College Students Join Forces with BECA
SOURCE's BECA team (from left): Nick Zosel-Johnson, Carey Tan, Francesca Iofredda, Julian Nachtigal
With support from the Kravis Leadership Institute, a talented and hardworking group of undergraduate students at Claremont McKenna College (CMC) in Claremont, CA are dedicating their time and skills toward helping BECA achieve success in its long-term goals. Their newly-formed partnership with BECA is part of a larger CMC student-run program called SOURCE (Student Outreach Utilizing Resources and Community Exchange), which provides valuable consulting services to nonprofits at no cost to the recipient organization.
SOURCE was conceived in 2005 by juniors Daniel Hayman and Michael Peel as a way to utilize the resources of CMC students to help nonprofit organizations improve their services while simultaneously enhancing student development. With the support of Kevin Arnold, a Leadership Educator at CMC’s Kravis Leadership Institute, Hayman and Peel formulated a plan for SOURCE and brought together a highly motivated team of students to help carry it out. Since then, members of SOURCE have been working hard to help select nonprofit organizations build capacity and increase their efficiency.
“There’s really no limit on how far we can go with these projects,” remarked Peel, “we are striving for long-term projects with substantial impact.”
BECA joined SOURCE’s roster of recipient nonprofits earlier this fall, thanks largely to the efforts of CMC senior Nicholas Zosel-Johnson. Zosel-Johnson first became involved with bilingual education last year when he had the opportunity to teach English during a study abroad semester in Ecuador. Inspired by his experiences abroad, Zosel-Johnson pursued a position with BECA. At the time, BECA was looking for a Summer Program Director to assemble their first ever summer program at the San Jeronimo school in Cofradia, Honduras. Zosel-Johnson jumped at the opportunity and, with the help of a McKenna International Internship grant, spent two months putting together and running BECA’s new and very successful summer camp program.
“Working for BECA was an extremely rewarding and eye opening experience. After developing a meaningful relationship with the Cofradia community and BECA, it is hard not to want to keep working them.” Zosel Johnson explains, “I am very grateful for this opportunity which would not have been possible without the generous backing of the CMC. Its projects like these that make CMC such a unique and exciting place to go to school.”
Upon returning to school in the fall, Zosel-Johnson approached Hayman and Peel with the idea of a partnership between BECA and SOURCE. The SOURCE founders saw the opportunities that a partnership with BECA could provide, and worked quickly with Zosel-Johnson to assemble a new group of students who could begin working immediately. Students Francesca Iofredda ’10, Julian Nachtigal ’08, and Carey Tan ’07 were all chosen for the new team based on their strong leadership skills and enthusiasm.
The group has set extremely ambitious goals for their project, including the implementation of new fundraising strategy, the creation of a new social tourism and cultural exchange program, and a complete redesign of the BECA website. Though they recognize the great challenges that lie ahead of them, the students remain undaunted. “I am very excited to be a part of this team,” remarked Tan. “We’ve got a really fantastic set of people working on this project, and I am completely confident that together we will be able to help BECA achieve great things.”