20 Years of buildOn:
Supporter Geoffrey Norman has a buildOn Family

Geoffrey and Christina Norman in Zimbabwe

Over the last 20 years, buildOn’s mission has inspired the support and passion of many individuals whose enthusiasm has, in turn, rallied the aid of others. But Geoffrey Norman is a special case. “Once you come into contact with buildOn, you get infected with it,” he told me over the phone. “And there’s no known cure!” What he didn’t mention then, but what became clear throughout our conversation, is how quickly one can spread the contagion. A former asset management executive at General Electric who witnessed one of the first presentations that our founder and CEO Jim Ziolkowski gave to the leadership team at GE, Norman inspired his entire family to join the buildOn team.

Norman described his initial meeting with Ziolkowski fondly. “In the early 1990s, probably around ‘93, Jim was invited to present his story to GE Asset Management’s leadership team. He was such a young guy, and spun an incredible story about building schools in places like Nepal. I was intrigued by the story, and impressed by Jim’s passion and charisma. I went up to him afterward and asked if I could help. I still am.”

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buildOn Alum Erica Virvo Inspired to Travel and Change the World

We were recently contacted by buildOn alum Erica Virvo about the path that she’s taken after being inspired by constructing a school with us in Nicaragua almost 10 years ago. Virvo now works at Richmond Vale Academy (RVA), which provides community service leadership training and opportunities to travel abroad to developing countries to make a difference. To learn more, read Virvo’s reflection, below, and contact her at virvoed@vcu.edu!

Erica rides a camel in the desert of Qatar

Born and raised under the same roof in Connecticut my entire life, I never pictured myself living in any other country, ever.

buildOn changed my view of what my life could be. At the age of 15 (nine years ago), I got a taste of Nicaragua that left a lasting impression on me. Traveling to Palo Verde, a tiny village of 200 Spanish-speaking, salsa dance-loving, family-oriented, schoolhouse-needing villagers showed me that my actions could make a difference. I mixed my first batch of cement, dug my first latrine, sucked on my first sugarcane stalk, ate my first bean and met the first group of people that directly benefited from my service. buildOn gave me a chance to better understand the win-win situation that is achieved by empowering American students to then help empower communities worldwide.

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buildOn Alum Rebecca Garfinkel Fights for
Her Peers’ Right to Education

Our buildOn Alum college application personal statement series continues with Rebecca Garfinkel, who was inspired by the inequality in Detroit’s public school system. Read Allison Garvey’s essay and Alan Lin’s.

buildOn Alum Rebecca Garfinkel

Last summer, I was selected through buildOn to become an intern for Recycle Detroit, a non-profit based in downtown Detroit. I was on the Wayne State University campus for buildOn’s required professional development workshops along with nine or ten other interns assigned to different organizations. Each of the interns were young women from inner-city Detroit; being white and from an affluent suburb near the city, I already felt like an outsider.

This feeling intensified when, during lunch one day, the girls started complaining about their schools. One of the first friends I had made, Odessa, told me that her English teacher had once called her an idiot for pronouncing a word incorrectly. Her twin, Vanessa, added that in the last few weeks of her school year, the students had staged a protest by walking out of the building during school hours. The protest had been shut down by the police, and students were threatened with jailtime if they did not return to class. The reason for the protest: None of the restrooms in the school were stocked with toilet paper, so the administration locked the doors of every single one. Continue reading…

buildOn Alum Alan Lin Aspires to Do Good for the Globe

Next up in our series of college application personal statements from buildOn alums is Alan Lin, a student from California whose life was changed by service. A very moving story, Alan! Read Allison Garvey’s essay from last week.

buildOn Alum from CA, Alan Lin

I grew up with severe asthma as a child. I was imprisoned in my home, connected to a machine that allowed me to breathe. This confinement left me with no social interactions with my peers to harvest essential life-experiences for my growth as a person. For the majority of my rueful childhood, I would end each day of school by going home and play videogames until my mind would rot.

My parents were born and raised in Burma (Myanmar), so they did not know how to help me out of this depression I developed. They did not understand what I was going through and they did not seem to care too much, because they were too focused on my older brother’s growth and education. It is the traditional Burmese custom of putting all the effort into raising the perfect, eldest son. I am the second eldest son. I only got the leftovers, along with the asthma. My view of the world spiraled downward and in turn, I isolated myself from all my peers, not having any dreams or aspirations.

