$2,507,900
Amount Raised
19,566
Gifts Received
Explore our past projects and learn more about their impact!
Projects
399 Projects
Cal Ice Hockey (Spring 2023)
By Tyson Storr
We need your support to achieve our goal of winning the PAC-8 championship and to give back to the community through hockey outreach events!
We need your support to achieve our goal of winning the PAC-8 championship and to give back to the community through hockey outreach events! The Cal Ice Hockey Team was founded in 1929 and has competed in the PAC-8 conference since 1996. This past season we finished with a 14-7-1 record and our program continues to see success as we qualified for the 2023 ACHA Western Regional Tournament. Although our team has been successful we have continuously struggled to make ends meet because we receive no funding from the school. As a result, we depend heavily on donations and player fees that can prevent competent players from joining our program due to the high barrier of entry. In addition, we are unable to conduct more hockey outreach events, such as “Try Hockey for Free” skates where we could help teach children how to play hockey. Any donation can go a long way and we are extremely grateful to those who can help us continue our passion of playing ice hockey. Celebrating our 'Big Freeze' 11-2 win over Stanford Based on previous budgets and our current plans, we expect to spend approximately 100k in the 2023-2024 season. The majority of our budget is dedicated to rink fees, which covers the costs of renting ice time for practices, games, and travel. Our budgeted expenditures are shown in the graph below. Our project originates from our financial struggles that continually makes it difficult for our team to improve and succeed. Due to our lack of funding, our team has to be extremely frugal holding practice times at 6am. This puts an extreme strain on our players as we attempt to balance the workload of attending UC Berkeley while pursuing the sport we love. In addition, we only can afford to practice twice a week compared to our competitors who practice 4-5 times a week leaving us at an extreme disadvantage. Lastly, Not only does our budget leave us with inconvenient practice times, but we are also unable to travel to play more competitive teams to compete for the national championship. Captain Jake Sitak preparing for play All things considered, the most important goal of this fundraising campaign is to expand our impact on the surrounding community. Specifically, our team hopes to invest time and money in hockey outreach events with projects like charity games, summer camps, and youth team mentoring. Another implementation our team strives to make is holding a “teddy bear toss” game, where after the first goal is scored fans will throw teddy bears onto the ice that will then be donated to an orphanage or sick children’s hospital. In closing, your donation will go a long way to help both the team and the communities of Berkeley and Oakland. The team standing with the Oakland Bears youth program for the national anthem Check out our social media! Facebook: @cal_icehockey Twitter: @calicehockey Instagram: @calicehockey Website: https://www.calicehockey.com Feel Free to Contact Us! tysonstorr@berkeley.edu Just another picture to celebrate our 11-2 win over Stanford ;)
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Graduate Fellows Program 2019
By UC Berkeley
Preparing social change scholars to remake the academy … and the world!
We made our original goal and have set our sights higher; stretch goal = $20,000!
Preparing social change scholars to remake the academy … and the world! We made our original goal and have set our sights higher; stretch goal = $20,000! Stretch goal = $20,000! We made our original goal and have set our sights higher! $20,000 would mean $2,000 for each Fellow. A $60 donation will pay for one interview to be transcribed or one week of transportation! Changing the world is hard work! The Graduate Fellows Program (GFP) prepares UCB graduate students to be social change scholars who do first-rate, relevant and impactful research on the most important issues in the U.S. today: immigration, education, gentrification, health, and more. The Graduate Fellows are a diverse group of social change scholar activists who need peer and financial support to finish their interdisciplinary dissertations. Every dollar donated is used to provide stipends to students, freeing them from other paid work so they can complete their degrees. All other costs of the training are provided in kind by the Institute for the Study of Societal Issues. Each year, 10 or more students participate in the program. With your support, the ’19-20 Fellows can complete their dissertations, share their knowledge with the world, and contribute to making change. For more than four decades, the Graduate Fellows Program has trained and mentored Berkeley doctoral students engaged in research on social inequality and social change. The Graduate Fellows Program (GFP) has a proven track record of diversifying the academy, with over 150 alumni of color, most of whom have become faculty members. Drawing on life experiences that are not often represented among professors -- for example, as teen mothers, refugees, gang members, first generation college students -- our alums conduct cutting-edge research on topics that matter to their communities and the world. Due to budget cuts, your funding is essential to build on this legacy. The GFP provides two years of funding, training, professional development, and