against Hunger (TAH) is twofold: to raise aware¬ness of the scale and scope of hunger in the D.C. Metro area and to provide emergency food assistance to those who need it. The group uses an efficient and low-cost process to package convenient, nutri¬tious and non-perishable meals and distribute them to local families expe¬riencing hunger. During the challenge, TAH developed a new program that engages student groups around cam¬pus in smaller-scale packaging events, encouraging interested groups to fundraise for their event by pledging to provide a dollar-for-dollar match¬ing grant to augment their efforts. This program allows TAH to expand the number of meals packaged, get more students involved in their movement, and educate participants about the burden of food insecurity in the local area. Through various fundraising efforts, TAH raised $18,000. This money will be used to package over 50,000 meals before the end of the semester and to fund future events.  

VENTURES:

K. Sultana

K.Sultana is a new social venture founded to address two social needs: discomfort from hot temperatures experienced by Muslim women who wear the head scarf (called the hijab), and the lack of employment opportu¬nities for homeless Muslim women. K.Sultana has collaborated with women at the Muslimat Al-Nisaa, a homeless shelter based in Baltimore that serves homeless Muslim women and victims of domestic abuse, to form their initial per¬son-to-person sales force. K.Sultana also finalized partnerships with the Women’s Initiative for Self-Empowerment (WISE) based in New York City and ICNA Relief, a nonprofit with an extensive network of 12 Muslim women’s shelters across the United States. During the chal¬lenge, the team logged over 170 volunteer hours and sold 53 scarves, raising $1,225, a portion of which went to the team of homeless Muslim women working for the organization.  

Medfund

MedFund is dedicated to supporting Bolivians who are unable to afford medical services or general healthcare. After a visit to the Hospital de Clínicas in La Paz, Bolivia, MedFund’s UMD student founders were shocked by the suffering experienced by patients who were often abandoned and left without treatment because of their inability to pay for medical treatment upfront. MedFund is a fund created for these patients, with a cost effective strategy where individual cases are evaluated in order to provide financial support to those with the greatest and most urgent needs. During 

the challenge, MedFund raised awareness for their cause by partner¬ing with the fraternities Phi Delta Theta and Alpha Phi, and raised over $6,000 to further their impact. The organization also worked with their affiliate, Cup of Cold Water Ministries, and Project Helping Hands to go on medical aid trips to rural areas in Bolivia, providing financial resources and medical help, including free surgeries to the poorest residents in each area, with teams made up of surgeons, translators and other medical professionals. Since November, MedFund has been able to provide $5,500 worth of patient care, helping almost 100 indi¬viduals in dire need of medical attention.   

Press Uncuffed

Press Uncuffed is an advocacy initiative sparked by a group of journalism students who completed a research project about imprisoned journalists. Motivated by struggles these individuals face, these students are now working to raise awareness about imprisoned jour¬nalists around the world and fight for their release. Press Uncuffed partnered with the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a nonprofit that works to promote free press worldwide, as well as the grassroots group investigative reporters and editors. Working with these partners, Press Uncuffed raised funds which will be used to produce and sell bracelets that bear the names of cur¬rently imprisoned journalists. During the challenge, Press Uncuffed deployed an online fundraising campaign that raised $33,000 and acquired in-kind donations from organizations such as the Newseum, The New York Times and HBO. Press Uncuffed is working with three companies in Tennessee to produce their bracelets which they will then sell to reach their target goal of $70,000 which will be donated to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

The Do Good Challenge was founded by the School of Public Policy Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Leadership, in partnership with the Robert H. Smith School of Business Center for Social Value Creation, and sponsored by Morgan Stanley Private Wealth Management.