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buildOn Chapters Roadshow: Washington, D.C.

By Tom Silverman, Global Chapter Manager

Read about buildOn Chapters!

Read about the Chapters Roadshow and the first stop in Pittsburgh !
Stop #2: Washington, D.C.

Chapters Director Tom Silverman visits an iconic site in Washington, DC

With all the newspaper and blog headlines focusing on the corrupt and partisan culture of our nation’s capitol, it was relieving to visit Washington D.C. and experience the goodness of people in that city. I had many meaningful and inspiring conversations with folks in various D.C. Universities and throughout the wider community. But while D.C. is truly internationally minded, global endeavors often lack a service component. Our Regional and University Chapters in D.C. are looking to change this by introducing buildOn to their city!

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Alumna Haben Girma Overcomes Obstacles to Reach Out

Haben Girma at the Capitol Building in Washington, DC

Haben Girma truly embodies the spirit of buildOn. A deafblind woman who overcame incredible obstacles to help construct a school in Mali, her resilience and passion inspire nearly everyone with whom she comes into contact. and culminated with Haben’s helping to build a school in Mali. Since graduating, Haben has written extensively about her buildOn experiences in college application essays, which won her a full scholarship at Lewis and Clark College and acceptance at Harvard Law School. She met President Obama to discuss disability rights last summer. She delivered the following address as an alum at our buildOn Dinner in the Bay Area in 2011.

The Saharan sun attacked my sun-screened skin. The 130-degree temperature was almost unbearable. I bent over and shoveled sand repeatedly, until exhaustion forced me to pass the shovel to the next member of my team. I had come to West Africa to help build a school for 800 children eager to learn. These eighteen days were among my most memorable experiences of triumphing over difficult obstacles, and as a deafblind woman I have certainly encountered many difficult obstacles. It required months of insistent self-advocacy to convince my Ethiopian father to let me volunteer abroad. His were valid worries: how would a girl with limited vision and hearing participate in a program that had little experience with students with disabilities? Through strong self-advocacy, I succeeded in both earning my father’s blessing and making a place for myself among the brick-making and culture-sharing.

High school is a time of change. When I joined buildOn my sophomore year of high school, I was searching for skills that would allow me to change the world. Before I joined buildOn, I asked myself whether a woman with disabilities could have a positive influence in the world. I shared my worries with Abby Hurst, the program leader at my high school. “So, can I really go to Mali? How exactly am I going to help build a school?” Her answer held optimism and determination, “We’ll find a way, we’ll figure it out.” Long after my memorable trip to Mali, buildOn’s spirit of optimism and determination has continued to propel me forward. My college admissions essay described how buildOn inspired me to study cultural anthropology, and as a result, I won a full-tuition scholarship at Lewis & Clark College. A few years later, in my law school application, I symbolized my commitment to public service through an anecdote from Mali. Thanks to the magic of Mali, I am now in my second year at Harvard Law School.

High school students stand waiting and ready to take on challenges that guide them into a productive adult life. When you give these students the opportunity to engage in meaningful community service, you give them the skills of leadership that will remain lifelong assets. Without the positive support I received from buildOn’s staff members or the volunteer opportunities in my community and abroad, I probably wouldn’t have survived Harvard Law or even met President Obama at the White House last summer. And it all started at fifteen, “I want to go to Africa and build a school.” I learned people with disabilities have the power to change the world. I learned courage. I learned my limitless limits. I would have never guessed back in high school that joining buildOn would have lead me to so many more great things.

Twenty Years of buildOn:
Nicaragua Inspires Alum Helena Pylvainen to Fight Inequality

buildOn alum Helena Pylvainen thinks a lot about social inequality. She strives, in her day job as an educational program evaluator, to facilitate changes that might level the global playing field. But her career path has also partially been an attempt at understanding the source of existing socio-economic imbalances. “Most of the programs we evaluate,” she told me, “have some kind of public funding or outreach mission. A lot are trying to get minorities and girls interested in careers where those groups are underrepresented, like engineering and science. But there’s a lot of questions about why those disparities exist in the first place.”

There was striking passion and confidence in Pylvainen’s voice as she discussed injustices that so many others have taken for granted. And behind that passion and confidence is a burning curiosity that demands answers. “Why are some people so poor and others so rich?” she interjected at one point during our conversation, then adding: “I’d really like to work for a government agency some day and be part of the ‘change from within’ process.”