hands-on mentorship. Fellows receive a monthly stipend and attend weekly training seminars designed to help them advance their research, complete their degrees, and successfully navigate the academic job market. Students from a range of social science disciplines and professional schools, including Education, Law, Public Health, Public Policy, and Social Welfare, have successfully participated in the program. We want to keep the training and peer support going this year and in years to come. Your gift will make this possible. The GFP has four key features that make it unique and its contributions distinctive on the Berkeley campus and nationally: The program offers a relatively long-term, sequenced and closely monitored form of training and mentorship that encourages the development of cross-disciplinary theoretical frameworks, research skills, and a broader perspective on the role of social science in the study of social change. The program includes specific mechanisms and both group and one-on-one support designed to foster publications and prepare students for the academic job market. The cohort model of the GFP nurtures a safe space and supportive community of scholars that serves to lessen the isolation felt by students from underrepresented groups. The program is designed for students in the middle period of their graduate study, when they typically receive the least amount of support (financial and professional) and are most vulnerable to dropping out. We are relying on the support of the community, and you are part of our community! Please give today to support the social change scholars of tomorrow. https://issi.berkeley.edu/Graduate_Fellows_Program issi@berkeley.edu "Breaking Barriers, Building Community" was a conference held in 2014 to celebrate 35 years of our graduate student training. Video of the conference is available here. Jere Takahishi, alum; Troy Duster, founder; Janice Tanigawa, retired office manager; Bob Yamashita, alum
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The Bearettes Drill Team at Berkeley
By Kassandra Ruiz
Please support The Bearettes Drill Team at Berkeley! We bring spirit and empower talented people of color to feel proud on Berkeley's campus.
Please support The Bearettes Drill Team at Berkeley! We bring spirit and empower talented people of color to feel proud on Berkeley's campus. Thank you to all of the wonderful donors who have helped us reach our initial goal! We are extremely grateful for all of your support! We now have a new goal of $4000! Who We Are Since 2015, the Bearettes's mission is to serve underrepresented communities and the greater Cal community, as a group of students that demonstrate diversity, inclusion, and empowerment through performance and discipline. We strive to create a space where students from different backgrounds, communities, and cultures can come together to portray Berkeley through a different lens. Thus, we aspire to bring spirit to and provide a space for people of color to feel proud and showcase their talents on Berkeley's campus. We will do so by honoring and recognizing the history of dance and majorette dance to minority communities. Why Donate? While we are excited to participate and show the Berkeley community our performances and dances, as a fairly new group, we are still accountable for providing the majority of our own funds. As an organization whose core values lie in inclusion, we do not want to create a financial barrier for students that cannot afford the attire that we purchase individually for the team. Because of this, we’d like to fundraise and seek funding as much as possible and work hard to reach these goals. Every year thus far we have purchased our own uniforms, but we are looking forward to fundraising for new, more permanent and longer lasting uniforms, warm-up jackets and pants for current and new members of 2023-2024. We hope to also use the funds for internal and external events for the community such as our futures showcase and banquet. For our banquet, we hope to invite the community and donors to meet and thank everyone in person. Not only that, this event highlights our team members and their accomplishments as we continue to grow as a team. For our showcase, we hope to invite other cultural groups so that we can learn and support each other here at the UC Berkeley campus. We will also give our team members the opportunity to individually perform and showcase their talent to the UC Berkeley community. This year, 2023, will be our first year hosting a showcase, and we hope to continue this event and make it an even larger event! Sekayi Bardell - President Our NEW Budget Breakdown Total $4000 $1000 external events (ex. 2024 showcase event materials) $2100 supplies (ex.Performance wear, Warm-Ups, Uniforms for New Members) $900 internal events (ex. 2024 banquet event materials) We’d like to count on your support through any possible donations. We really appreciate any help we can get, and would like to thank you in advance for taking the time to consider us - as we are a team that needs your help to continue to grow. Jasmine Turner - Social Media Chair Breya Barber - Vice President Brooklyn Grant - Co Captain Stay Connected Find us at EVERY football and basketball HOME GAME Contact Us: bearettesatberkeley@gmail.com Follow our Instagram: @bearettesatberkeley
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UC Martial Arts Program
By Elaine Chao
We’re raising funds to meet the critical financial need of the oldest university-based martial arts organization in the US.
