Michael Rodgers, '14, and Mario Navarro
The class assignment employed straightforward entrepreneurship. Each student team had $14 and 14 days to create a business and start making money.
International students Michael Rodgers, ’14, and Mario Navarro didn’t know that this assignment in their spring 2013 Innovation and Entrepreneurship course taught by Dr. Kimberly S. Gower would eventually touch the lives of people on two edges of the Atlantic Ocean as well as school children in Richmond.
As business partners for the class, Rodgers, a degree-seeking student from the Bahamas majoring in business administration with concentrations in marketing and management, and Navarro, an exchange student majoring in economics from Spain’s Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, decided to form a not-for-profit and use crowd sourcing to raise funds.
What was their inspiration? The Youth Life Foundation of Richmond (YLFR).
Rodgers began serving his freshman year as a mentor and tutor for the YLFR through Build It, the University's neighborhood-based civic-engagement program coordinated by the Bonner Center for Civic Engagement. The YLFR operates summer programs and after-school learning centers for youth in at-risk Northside Richmond communities. The learning centers are safe environments where youth can finish homework and learn new academic skills.
“These kids have the same hopes as everyone else, but they don’t have the same resources or opportunities that everyone else has,” Rodgers said. “A lot of kids there are really ambitious.”
Rodgers learned that students attending the YLFR Delmont Learning Center struggled with outdated computer equipment.
Half the center’s computers did not connect to the Internet or to a printer. As a last resort, teachers sometimes loaned their personal computers to students during study time at the center, according to YLFR teacher Katharine Hunt.
The team decided to raise $1,500 to purchase computers for Delmont. Now they needed an innovative approach. Navarro used his technological know-how and understanding of crowd sourcing systems to set up a donation website at indiegogo.com. They had eight days remaining for the donations to arrive.
Rodgers and Navarro expected a few contributions from their personal contacts. The real excitement in the project occurred when the website began receiving gifts from unfamiliar donors in the Bahamas and Spain.
“The YLFR is in Richmond, and it’s so far away…but, [the donors] can still make an impact,” Navarro said.
By the class deadline, they had raised $650, far short of their goal. With the help of an anonymous donor, the fundraising continued. The donor pledged to more than double their current earnings in a direct donation to YLFR. As a result, the foundation had enough funds to purchase two desktop computers and four Chromebooks, which have the potential to open doors for their grammar school students.
“The computers have been one of those things we’ve needed literally for years,” Hunt said. “Now, the children use the computers for homework and projects, and then for free time at the end of the day.”
The community service culture at Richmond is more integrated with academics than at his home university, Navarro said.
“This project definitely got me more interested in philanthropy and helping kids and education,” Navarro said. “I feel like access to computers and access to education are something everyone should have. If I can help in any way in the future to make that happen, I will probably become more engaged.”
Photo: Michael Rodgers and Mario Navarro (left to right) outside the Carole Weinstein International Center.