Undergraduate Government of BC president Jenniffer Castillo, A&S '08, and vice president Dan Sievers, A&S '08, and newly elected executives Chris Denice, CSOM '09, and Alejandro Montenegro, A&S '09, have proposed a Service Trip Endowment - an established fund to help finance trips. This type of program could be enormously beneficial.
First, the program could help provide equal access to these programs. By decreasing the amount individuals have to contribute to their travel expenses, this fund would allow students with tight budgets the ability to participate in these trips without breaking the bank. While individual aid is currently available on a case-by-case basis in programs like the Appalachia Volunteers, the cost of the trips are often a deterrent to interested students.
Second, the fund would allow students to better prepare for the experience. Without spending inordinate amounts of times working on raffles, point drives, and fundraising letters, students could focus on the issues of the communities they will be visiting and ways to bring the experiences on the trips back to BC.
This fund would not and should not cover all the cost of the trips. There still is something to be said for seeking community support for such endeavors. But an endowment could go a long way to defray costs that often make or break the feasibility of students affording a trip, especially with regard to the international trips.
The money for such a proposal need not come from the University's general fund. With a growing number of alumni having participated in and devoted to these programs, directed fundraising should be possible and even relatively simple. It would be a great way to get young alumni in the habit of giving to BC, while furthering the strategic initiatives underway at this school. Though directed giving is already possible, in most cases money "given to" a program is simply deducted from the amount allocated from the general funds. A service endowment, by contrast, would be budget-enhancing instead of budget-relieving, providing service organizations with additional resources to improve their programs.
As the school looks to present itself to the outside world as a university marked by its Jesuit values and active in fostering those ideals in its students, it should continue to talk up the exceptional service programs on campus. Now, however, it needs a way to put its money where its mouth is.
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