We’re raising funds to meet the critical financial need of the oldest university-based martial arts organization in the US. UCMAP needs your help! In 2019, the University of California Martial Arts Program celebrated its 50th anniversary. In 2020, the world irrevocably changed. We’re raising funds to support the ongoing operations of the oldest university-based martial arts organization in the U.S. The COVID-19 pandemic has had impacts around the world. Early on in the pandemic, the UC Martial Arts Program met the moment by pivoting to a virtual presence, offering various classes to the UC Berkeley community. With this, events such as the UC Open Taekwondo Tournament, the Chinese Martial Arts Tournament, in-person classes, and our annual youth summer camp have been paused in order to meet state, local, and campus guidelines. As a primarily volunteer-run organization, UCMAP continues to run at a significant deficit and is unable to meet basic operational costs. Without your support, UCMAP will struggle to return to full strength when we are able to return to in-person training. Dr. Ken Min founded UCMAP in 1969 to bring quality martial arts education to UC Berkeley. From one man’s passion, UCMAP has become a respected international institution—one that has created world champions and Olympic gold medalists. But more importantly, UCMAP is a global family. More than 40,000 students have walked through its doors, forming lifelong friendships that cut across cultures. Together, through the teachings in Judo, Karate, Taekwondo, Taiji, Wushu, and Yongmudo, we've learned confidence, perseverance, and teamwork—and still cultivate these values long after we’ve left the training hall. This is what martial arts is about: supporting one another to stand strong, together. Give what you can to help UCMAP continue its mission for generations to come. We need to raise a total of $50,000 to help us weather the pandemic’s toll on our program and set us up for success when we return to in-person training. The money raised will not be used for staff salaries or for any particular martial art—all funds will be used for the survival of UCMAP. The UC Berkeley Foundation is a 501(c)(3) organization, and donations are tax-deductible. Thank you for your support! If you have any questions, want to be a matching donor, or want to help us publicize, please contact us at fundraising@ucmap.org! How will these funds be used? PHASE 1: $10,000 INITIAL GOAL MET! THANK YOU! PHASE 2: RESERVE FOR FACILITY IMPROVEMENTS, TECHNOLOGY & EQUIPMENT. These funds will support ongoing facility improvements, technology to support live-streamed classes, and updated equipment, all of which reinforce the growth and stability of UCMAP. Join our fundraising wall! Donate at a certain level to be honored on our fundraising wall on ucmap.org. Bronze-level supporter: $35 and above Silver-level supporter: $100 and above Gold-level supporter: $250 and above Platinum-level supporter: $500 and above Supporters’ Circle: $1,000 and above Sponsors’ Circle: $3,000 and above
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UC Berkeley Women's Club Soccer
By Cal Women's Club Soccer
NEW STRETCH GOAL $12,500! Help us become the most successful Berkeley Crowdfunding project to date by reaching 250% of our initial goal!
NEW STRETCH GOAL $12,500! Help us become the most successful Berkeley Crowdfunding project to date by reaching 250% of our initial goal! Cal Women's Club Soccer Thank you to all of the wonderful donors who have helped us reach both our initial goal and our first stretch goals so quickly, and for becoming the most successful Berkeley Crowdfunding project to date by reaching over 250% of our initial goal! We are extremely grateful for all of your support! Our Mission Cal Women's Club Soccer was founded in 1995 as a way for academically driven women to continue playing soccer in college. Since its founding, the size of the club has grown exponentially and now includes almost 50 talented women; many of whom turned down offers to play D1 soccer at other schools in order to attend Berkeley. As a historically self-funded and self-run organization, we have relied on many personal sacrifices from our players, generous donations from family and friends, and annual player dues to stay afloat. Despite our best efforts to raise money, because of our minimal funding we have been unable to compete to our full potential. Last fall, we finished first in our league qualifying for the National Tournament. However, we were unable to afford the trip to Alabama and were forced to end our season early. This motivated us to work harder and the team went undefeated throughout spring league in hopes of once again qualifying for nationals again this coming fall. We would greatly appreciate your support as it would play an integral part of not only helping our club continue as an organization but also hopefully aid us in our pursuit of a national title! Please make a gift today to support our team! What Your Donation Goes Towards Your donation will not only help fund our venture to the National tournament but also our day to day needs as a club. Because we have had to prioritize immediate costs, like tournament and referee fees, we have subsequently lacked the funds to provide both teams with more basic necessities, such as adequate equipment for trainings. We have even had to share one set of jerseys between two teams to save money. By donating to our club you'll be helping us provide a better environment for all of our players! Who We Are Since Fall of 2016 we have expanded our program from one team to two in order to increase the opportunities for women on campus to play competitive soccer. This semester we have a diverse group of almost 50 girls! (not all pictured) A Team B Team What year are you? Which Berkeley college are you in? Where are you from? How many years have you been playing soccer? Keep Up With Us Find our schedule on our website and follow our social media for more regular updates! Facebook: Cal Women's Club Soccer Instagram: @calwomensclubsoccer #calwomensclubsoccer Thank you for all your support! Please share our page and help us reach our goal!
