Just recently I received and email from Amy Matikosh, International Admissions Advisor, and friend. The goal of the email was to engage various offices on campus to help with a bake sale. The goal was to use ProjectConnect as a tool to connect the incoming international students to each other, UB and to their home communities (wherever in the world that may be), and to inspire a service mentality in the incoming students. The students and staff held a bake sale, with the goal of raising $1500 to then donate to Share our Strength, a non-profit organization that helps curb childhood hunger in America. I of course offered to bake something, but then realized I don’t bake, so I graciously donated money to the cause.
Two weeks went by and I received the following email:
Hello Friends!
I am pleased to announce that our ProjectConnect Bake Sale to help end childhood hunger was a great success! Thanks to your contributions of time, energy, baked goods, online donations and moral support, we have EXCEEDED our fundraising goal of $1,500 and raised $1,579.70 thus far for the national non-profit organization Share Our Strength!
I want to thank all of you for your support in making our project a success. I especially would like to thank our office staff, who gave of their time and energy planning for the event, providing baked goods and working at the bake sale we held at the North Tonawanda Farmers Market last Saturday (in the rain!). Thank you Marie, Sherene, Ellen, Carolyn, Jess, Suet Ling, Moon, Gordon, Beth and Joe for all of your hard work! Also thanks to Jennifer Gammell from IA, Kathy Curtis, Keith Otto and Katie Sam of ELI, Diane Hardy of ISSS, Katie Beczak of Graduate Enrollment Management, Phyllis Floro of the Intercultural & Diversity Center, and Cathy Engelhardt-Ellis of Student Medical Insurance for donating baked goods. Thank you to UBelong Club faculty contributor, Dr. Gregory Beehler, who helped in planning, donated baked goods and worked at the bake sale. And we can’t forget Hilda Loucks, Store Manager of Starbucks in the UB Commons, who donated more than 750 cups of freshly brewed coffee (and supplies) that we were able to offer free to our bake sale customers when they donated to our cause! Thank you, Hilda!
As I write this, our incoming students are to be engaged in community service projects of their choosing all over the world during this ProjectConnect Week. In planning this program and our own ProjectConnect Bake Sale, I’ve experienced first-hand the generosity of my colleagues and friends, and I feel so lucky to know each of you and to have witnessed that generosity in action. I think we all believe that our incoming students are joining a community of great people when they join UB, and I know it for sure!
THANK YOU!-Signed Amy Matikosh
As I was reading this I thought ‘Wow’ even in these tough economic times, a simple thing as a bake sale brought together so many people and organizations for a great cause! I was also thrilled to learn that Gordon Tan, one of our second year MBA students who works in the International Admissions Office was personally thanked for his efforts.
I have to echo Amy’s thoughts in saying that I believe that UB and Buffalo are great places to be! I look forward to working with all our new students in the coming weeks on hopefully their own student run community service projects!
Project Connect Bake Sale
Respectfully submitted,
Jen Tsutsui
Assistant Director of Admission
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