One has to wonder where this outlook came from. As a teen, Pylvainen attended Michigan’s renown International Academy, and was exposed early on to the nuance of hardship both in the United States and abroad. But thinking back, she attributed much of her current perspective to her years with buildOn. “I first heard about the organization when I was in the 9th grade at IA,” she commented. “A student a few years older than myself gave a presentation about her school building trip. And that got me interested.”

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buildOn Salutes Fathers

In honor of Father’s Day, we asked our staff to share text and images that communicate how their fathers have influenced them and started them down the path to community outreach. A Happy Father’s Day to all, and please share your own memories in the comments!

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Abbe Ewell and her Dad

My dad has always been involved in the community – doing everything from taking on projects and leadership roles to support the Boy Scouts, emceeing fundraisers for the local Salvation Army, and recruiting friends and community members to get involved with various causes. The most memorable project that my dad started over 25 years ago is called Santa Feeds the Kids. Every December he collects donations to purchase groceries for 20+ local families in partnership with a local children and family services agency. Then, a couple days before Christmas, he recruits friends and family from the community to do the grocery shopping early in the morning. It’s an inspiring experience to see 30-40 people come out at 6:30am to fill carts with groceries for families in need. And it definitely confirms the fact that one person’s idea can positively impact many, many lives. My dad’s investment in our community and big ideas for giving back have long been an inspiration to me – helping me better understand the difference that I can make in our world.

- Abbe Ewell, Program Coordinator & Training Specialist

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They buildOn: Alum Starts Organization to Teach Yemen Community About Environment

Dearborn and Hamtramck, Michigan's Save Yemen’s Flora & Fauna group founded by buildOn alumnus Jowhara Zindani

buildOn alumnus Jowhara Zindani is a global ambassador dedicated to saving the environment. She spearheaded Save Yemen’s Flora & Fauna, an advocacy group that educates the Yemeni community in Dearborn and Hamtramck, Michigan about the importance of sustaining a green environment. They are also spreading awareness about qat, an addictive plant that is cultivated and chewed by the people in Yemen. SYFF mission focuses on Agricultural restoration, Water conservation, Anti-qat mobilization, Reforestation and Education (AWARE).

Jowhara started the initiative as a Facebook page while still an undergrad in 2008, using the social network to recruit students who were equally enthusiastic about saving the environment. Her focus was to reach out to the working class community where she was raised, to those without access to environmental information. She was also concerned about the dependence to qat in her community: People in Yemen traditionally use the plant as a stimulant, but, according to Jowhara, many don’t think it’s addictive. Qat is also a cash crop that takes up a lot of water and “Yemen is the first country threatened to dry out in five years,” Jowhara said.

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They buildOn: Alum Donovan McKinney Motivated to Serve by Personal Experience

Donovan McKinney is used to being in the spotlight. He was on the Today show last year with buildOn’s founder, Jim Ziolkowski, where he was packaging food at the Detroit Veteran’s Center. Last year he was president of his school’s buildOn program and was one of five finalists for the Governor’s Service Youth Volunteer of the Year Award.

But success has not been easy for Donovan. His family has lived under the poverty line since he was born, and there were times where they lived out of their car or without electricity. Despite these hardships, he remained optimistic and dedicated himself to his studies and to service. He spoke about these experiences last week at the Michigan Nonprofit Association’s Celebration of Giving and Volunteering event on the steps of the state capitol. The event was held by the Michigan Community Service Commission to honor Michigan’s leaders in community service.

In his speech he said, “I always knew that having a life was the only way I’d ever be able to live. I wondered why things happened the way they did. Why was there trash on the side of the freeways? Why were there so many abandoned lots and homes in the neighborhood? And why is it even though we live in the richest country in the world, there are still so many of us living on the streets, wondering where our next meal will come from? I still don’t have the answers to these questions, but I always found my own solutions in doing my part to give back.”

Donavan McKinney talks to Lloyd Carr, former football coach for the University of Michigan.

Current city: I’m a freshman studying Political Science and Economics at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

High School attended: Renaissance High School in Detroit, Mich.

Years at buildOn: Four.

How did you get interested in community service?

I had this motivation to (make a change), because no one else was going to do it. I didn’t grow up with a lot. My family and I were always living under the poverty line. I felt like other families, especially in my own neighborhood, were going through the same things. I realized that no one was going to help us out. I realized I had to do everything I can.

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