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Centuries of Food Wisdom: From Mothers to Mothers
By Asian Pacific Islander Health Research Group (AAPIHRG)
Let's keep going! For every NEW $100 we raise, 7 more books will be donated! Please support women’s health by granting greater access to postpartum recipes.
Let's keep going! For every NEW $100 we raise, 7 more books will be donated! Please support women’s health by granting greater access to postpartum recipes. Thank you for your support! Our crowdfund campaign has ended. However, if you'd like to continue supporting us, you can make an online gift here or purchase "From Mothers to Mothers" at Eastwind Books of Berkeley in stores or online here. We are beginning to work on phase 2 of our postpartum project. For questions or comments, please contact us at frommotherstomothers@gmail.com. Visit us at aapihrg.berkeley.edu Support women’s health by sharing traditional Asian postpartum recipes passed down from generation to generations. Background Giving birth is one of the most transformative experiences in a woman’s life. Her body goes through significant physical and emotional changes. In many Asian cultures, postpartum recipes are common to help rebalance a new mother’s health and to ensure sufficient lactation for her newborn. These centuries-old traditions have been kept alive through sharing recipes and cooking for one another from one generation to the next. However, as assimilation of Western culture grows and due to a lack of documentation, the significance in this information will soon be lost. There is now a renewed interest in its preservation. Project Developed in 2014, students at UC Berkeley in the Asian Pacific Islander Health Research Group (AAPIHRG) started a "Postpartum Nutrition Folklore Project." We collected over 30 recipes and published them into a multilingual cookbook titled “From Mothers to Mothers.” The goal is to preserve and share this rich knowledge with our community, especially to new mothers. Our longer term goal is to encourage interest and research on a broader collection of recipes and ultimately, a scientific analysis of its nutritional value. Goal We are raising $3,000 to print and donate 200 books to local health clinics, cultural centers, and public libraries that serve under-resourced communities. Some examples are Oakland’s Asian Health Services, San Francisco’s Northeast Medical Services, and Oakland Asian Cultural Center. “From Mothers to Mothers” will also be available for sale at Eastwind Books of Berkeley. All proceeds and funds raised through this project will go 100% towards the printing of additional books for free distribution. Action Will you consider making a gift today and sharing this project with your friends and family? Gifts of any size make a big impact on women's health and the preservation of our community's wisdom. All donations are fully tax-deductible. We hope we can count on your support and participation, it is most sincerely appreciated. Thank you for your support! “My most treasured dish is the quintessential Cantonese postpartum concoction of ginger, sweetened vinegar, pig trotters, and whole chicken eggs....In my own postpartum recovery, I took pleasure in every gulp, savoring the complexly rich flavors and the equally intense fragrance it produced. The concoction induced heat that radiated from my core and provided extraordinary warmth. It nourished not just the body but also the soul and senses.” - A passage from the book’s foreword by Professor Lok Siu, Ethnic Studies Department Visit us at https://aapihrg.berkeley.edu, https://www.facebook.com/AAPIHRG Email us at frommotherstomothers@gmail.com
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Freedom in Action Conference 2020
By Freedom in Action
STRETCH GOAL - $3000: Help us prevent modern day slavery by bringing a dialogue about the role of structural vulnerability in human trafficking to the Bay Area!
