Week Five: A Day in the Life of a Non-Profit

On Friday of last week, Ray Ugaz and I went in to 826michigan’s Robot Supply Factory in Ann Arbor. I would like to discuss my experience working in person for this blog post.

It was a dark and stormy night. Just kidding, it was about 9:45 am. It was dark and stormy, though. That was the beginning of the really bad rain storms in Michigan. Anyway, I drove in to Ann Arbor and met up with Ray at his house. The Robot Supply Factory was about a 10 minute walk away, so we walked there in the rain. The storefront has been closed since the beginning of the pandemic, but they are hoping to reopen to shoppers and students. Megan (our supervisor) showed us around and gave us the run-down on what our day would look like. Our first task was to take down/sort/fold all the old-logo shirts in the store. We were then to replace those shirts with a variety of new shirts. After that, we disposed of all the packaging materials (i.e. popped those plastic airbags and threw away packing peanuts). Then we went through all the old student binders and sorted the papers in them. We made piles for shredding (confidential student information), reusable, and keepsakes. After that, we had to join a meeting where we learned the basics of Zoom. This was especially helpful to me because I am basically Zoom illiterate. After that, we finished up with the binders and Megan wanted us to donate some stuff. Believe it or not, this was the biggest hassle of the day. Ray and I walked back to pick up my car so we could drive it over and fill it up with the donation items. Well, all the streets surrounding the store were closed off, and the alleyway was blocked by a car, so I put my hazards on and parked on the corner (out of traffic) to quickly throw the stuff in. I was not even parked there for five minutes and I got a parking ticket! Then, when we went to donate the items, the recommended donation center was closed and the other donation center wouldn’t take most of the stuff! Overall, though, it was a good experience working in the store.

Something I took away from this experience was just how difficult life can be while working in a nonprofit. 826michigan has a very small staff right now (I think it’s a measly four people) to span over the three cities: Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti, and Detroit. I realized how essential our help was to them. Although it seemed like we were doing such small tasks, we really helped them advance in the store-opening process, and made work much easier for them. I also learned how giving nonprofits can be, even though they need as much as they can get. Megan wanted to make sure that we donated those items to a local store, and that really stuck with me. Lastly, I learned not to listen to where Ray tells me to park. And that I don’t like driving in Ann Arbor ;).