Enticing smells of cakes and sweet treats from bake sale fundraisers always fill the halls at Agnes Irwin. Students pass walls embellished with colorful posters promoting service organizations and brightly decorated charity drive boxes. At Agnes Irwin, students are constantly taking initiative to support their community and the causes that they are passionate about.
Cici Curran ‘24 has been fighting to help people experiencing food insecurity since she was in sixth grade. After attending a food drive on campus, Cici sought out more information about food insecurity. She learned that people have the most difficulty getting food in the summer when schools cannot subsidize lunches, so she decided to start a drive of her own.
This year, at her sixth annual food drive, she collected 1,000 food donations and 1,000 monetary donations; she gave all of the donations to the Upper Darby Food Pantry to be distributed throughout the greater Philadelphia area.
Cici addresses some common misconceptions about donating to food drives. “Quality is actually more important than quantity,” she says. “It’s important not to bring in expired food. To be respectful of people who are shopping at food banks, you should not bring in food that you would not want to eat.”
Cici also reminds donors that everyone needs a balanced diet. To provide for the health of its recipients , food drives will often specify what nutrients they need more of from donors. Cici says that each year she receives a lot of pasta and soup donations. While all donations are valuable, she suggests that people donate less common essentials such as canned fruit, baby food and formula, and canned meat like spam. According to Cici, “while [food insecurity] is part of a greater systemic problem, donating to places like these is one of the best ways to help right now….People don’t realize how much families need food in the summertime. Anything you can give helps.”
Maeve Cox ‘24 has been fundraising for cancer research with the American Cancer Society (ACS) since her freshman year.
Maeve founded her own fundraising team to motivate students to donate to cancer research: Team 2024. Team 2024 competes with other teams of students ranging from high school to grad school to raise funds for ACS. Maeve’s team has been at the top of the leaderboard for the past two years and has raised over $2000 since Maeve first created it.
For her most recent project, Maeve raffled off treats at Goodness Bowls on October 1. She raised $250, all of which went directly to ACS (none of the proceeds went to Goodness Bowls). She used social media to draw lots of people to the fundraiser; social media has been a valuable tool for Maeve to gain visibility for ACS and promote the causes that matter to her.
Maeve finds her work so fulfilling because it is her ultimate goal to help others. She wants to do “everything [she] can” to prevent people from losing their loved ones to cancer. Maeve says that “fundraising takes a lot of work, but it really pays off.” She is grateful for the other members of Team 2024 who “make everything achievable.”
Both Cici and Maeve want to encourage others to embrace service by coming up with creative fundraising methods and spreading messages through visually pleasing social media posts. Maeve says, “I hope that by seeing my work, people realize that service can be fun!”