STRETCH GOAL - $3000: Help us prevent modern day slavery by bringing a dialogue about the role of structural vulnerability in human trafficking to the Bay Area! Freedom in Action Join us in combating human trafficking by donating to support our Freedom in Action Conference! Thank you for the continued support and donations! Today is the last day to help us reach our goal of $3,000 in order to include survivor perspectives in our conference. This additional money will go towards travel expenses and speaker fees for the survivors who will be coming to share their lived experiences with us. We, the Anti-Trafficking Coalition at Berkeley, are a group of student activists from diverse backgrounds and fields of interest, dedicated to challenging normative perceptions of human trafficking, fostering survivor-sensitive dialogues, and engaging our community to become a unified voice against human trafficking in all of its forms. Did you know that, “According to the National Human Trafficking Hotline, California consistently has the highest number of human trafficking incidents reported in the United States” (H.E.A.T. Watch)? Human trafficking is both a local and global issue that we plan to discuss during our Freedom in Action Conference on March 1, 2020. First held in 2014, the Freedom in Action Conference brings together students, professionals, and community members from around the Bay Area to discuss the issue of human trafficking at home and abroad. It’s put on in partnership with the McCain Institute and Blum Center for Developing Economies and is made possible through donations and community support. Our upcoming Freedom in Action Conference centers on the theme of vulnerability: deconstructing the policies and overlapping power hierarchies that make communities more vulnerable to human trafficking. Understanding systemic inequities and how to engage with these social systems is paramount for activists to effectively combat human trafficking. This year's Freedom in Action Conference provides an opportunity to explore why trafficked victims of color are often incarcerated; deconstruct why children under Child Protection Services are more vulnerable to trafficking; learn why substance use and being HIV positive often leads to being a victim of sex trafficking; engage with the systems that often bind immigrants to trafficking; and expose the systematic prejudices and social structures that cause homeless youth and those identifying as LGBTQ+ to be trafficked. Holly Joshi, former Executive Director of MISSSEY, speaking at The Freedom in Action Conference in 2018. Our keynote speaker, Lindsay Rosenthal, leads The Initiative to End Girls’ Incarceration. She has been pivotal in the anti-trafficking movement and exposed the “Sexual Abuse to Prison Pipeline,” bringing awareness to the widespread incarceration of girls of color as a direct result of their status as survivors of trafficking and sexual violence. Human trafficking is not ignorant of race, class, justice system involvement, substance use, homelessness, HIV diagnosis, immigration status, or gender identity-- it is reinforced and perpetuated by complex structures. Through the power of community engagement and informed dialogue, we can make a difference and help build a world where freedom is a universal reality. But we can't do it alone. We need your help—will you join us in the fight against modern-day slavery? Your donation of $5 or greater supports a unified community voice against human trafficking. "For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others." - Nelson Mandela Please join us in combating human trafficking by donating to our organization and supporting our Freedom in Action Conference! The following graphic details how funds will be used to support our Freedom in Action Conference. Please donate today! Contact Us Email: berkeleyantitrafficking@gmail.edu Website: antitrafficking.berkeley.edu
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Lindy on Sproul
By Lindy on Sproul
Lindy on Sproul is an organization run by UC Berkeley students who teach and host the weekly Saturday dances they hold on Sproul. STRETCH GOAL OF $5,000!
