Capes for kids: Business students create service learning project

May 10, 2015

At a long conference table piled high with red and purple and blue fabric, students are cutting out stars and hearts and spiders and flowers and what look like long bibs — the makings of capes, in various children's sizes.

"Who thought a bunch of college students would be willing to sew?" observes Tyler Gilbert, looking at his classmates, all intently focused on the task at hand.

The colorful garments are being created to one day bring comfort and whimsy to children suffering from serious illnesses. Once completed, the capes will be boxed up and sent off, some to the Children's Hospital of Wisconsin, and others to an international project that will distribute them, in turn, to hospitals and homes around the world.

The 20 or so students, mostly freshman business majors, are part of a one-credit service learning and leadership class. While the extra hours outside of class at the sewing bee are voluntary, the students are all too happy to join in.

"Most people like kids," says Gilbert, a freshman ecology major from Wisconsin Rapids. "Can't go wrong trying to help them."

At the end of the room, instructors Jolene Check and Kelsey Michels huddle around sewing machines, one pinning the shapes onto capes and the other sewing them on. The two combined their respective learning communities — the Business of Positive Influence and Business & Me — to create the course, which they co-teach. It's a first for both of them.

In the course, students select a project to support, develop a presentation to share with possible donors, raise money and finish the project by the end of the course.

"We believe this experience will help the students to grow their presentation, critical-thinking and problem-solving skills during the planning and presentation phase," said Check. "They will also see how they can take skills commonly associated with business and apply them to doing good."

The class settled on the idea of making children's capes and sending them to the Happy Soul Project. The Canadian organization is led by Tara McCallan, a woman whose daughter, Pip, was born with Down syndrome and had to endure numerous surgeries. The Happy Soul Project raises awareness for Down syndrome and as well as money to fund its Kick-It Capes project, which has sent hundreds of capes to children around the world.

Check first came across McCallan's blog and the Kick-it Capes project when own son, Weston, was born with Down syndrome 18 months ago. When Check and Michaels contacted McCallan about their class project, she was happy to show her support, skyping into class one day from her home in Kingston, Ontario, to talk about her work and answer students' questions.

"The project reaches children worldwide," said Check, "so it may help increase the students' exposure to how one person, group, business or organization can have an international impact."

McCallan is clearly thrilled that the UW-Whitewater class has taken up her cause.

"This one little girl soared into this beautiful thing," she says, referring to her daughter, Pip, and the Happy Soul Project, "And now a university in Wisconsin is interested. How cool is that?"

The global story has some local twists. A Facebook post about the project led a Whitewater community member to make a pile of capes and donate them to the class, along with some kits and additional material.

And a stipulation that monies raised benefit a regional recipient led to a partnership with Children's Hospital of Wisconsin, a facility that Rachel Drescher, a student in the class, knows well. The marketing major from Waukesha has spent hundreds of hours there since her younger sister Becky was diagnosed with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis 10 years ago.

"I have lots of memories of going there," says Drescher. "I was excited when I found out about the project, because that's where I want to work one day."

"I think the capes will help kids focus on something positive," she adds, "not just being stuck in a hospital."

Gesturing to her classmates, Drescher notes she's "not very crafty," and actually preferred developing and making the fundraising presentation to LIT, the Leadership Involvement Team student organization, which ended up donating $50 to the cause.

As the classmates snip and sew and the evening stretches on, they break only briefly, for pizza.

Otherwise they are all business — the business of doing good.

The class is still working toward its $500 goal, which will fund technology upgrades to the Children's Hospital and its new west wing, for families whose children are at the hospital for treatment. For information or to donate, contact Jolene Check at checkj@uww.edu or Kelsey Michels at michelsk@uww.edu.