{"id":2755,"date":"2025-01-15T15:46:02","date_gmt":"2025-01-15T15:46:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/studentvoices\/?p=2755"},"modified":"2025-01-15T15:46:02","modified_gmt":"2025-01-15T15:46:02","slug":"zap-zone-with-mchs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/studentvoices\/2025\/01\/15\/zap-zone-with-mchs\/","title":{"rendered":"Zap Zone with MCHS"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Taylor Burnham<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The foster care system is underfunded and under-resourced; as a result, many foster
homes and youth residential facilities are unable to provide the children they serve with fun,
enjoyable experiences that many other kids have while growing up. Sunny, a non-profit
organization developed by students at the University of Michigan, identified this problem and
sought to fill this need for foster homes in the Ann Arbor and Detroit areas. Partnering with local
foster homes and residential facilities, Sunny facilitates events and outings for the children these
organizations serve, taking on all the planning and costs, to ensure that each child served can
have these fun childhood experiences and enjoy being a kid despite their familial situations. Last
November, Sunny was able to plan and execute a trip to Zap Zone and play laser tag with the
kids from MCHS Family of Services, one of the facilities we work with, thanks to the support of
the Barger Leadership Institute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


For this event, Sunny coordinated with MCHS staff in transporting the children to a local
Zap Zone location and provided the funding for all passes, tickets, and attire needed. Zap Zone
was chosen based on direct feedback from the kids and staff at MCHS; Sunny aims to plan
events that are interesting and engaging for the kids yet feasible for the staff to supervise, so we
continuously keep in touch with the homes we work with about their needs and interests. Several
Sunny volunteers also attended this event to provide support to MCHS staff and interact with the
kids to show that people care about them outside of the system. All of our volunteers are
undergraduate students at the University of Michigan who are interested in foster care advocacy
and reform. Together, the MCHS staff, kids, and Sunny\u2019s volunteers played laser tag during the
allotted two hour session, interacting and bonding through a shared entertaining activity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our main goal for this event was to provide the children from MCHS with an enjoyable
event, taking them out of their everyday foster care environment and allowing them to have a fun
childhood experience. Sunny board members met with the MCHS staff following the event to
debrief and discuss the kids\u2019 feelings and opinions; the kids thoroughly enjoyed the experience,
and the staff were grateful for Sunny\u2019s facilitation of the event. The volunteers who attended also
had a good time and were able to form closer relationships with the children at MCHS,
motivating them to continue volunteering in the future. In meeting these goals, we learned the
importance of engaging directly with the community we aim to serve and asking what their
needs, interests, or priorities are, rather than making assumptions. By partnering with MCHS
Family of Services, Sunny was able to gain direct insight into the needs of a foster care facility
and tailor our efforts to support those needs, making our impact more meaningful. We were able
to plan an event that the kids enjoyed by asking about their interests and executing a project
based on that input; it is essential to gain that direct feedback from the target population in order
to have a more successful event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


We are incredibly grateful for the BLI\u2019s support in bringing this event to life and enabling
foster kids in the local community to have this experience. We will continue to plan events for
the homes that we work with, prioritizing the specific needs of each facility so that we can
continue to plan more successful events like this one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Taylor Burnham The foster care system is underfunded and under-resourced; as a result, many fosterhomes and youth residential facilities are unable to provide the children they serve with fun,enjoyable experiences that many other kids have while growing up. Sunny, a non-profitorganization developed by students at the University of Michigan, identified this problem andsought to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":391,"featured_media":2756,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,12],"tags":[64,93,219,322],"class_list":["post-2755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-funding","category-project-grants","tag-bli","tag-community","tag-leadership","tag-small-grant"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/studentvoices\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/35\/2025\/01\/SunnyZapZone-Taylor-Burnham.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/studentvoices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/studentvoices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/studentvoices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/studentvoices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/391"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/studentvoices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2755"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/studentvoices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2755\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2757,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/studentvoices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2755\/revisions\/2757"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/studentvoices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/studentvoices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/studentvoices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/studentvoices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}