Lindy on Sproul is an organization run by UC Berkeley students who teach and host the weekly Saturday dances they hold on Sproul. STRETCH GOAL OF $5,000! Lindy on Sproul Lindy on Sproul thanks all of our donors for their donations! We decided to set a stretch goal of $5,000!! Your money will be directed towards planning Berkeley Lindy Exchange 2019, buying more passes to workshop events in the Bay Area as well as planning more workshops on campus hosted by Lindy on Sproul. Please show your support for the swing community through sharing and donating! Lindy on Sproul 2013 It’s a foggy Saturday morning on Sproul Plaza. The year is 2004. As you make your way past the iconic Savio Steps and wander through the skeletal trees lining the entrance to campus, you notice a small group of people faithfully lugging a strange assortment of run-down equipment across the plaza. Two massive amplifiers, a car stereo system, and a boat battery? What could they possibly be doing? They set up camp outside the Golden Bear Café, and the tinny sound of a muffled trumpet begins to emit from their speakers. You watch with growing delight as you realize their mission: to dance. This was Lindy on Sproul’s beginning. Lindy on Sproul 2014 Started by one dedicated grad student with a dream, Lindy on Sproul has since grown to become a central pillar of the East Bay swing dance community. Each Saturday for the past 14 years, rain or shine, we have provided a safe public community for new and seasoned lindy hoppers to social dance. Many people hold this place near and dear to their hearts. Some took our beginner lesson on a whim and now run professional swing dance venues in Oakland. Some regularly attend to relax from a stressful week and catch up with friends. Still others are growing in their dance journeys and use our social dance floor to discover new things about themselves and this historic art form. Will you consider making a gift to help continue our tradition? Lindy on Sproul 2018 Lindy on Sproul is run by a dedicated troupe largely made of 25 undergraduate students. Our distinct style of teaching, both for beginner and intermediate dancers, has been passed down through the years from graduating senior to excited freshman. Our DJs spend hours browsing through dusty collections of jazz compilations to find the perfect list of songs, while our hosts welcome anyone showing interest in our dancing with open arms. We are unique in that we charge no cost for our venue, and we do not plan on closing that door any time soon. For the past 10 years, we have also run UC Berkeley’s own swing dance decal, SwingCal. This 1-unit class offers a more in-depth introduction to lindy hop, complete with cultural history, hours of structured lessons, and guest teachers (who are often alumni). SwingCal 10 Year Anniversary with Alumni and Friends! We’re currently gearing up for our annual event, Berkeley Lindy Exchange. Founded in 2015, this weekend-long event aims to provide social dancing for college students. The weekend consists of amazing local live bands, beautiful indoor dancing, inter-collegiate meetings, competitions, and so much more. We are planning to use our raised funds to provide monetary scholarships for these aforementioned workshop weekends. A few selected students will be given the opportunity to attend premiere classes with renowned swing dancing instructors, meet fellow dancers from around the world, and hone their skills in a challenging setting. The budget breakdown is as follows: A new speaker to use for playing swing music at social dancing events [$150-200] One pass to Fog City Stomp, a workshop weekend in San Francisco [$200] Fog City Stomp 2017 One pass to Swingin’ at the Savoy, another workshop weekend in Oakland [$200] Swingin' at the Savoy 2017 Two passes to San Luis Obispo Exchange(SLOx), a college swing dance exchange at Cal Poly SLO [$100] San Luis Obispo Exchange 2018 Various dance passes to smaller events around the Bay Area [$200-250]. Additional money will be used for advertisement purposes, such as printing flyers and banners [$100]. Please make a gift today! Every dollar helps us support dancers in this wonderful journey of learning about themselves, improving their dance skills and meeting new dancers on the way. Thank you for your donation, it means a lot to us! If you have any questions, email us at lindyonthesproul@gmail.com or send us a message on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LindyonSproul/ or instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lindyonsproul/ . Feel free to reach out to project managers for specific questions as well.
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The Bearettes Drill Team at Berkeley
By Kassandra Ruiz
NEW GOAL: $5000 Please support The Bearettes Drill Team at Berkeley! We bring spirit and empower talented people of color to feel proud on Berkeley's campus.
NEW GOAL: $5000 Please support The Bearettes Drill Team at Berkeley! We bring spirit and empower talented people of color to feel proud on Berkeley's campus. Thank you to all of the wonderful donors who have helped us reach our initial goal! We are extremely grateful for all of your support! Who We Are Since 2015, the Bearettes's mission is to serve underrepresented communities and the greater Cal community, as a group of students that demonstrate diversity, inclusion, and empowerment through performance and discipline. We strive to create a space where students from different backgrounds, communities, and cultures can come together to portray Berkeley through a different lens. Thus, we aspire to bring spirit to and provide a space for people of color to feel proud and showcase their talents on Berkeley's campus. We will do so by honoring and recognizing the history of dance and majorette dance to minority communities. Why Donate? While we are excited to participate and show the Berkeley community our performances and dances, as a fairly new group, we are still accountable for providing the majority of our own funds. As an organization whose core values lie in inclusion, we do not want to create a financial barrier for students that cannot afford the attire that we purchase individually for the team. Because of this, we’d like to fundraise and seek funding as much as possible and work hard to reach these goals. Every year thus far we have purchased our own uniforms, but we are looking forward to fundraising for new, more permanent and longer lasting uniforms, warm-up jackets and pants, and transportation fees for future team events. Our New Budget Breakdown $2500 uniforms $1000 cover ups $1000 transportation $500 internal events We’d like to count on your support through any possible donations. We really appreciate any help we can get, and would like to thank you in advance for taking the time to consider us - as we are a team that needs your help to continue to grow. Stay Connected Find us at EVERY football and basketball HOME GAME Contact Us: bearettesatberkeley@gmail.com Follow our Instagram: @bearettesatberkeley
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Cal Band: Fund for California
By Alyssa Ransom
Where family and fun comes together to make music and memories. Help us reach our goal to build new lockers!
