Today, we continue our new series on community relations, Community Tuesday. These posts, pioneered by Eric Shainock '14, focus on best practices and highlight feel-good stories from throughout the industry.
By: Eric Shainock '14
At first, Badgers Give Back was an organized platform to help respond to player requests and get the student-athletes into the community and collect the hours. In the past two years, the program has greatly expanded and taken on new horizons. There is a Community Relations Coordinator as well as a staff of interns that help execute each event. One new event was "Shave to Save", in which 8 football players had their heads shaved by cancer patients in the hope of gain awareness for the patients battling childhood cancer at the American Family Children's Hospital.
In 2013-2014, the student-athletes completed over 8,100 hours of community service at 280 events, which was a 200% increase from 2012-2013. The football and golf teams had the most hours completed per person (calculated by the total number of community service hours divided by the number of roster spots per team). The players embraced the service and looked forward each week to visiting the hospitals and the patients that they built relationships with. Today, Badgers Give Back is a multi-pronged platform that is looking to grow by collaborating with campus partners. Badgers Give Back achieves its goals in two ways:
- Appearance Requests (a local non-profit will have student-athletes at its events)
- UW Programs through Badgers Give Back
The first program is called Booking it with Bucky, which is in collaboration with the UW School of Education. The education students help tailor curriculum with the student-athletes to teach to elementary students in the Madison area. There are 10 core standards for students to enter the 5th grade, and the student-athletes are committed to leading groups and helping middle school kids reach those core standards.
The second program is called Wisc Fit, which was started this past year in conjunction with the UW School of Public Health. The mission of this program is to bridge the gap between athletics and campus to create a larger impact with all groups. Kayla has worked with a childhood obesity researcher who has been a huge help to tailor this program towards kid and help reduce childhood obesity in the community.
The third prong of this platform is Flat Bucky, a partnership between the UW School of Education and the athletic department. Flat Bucky was created to be a mentorship program between schools and the student-athlete, where every student-athlete carries the Flat Bucky that its classroom created for him/her. Each classroom will create an Instagram account to follow where Flat Bucky and the athlete goes. The goal is to try and motivate kids in the moment and help create memories between Madison's youth and its role models.
In general, I see departments becoming formalized units within athletic departments. At the moment, there are few schools that use it as a tool to bridge the gap between campus and athletics. There is a simple way to keep track of volunteer hours and have the student-athletes impact the community in a positive way. This will allow their legacies to remain in the community once an athlete finishes school and continues to show the positive influence that partnerships between colleges on campus and athletics can have on the community.
That’s a wrap for this week. As always, please feel free to give suggestions on how Eric can improve his posts and any future topics that would be of interest!
Next week Eric will write about an event close to his heart: Race for a Reason. This is a student-run event that Ohio University's Sport Administration program coordinates each year.
Contact Eric
Community Tuesday Archives
Combining the Community Relations and Non-Profit Spaces
How the Bengals Addressed Hunger in Cincinnati
How San Francisco Made a Wish Come True
