FeelGood Care Packages – Barger Leadership Institute Student Voices

FeelGood Care Packages

By Takara Wilson

Our Project
FeelGood is the youth engagement program of The Hunger Project, where we create our own social
enterprise to fundraise on The University of Michigan college campus. Our project – FeelGood Care
Packages – is made of themed boxes (Baked goods and movie night) sold during the final exam
season. To help ease student’s stress during this busy time of studying, family, friends, and the students
themselves can purchase these care packages to make their day just a bit brighter, and gain a sense of
comfort. Along with this, 100% of the revenue made from sales are invested into The Hunger Project, to
further their goal of sustainably creating a world without hunger. The results of our project followed our
goals and we were able to raise over $600 for this cause!

Challenges Faced
During the curation and execution of the care package process, we faced the challenge of advertising.
As a relatively smaller club, our reach is limited unless we have access to larger platforms that already
have a wider audience. Brainstorming different ways to reach a greater audience and resolve this
challenge, we came up with the idea to advertise in different Facebook groups to reach parents.

Leadership Development
FeelGood and our projects encompass the value of leadership. Students take social responsibility and
dive into the realm of global citizenship, where they participate in service-based leadership that further
hones their own development skills in a cross-cultural context. Within our own club students practice a
social enterprise and gain business-oriented skills. The care packages help to build positive
relationships within Ann Arbor, deepening connections rooted on campus, in families, and in the
community. The investment made into The Hunger Project extends outside Ann Arbor, and reaches a
global context. Through leadership, students are able to make a difference locally and globally.
Aside from our individual leadership positions, as a team we regularly meet to curate a collaborative
atmosphere and discuss any plans for new initiatives, building off of the BLI habit of ‘Build a Team’.
Through the habit of ‘Pause and Reflect’, we set aside time to evaluate our operations and reflect on
previous experiences. Lastly, by valuing ‘Collect, Combine, Create’, we collect feedback from general
and board members to create a lasting impact on our community through collective action.

Future Application
For future application, we plan to apply our previous experiences with this project and skills learned,
while continuously growing as a team and leaders. As our Care Package project takes place at least
twice during the academic school year – once a semester – we aim to improve our social enterprise
model each time and value the BLI principle of ‘Work to Learn’, making each execution look different
from the previous. After delivering the packages and altering the receivers, we finished off with a team
reflection reviewing the entirety of the roll-out and any possible improvements. By collecting key
takeaways from our members, and generating ideas for improvement with advertisements and securing
materials, our next project during the winter semester will be further improved.

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