American Humanics class gives aid to those in need

In response to Hurricane Katrina, American Humanics students assembled to help hurricane victims staying at Rock Eagle 4-H Center. Faculty, students and community members dropped off their donations to Beeson Hall. Items to be sent to the evacuees, such as suitcases, clothes and personal items lined the walls.

Campus Director for American Humanics Sara Faircloth used this opportunity to teach her students valuable lessons that will be beneficial to being an effective nonprofit leader.

American Humanics is an organization that prepares college students for careers in all areas of the nonprofit sector. Students get a Nonprofit Management and Leadership Certification, in addition to their undergraduate degree.

After all of the items had been collected, Faircloth’s AH students worked together to sort through the items to make sure the quality was good enough to be donated. Then, they organized and loaded the trucks and trailers. Associate Professor of Chemistry Dr. Michael McGinnis drove the donated items to a community recreation center in Eatonton. The items would then be organized into a store format, and evacuees would be bussed in to pick out what they needed.

“The day that we sent the final load, a 20-foot trailer, the students learned first hand that in nonprofit, if there is no one else to do the work, the professional has to step in and do it,” Faircloth said. “It doesn’t matter what you’re wearing, or if you just had your nails done. If something needs to be done right then, and you don’t have volunteers to help, you get busy and do it yourself.”

Faircloth said it was amazing to see how community members came together to donate items. Everyone felt that they wanted to help in some way. The students responded well to the task.

Faircloth put a note on the classroom door for her Nonprofit Organizations class and told them that class would be in the Beeson Hall Academic Engagement Conference room.

“When they came in, they saw all the donations literally stacked around every wall and jamming our hallways and overflowing from our smaller conference room,” she said. “I told them I was going to teach them what it was really like to be a nonprofit professional. They groaned a little bit and then immediately got up, got themselves organized, came up with a system that was efficient and went to work. They had it done in no time. They were laughing and even singing at one point.”

Senior political science major Ashley McGuire helped load the trailers with her classmates from the Nonprofit Organizations class. She intends to do nonprofit for the rest of her life and said that she enjoyed getting a small taste of the bigger picture of working in nonprofit organizations.

“I was able to learn that the government cannot and should not have to take care of absolutely everything. That is why individuals can use and facilitate nonprofits to contribute, and then those organizations in turn can provide victims with what they truly need,” McGuire said. ” I was able to see the charitable nature of the community, the faculty, and even students from this campus. I was able to see that big nonprofits like the American Red Cross aren’t always capable of taking care of things alone. They needed us to take on accepting and transporting donations.”

Another student pursuing an AH certification, senior Melissa Davis, said that it was good to learn about that even nonprofit executives can be required to do the heavy lifting.

She said that nonprofit executives aren’t just authority figures over the organization who sit in board meetings and tell people what to do. Davis said that sometimes they will be working directly with the people they are helping.

Outside of AH, Davis said that this project was a great way for community members to help those in need. Many wanted to donate items to Red Cross, but Red Cross wouldn’t accept certain items.

“I feel like it was a good opportunity, not just for Georgia College students, but for the community to feel like they were contributing to people who needed help,” Davis said.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Nov 18 2005. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry