Kenan-Flagler launches new service initiative

The UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School might be excited to prove its commitment to service after deciding not to build houses with the Orange County Habitat for Humanity — and the name of its new service initiative leaves little doubt.

Business Cares is a philanthropic program that will focus on children’s health. Students, faculty and staff will work with three main charities: N.C. Children’s Hospital, Ronald McDonald House of Chapel Hill and Super Cooper’s Little Red Wagon Foundation.

“I think it gets back to the Carolina Way,” said Taylor Mallard, an MBA student in the Kenan-Flagler Business School and a member of the community service committee.

Students, faculty and staff can support each charity in multiple ways, including collaborating on projects at the business school and fundraising opportunities like the Business Cares Golf Tournament in April.

For the past 10 years, the business school partnered with Orange County Habitat for Humanity to build several houses for Orange County residents in need. Tom Cawley, director of special events in the business school and chairman of the community service committee, told The Daily Tar Heel in October that different considerations, such as location of builds, led them to decide to stop partnering with Habitat for Humanity on houses.

A community service committee made up of current students, faculty and representatives from the different programs of the school worked to form the new philanthropy plan for the business school.

Following the changed relationship with Habitat for Humanity, Cawley said in an email that the committee worked to determine the new direction of its philanthropic efforts and weighed feedback from multiple areas of the business school.

“Supporting children’s health was a common theme from the survey results, and it was an easy idea to get behind,” he said. “We thought we had the capacity with this initiative to assist more than one charity — hence, we landed on three.”

Meghan Gosk, senior associate director of student development in the business school and member of the community service committee, said students and staff in the school work with nonprofit and charity organizations, completing projects from building prosthetic arms to building bikes.

Business Cares, she said, will expand the opportunity for faculty and staff to get involved.

“The purpose of the committee is that we at Kenan-Flagler make an impact in a positive way,” she said.

But change is hard, Mallard said, and she thinks they will need to help others understand that this is a good change in service initiatives.

“Business Cares is moving forward in a really positive way, taking an active role ... so that Kenan-Flagler continues community service and philanthropy,” she said. “It’s a really exciting period for Kenan-Flagler.”

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