Hundreds of MBA students, faculty and staff at Columbia Business School (CBS) will fan out into the communities surrounding the school this Friday for an inaugural student-led volunteering initiative called Day of Impact. As part of the day-long event, members of the CBS community will give back to their larger community by beautifying city parks, delivering meals to home-ridden residents, preparing food for a food bank, caring for animals in need and more.
“Making an impact on society — however large or small — is a huge part of who we are at Columbia Business School,” Sheila Lalani ’14, vice president of community service for the school’s Graduate Business Association, said in a statement. “The idea behind Day of Impact is to demonstrate our community’s commitment to not only bettering the business world once we graduate, but also working to improve the community in which we live.”
As part of the event, CBS students, faculty and staff will partner with organizations including Citymeals-on-Wheels, Food Bank for New York City, the Humane Society of New York and New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. Beautification efforts will take place at a range of city parks, including Morningside Park, St. Mary’s Park and Hamilton Grange National Park, and meals will be delivered through meal providers Jan Hus Church, Leonard Covello Senior Center and Goddard-WEME Mainstream Nutrition Program.
CBS Associate Dean Michael Malone plans to volunteer as part of the Morningside Park beautification efforts. “We are so proud of our students for bringing this opportunity to life,” he said in a statement. “They are constantly looking for new ways to demonstrate the impact Columbia can have outside of the classroom. This initiative really reflects what we believe in most strongly at Columbia: leadership through action, community-wide collaboration, and rolling our sleeves up to make a difference.”
Volunteers throughout the day will stay in touch and communicate their activities via social media, using the hashtag #CBSDayOfImpact to post photos, videos and updates about the progress of their efforts.
Lalani proposed the Day of Impact idea in 2013 to the school’s administration, and it has since been embraced by the entire CBS community. Lalani hopes it will become an annual event that grows in scope each year.
