Not like any Sunday — Community service the ‘Shop With a Bulldog’ way

For most college students, the majority of Sundays — especially during football season — are reserved for recovery, and perhaps for the more productive, getting ready for the next week of class. However, for students serving with Shop With a Bulldog (SWAB), there is always a Sunday marked as ‘Event Day’ on their calendar for something different. Once a year in November, hundreds of UGA students and community volunteers come together after months of planning, fundraising and recruiting to make sure the holiday season is special for around 500 local elementary schoolers. This year, Event Day fell on November 8th. The jam-packed Sunday involves primarily a fundraising-supported shopping trip at a local Walmart, but also includes giftwrapping, a visit from Hairy Dawg, games and sports at Cedar Shoals High School, and most importantly, an opportunity to meet an older role model. “It’s truly such a special day,” Mailey Turner, the director of fundraising for SWAB, said. “ A lot of people from UGA are able to meet these younger kids, and so that they can have some role models as well.” For Turner, her experience with SWAB began her sophomore year, when she joined with a desire to get involved in a nonprofit.  SWAB is a 501 (c) 3 nonprofit, which means the work that Turner does “all year round” is vital. According to Noah Moore, SWAB’s director of finance, the budget from previous years has been about  $130,000.This budget comes from not only corporate sponsors, such as ZZ & Simone’s, Coca-Cola and others, but also from the UGA volunteers themselves. Student mentors are tasked with raising $75 each, so when two mentors take a child shopping at Walmart on Event Day, their money combines to $150. Mentors are the backbone of SWAB on Event Day. They are the duos who are paired with the kids for the day. They meet the elementary schoolers in the morning, before riding with them in school buses to Walmart, where the mentors help the kids choose clothes, toys and more to buy with their $150 dollars. On the amount of mentors involved on Event Day, Katherine Piroumian, one of the co-directors of committee, said there were nearly 800. As a member of SWAB’s committee, Piroumaian works with 30 individuals directly under the executive board. “If you know me, you know that I’m always talking about SWAB,” said Piroumian. This is Piroumian’s third year with the nonprofit, and she said she has remained passionate about SWAB year after year. “It genuinely was something that I connected with immediately.” This enthusiasm for both service and for SWAB itself as an organization is a common trait amongst the group’s leadership. For Anna Schiffer, the co-director of recruitment for SWAB, the organization  gave her perspective on what community service can really mean. “I remember my first year I signed up…waking up that morning, early, kind of annoyed,” Schiffer said. “I ended up having such a great day and realizing that something that really doesn’t take a lot of effort on my end is going to make a kid’s entire holiday experience.” Schiffer is certainly putting in the effort. As the co-director of recruitment, her job includes running tabling at Tate, information meetings and even “SWAB mobile” which is when the leaders “decorate our cars and drive around campus once each semester, basically doing anything we can to just educate people about SWAB.” On Event Day, this means waking up at 5am, and being “at the Dunkin’ before 6am” to then  work the wrapping paper station. “Whenever anything’s needed anywhere, I’m running, I’m going, , I’m just doing everything I can to make the day go smooth,” Schiffer said. Perhaps what gives Schiffer the energy to run back and forth across Cedar Shoals High School is an experience she had her first year, when she was only a mentor. “I spent the whole day with this girl– she was so spunky, so fun,” Schiffer said. “We went shopping, everything, and when we were eating at the cafeteria, she was asking me to help her steal some chips, and I was like, ‘Why are you trying to steal chips?’ She was like, ‘We don’t always get to eat at home.’  It was just a big realization moment for me.” Since SWAB can only support so many children, choosing the kids who participate in Event Day is an important undertaking, and the organization has a whole position on the executive board dedicated to it. Danielle Kremer, director of mentees, maintains a working relationship with the Athens-Clarke County Schools and their Family Engagement Specialists, who work closely with the families and pick the children, according to Kremer. Since there are 15 schools which Kremer works with, a certain number of spots are allocated to each school based on the school’s individual needs. Though committee members and executive members may be the students primarily organizing Event Day months in advance, they are often moving back and forth between Walmart, the lunchroom and other places like Cedar Shoals’ gym or theatre. For the majority of the kids who are able to shop, it is the mentors who they will remember, along with the toys and clothes they bring home. Since the mentors work in pairs, they often are friends previously, or in the case of first-year mentors Haley Rowell and Lauren Willcoxon, roommates. “I’ve loved it. I’ve loved spending the day with Jeremiah and getting to see him pick out all of his toys” Rowell said. The two students were talking about Jeremiah, one of the elementary schoolers participating in SWAB, whose ‘purchases’ included socks and a shirt, but most importantly to him, an action figure of someone he called “the GOAT”- Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson from the WWE. Though SWAB  is student-run, that doesn’t mean the organization doesn’t receive any outside help. When it comes to transporting the students and volunteers to Walmart and back to Cedar Shoals High School, SWAB relies on volunteer bus drivers and helpers from the local community. One of these volunteers, Leslie-Ann Evans, was helping SWAB out for the fifth year. “I think it's a really good thing to give back to the community,” Evans, who during the week fills in for school bus drivers who call out of work, said. “A lot of kids I see ride my route, and I just like seeing them excited.” Though SWAB  has hundreds of students and volunteers helping to make the children of Athens-Clarke County have a special holiday season, there are countless roles and positions these people fill. From bus drivers, to mentors, to face painters, to executives, SWAB is an undertaking with more than a few moving pieces. When asked if there was anything she wanted to add about SWAB, Schiffer’s response was a plea to the Athens community. “Join next year, be a mentor,” Schiffer said “The more people that sign up to be a mentor, the more kids we can do this for, so you are really having that direct impact on that kid.”