Former Carleton students and first-year students in Algonquin College’s public relations program raised $26,500 in three weeks to “unlock change” for the John Howard Society.
The class of 57 students, including several Carleton graduates, hosted 13 events in March and April, ranging from bubble soccer to karaoke to a murder mystery dinner theatre show.
The class named their project “Let’s Unlock Change.” Sharon Cheung, media relations director for the fundraising project, said the name is “a play on words to unlock the potential for ourselves and for the community.”
The John Howard Society, named after a British 18th-century prison reform advocate, aims for “effective, just and humane responses to the causes and consequences of crime,” according to the national branch’s website.
Services the organization provides include advocating for changes to the criminal justice system and rehabilitation services for those who have been in conflict with the law.
The class of 57 students chose to fundraise for the John Howard Society after hearing of a classmate’s positive personal experience with the charity, Cheung said.
“It spoke such volumes to us . . . A charity that just doesn’t get a lot of light shone on it,” she said.
Major planning for the events began in February and March, Cheung said. Students were divided into 11 groups and each group was tasked with creating and running an event.
Some students also organized the opening and closing events in addition to their assigned group, said Chris Carroll, treasurer and trivia night host for the project.
Carroll, a Carleton communications graduate, said “making sure that everybody had fun at the event while still keeping the message” was important when running the events.
“We had a lot of focus on trying to promote the John Howard Society and what the society stands for,” Carroll said.
Cheung and Carroll both agreed that the project has not only benefited the organization, but the students themselves.
“This is probably the best real-world experience you could ask for in situations like this because it forces you to get out of the school,” Carroll said. “Being in a PR program, a lot of this had to do with getting the word out there.”
