Project: “MS Walk”
LDP Gold students came together over the semester with a focus on “Leadership in Groups,” building team skills such as collaboration, shared purpose, and respectful dialogue based on the Social Change Model. This experiential program helps students develop leadership skills for their future careers; this year’s ambition was to organize a charity event focusing on informing and creating change within our own community and age group.
With just 3 months of planning and many meetings later, over 100 attendees showed up at the event, and LDP Gold managed to raise over $930 towards preventative neurological testing and spread general Multiple Sclerosis education through presentation, handouts, tabling, and a basket raffle, organized and arranged with help from local businesses and campus community organizations. LDP Gold was made up of seven students this semester, Avery Stahl, Shreyash Subedi, Apekshya Koirala, Dorothy Maglore, Victoria Ampofo, Samuel Robinson, and Lilianna Palumbo, who came together in late December to begin organizing their event to earn SULA’s Gold Certification for leadership development. It ended up being an ambitious project for the seven of them to take on, but their passion and determination to make it happen helped them pull through in the end with stellar results.
Much of LDP Gold’s success is thanks to the support and guidance of the MMM Project, founded by LDP Gold Member Lilianna Palumbo, a junior Nursing student who watched her father suffer through the progressive autoimmune disease while he was simultaneously diagnosed with a non-operative brain tumor in 2017. Thanks to her mother’s push for preventative treatment for her children at a young age – despite showing little to no symptoms – Lilianna was later diagnosed with MS herself at 13 years old. Her experiences and belief in the benefits of preventative testing helped guide LDP Gold’s approach to their project, as well as helped them effectively advocate the importance of their work to their community partners. The team was happy with the attendance and money raised, thanks to the collective efforts of themselves, local businesses, and campus collaborators.
- Big thanks also to Alpha Chi Honor Society, SULA, and Brockport Student Government for their incredible collaboration and generous sponsorships.
- We’re also grateful to the SERC for hosting us in such a beautiful space.
- The Hazen Center, thank you for your informative handouts, thoughtful basket donation, and insightful presentation—you were all amazing!
- We extend our sincere gratitude to the clubs that joined forces with us: Dphie Sorority, Pi Kappa Fraternity, Women Rising, NAMI, SULA, 89.1 The Point, and the Student Nursing Organization. Your support was invaluable, and we eagerly anticipate future collaborations!
- And to our amazing community partners: 58 Main, Custom House, Chick Fil A, Lightways, Tattoorolo, Bookstore on Main, Grinds Cafe, Collectibles and More, Java Junction, Royal India Henrietta, and Mark’s Pizzeria—thank you! We truly couldn’t have pulled this off without you all.
- A special thank you to Love Babe Boutique for tabling at this event; your products are fantastic, and we were so lucky to have you!
The team is incredibly grateful for the collective efforts of everyone involved, raising both money and awareness for an important cause and supporting those affected by Multiple Sclerosis.
Project: “Wear The Change”
To complete the Gold Level in the Leadership Development Program, a group of Senior Resident Assistants, Olivia Kittelberger, Micaela Melgar, and Mustapha Ceesay, were tasked with completing a project that centered around social justice. This group identified a need on our campus, which was access to clothing. They conducted a two-part program, where they collected clothing and other items from the residence halls on campus, where students could donate items that they were no longer using.
After this collection process, they were able to sort through everything and hold a clothing exchange, where students were welcome to browse through these donated items and pick things out for themselves free of charge. Through this process, they were able to serve over 200 students and collect over 5 carts of clothing. After this event concluded, they were able to donate the rest of the items we had collected to various locations, which included collaborating with the Men of Color Club on campus, who used some of the items in their own program. They also were able to donate to the Open Door Mission and Saints place, both local organizations that serve vulnerable populations in Rochester.
This project required a lot of teamwork and group effort to make everything work along with significant coordination and collaboration to bring it all together. Much of the work happened behind the scenes such as delivering and picking up donation boxes across 14 residence halls, sorting and transporting items, reserving a space, and setting up and staffing the event, which ran over three days. If they had to change anything about this program, they would have made it more accessible to the public and advertised more to off-campus students. Overall, they saw great success with this program and received supportive feedback that this project was helpful for many. This program encouraged sustainability and equity on campus, while also providing a needed service to our local college community, and the greater Rochester community.
Project: “What Were You Wearing”
LDP Gold Cohort including members Sam Valentin, Brooke Bowler, Adrianna Godfrey, and Kiera Unverzagt, organized a “What Were You Wearing” gallery in partner with RESTORE Sexual Assault Services. This gallery featured recreations of the clothes worn by sexual assault survivors, with their stories displayed next to it. This group planned an opening event to the gallery November 11 to explain the importance of the gallery and allow people to browse with any support they may need courtesy of Hazen Counseling Center and HPPE.
Brooke Bowler describes the impact of this project below:
“This program was extremely important to me. I thought of this idea as a college student who knows what it is like to struggle with sexual trauma. I wanted to provide a space where people could get resources and stories so they know they’re not alone. When bringing this to the table during our discussion, Sam, Adrianna, and Keira jumped right in with passion and skill. Hosting this with my fellow SRA’s was a privilege, we all had the same goal and the program came together beautifully. We worked closely with Restore, specifically Sarah Link, who provided the materials and taught us more about restore and their services. We also invited HPPE and Hazen as additional resources to students. We had the passive gallery open for close to a week and had an active opening event in the ballroom. This allowed a guided and supportive experience for students who may not know what to expect from a program like this. Overall, this program has motivated me to do more big events that are meant to help and support my community.” Sam also shared her perspective of the project, “When Brooke presented the idea of the gallery, I was intrigued but unsure of how I could help. After hearing more on the idea and how much this meant to others, I wanted to do it justice. I am so proud to have been working aside Brooke, Kiera and Adrianna for this project and hope to continue doing many more events to help my community in the future.”
Project: “Bottle and Can Drive”
For this SRA Gold project, SRA Sara and SRA Caleb held a bottle and can drive. For this project, they placed 14 boxes in each residence hall and the Townhomes Community center and taped flyers on each box. The program was held from April 23 to May 8.
The goal for this project was to raise enough funds through collecting bottles and cans to be able to give the money back to an organization of our choosing, Lollypop Farms. Lollypop Farms is a local animal shelter here in Rochester, NY. With the funds collected, they aimed to help support the work they do with the care and keeping of rescue animals. They are in the process of wrapping this project up, as they wanted to emphasize the intentionality and plan this around the time students would be cleaning out their rooms to prepare for the end of this semester. They did have some setbacks that resulted in them learning how to collaborate and communicate with campus partners about the purpose of the boxes, and learning how to take inventory of donations boxes and items. Nevertheless, they persevered and have been very happy with the outcome of the project.