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Country music plus accounting equals rewarding class project |
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Kim Harvey |
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Apr 24, 2008 |
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| Jessica Newton showed off a UT hat she received when visiting the accounting class. |
When Kathleen Fitzpatrick proposed a special project to students in her accounting class, some were skeptical.
Most of the students had no experience in planning fundraisers. Many had never met a child whose life-threatening illness qualified her as a recipient of a “wish” from the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Northwest Ohio.
“My first thought was, ‘How does this relate to accounting?’” 22-year-old Stephanie Williamson recalled. “It was a big thing for our instructor to trust us with all of the responsibilities.”
Fitzpatrick, associate professor of business technology, needn’t have worried. When she introduced the idea of working with a charity, the concept was clear to her, even if the details were more fluid.
“It was a flash of inspiration on my part,” Fitzpatrick said, noting that the project involved practical applications such as working in groups, managing people, delegating responsibility, budgeting and fundraising. “I wondered if there was a way I could incorporate service learning into my classroom, and I had many of these students in a previous class. I knew what they were capable of.”
She said several students had learned the concepts of accounting, but hadn’t applied them to real-life situations. “I remember them saying a few times during the planning, ‘Are we really going to do this?’”
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| Kathleen Fitzpatrick, associate professor of business technology, showed Jessica Newton some of the gifts from accounting students as her mom, Josephine, watched her daughter’s happy reaction. |
From the onset of the class in January, Fitzpatrick made the students stakeholders in the project. Representatives of several charitable organizations were invited to speak with the students before one was selected. Groups were formed to organize several fundraisers to meet their goal, which was simple.
“All we knew was there was a girl named Jessica who wanted to go to the [Academy of] Country Music Awards,” said Miguel Flores, 20. “We wanted to help her get there any way we could.”
Fundraisers included ice cream, wristband and T-shirt sales, penny wars, loose change collections and recycling drives. One group persuaded a local business to devote a portion of a night’s profits to Jessica’s cause.
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| Fitzpatrick and Newton |
The last of the fundraisers wrap up within the next few weeks, but, on April 8, the students were gratified to meet the person whose wish inspired them. Seventeen-year-old Jessica Newton and her mother, Josephine, met the students, accepted gifts and thanked the class.
“This is a situation when I think we underestimate where our young adults’ hearts lie,” Josephine said. “It’s really nice that these students did all these things for someone they don’t even know.”
Jessica is a student at Clay High School in Oregon. Born with an underdeveloped heart muscle that has caused medical complications throughout her life, she didn’t speak much, but her wide smile relayed her gratitude.
Josephine told the class her daughter loves sports, especially Detroit-based teams, as well as country music. The funds raised by Fitzpatrick’s class will help Make-A-Wish grant Jessica’s request to attend the Academy of Country Music Awards in May 2009.
According to its Web site, the Make-A-Wish Foundation is a national organization that grants the wishes of children with life-threatening conditions. Examples of fulfilled wishes include trips to Walt Disney World, meetings with golfer Annika Sorenstam and boxer Oscar de la Hoya, and shopping sprees at famous department stores.
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