Where family and fun comes together to make music and memories. Help us reach our goal to build new lockers! This project has ended, but you can still support amazing Berkeley initiatives by visiting give.berkeley.edu. Your continued support of our students, faculty and staff will ensure that Berkeley remains the #1 public university. Go Bears! We have one last goal to reach, 125 donors! Help us reach our goal by making a gift today! The University of California Marching Band is a student-run organization dedicated to spreading the California spirit and bringing excitement to Cal fans through our music and performances. As a group funded primarily through private sources, we greatly depend on the generosity of our donors. Pumping up the crowd in with a pregame battle at the Armed Forces Bowl in December 2015 In the fall, Cal Band practices every day to rehearse music and run through our marching routines for our football pregame and halftime shows. When we are not practicing on the field, we proudly wear our Straw Hat Band uniform to all manner of sporting events like basketball, and volleyball, to show our support to our athletes and entertain Cal fans. Our annual Sproul Steps during Cal Day 2015 We also play short sets for Cal Band alumni events, summertime CalSO groups, and anyone who would like to bring our spirit and music to their special events. Most recently, we performed in the Super Bowl 50 halftime show alongside Coldplay, Beyonce, and Bruno Mars. This was an experience of a lifetime that truly demonstrated our ability to work with professionals and showcase our traditional marching style to an audience of over 150 million viewers. We will continue to reach out to new audiences and further spread the California Spirit as we journey to China and Japan for our Asia Tour at the start of summer. Our final rehearsal before performing in Super Bowl 50 Amazing opportunities like these have allowed us the chance to extend our reach to not only our Bay Area fans, but also to the international community. We are currently working to raise money to replace our old lockers for new ones to match our size. Our current instrument lockers are broken, outdated, and require replacement. As the band continues to grow, space is becoming increasingly cramped, and our locker rooms are not storing our belongings securely. Thanks to the generosity of our donors so far, we have raised $80,000 toward $150,000 for a complete a full replacement of 350 lockers. With your support during this campaign, we hope to raise an additional $15,000, which will help cover the cost of 17 lockers, complete layout renovation, and 15 benches. Any gift today at any level to bring us closer to our new locker room. Questions? Concerns? Contact Alyssa Ransom at calband-prd@berkeley.edu. Thank you and Go Bears!
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Cal Men's Lacrosse
By UC Berkeley
Thank you for helping us reach our initial goal! Can you help us get to $10,000?
Thank you for helping us reach our initial goal! Can you help us get to $10,000? Thank you for helping us reach our initial goal! Can you help us get to $10,000? Hi Cal Lacrosse family, friends, and fans! I’m Josh Chen, current president of Cal Men’s Lacrosse. I play defense and am entering my junior year in Chemical Engineering this fall. Cal Lacrosse is entering its 54th season in 2018, coming off a semifinal appearance in the Men’s Collegiate Lacrosse Association’s National Championships last season. With the addition of another strong recruiting class, the Bears aim to bring a National Championship to Berkeley while continuing to achieve in the classroom. To succeed this year, we will need not only hard work on the field but also the support of the entire Cal Lacrosse community. We need your help. The Bears celebrate after beating Colorado in overtime in the 2017 MCLA National quarterfinals As a club sports team, we receive minimal assistance from the University - less than 1% of our annual operating costs. In order to pay for our coaching staff, equipment and uniforms, team travel, game fees, and services like stadium staff, we depend upon a combination of player dues and donations. In fact, half of our income comes from donations from alumni, family and friends! They are vital to our existence and vital to our success. Projected expense and income breakdowns for the coming 2017-2018 season Your donation will help the club pay for coaches, game fees, and essential player equipment like jerseys and gear. Please make a gift today! Thank you for supporting Cal Men's Lacrosse. Go Bears! The Bears prepare for battle in Memorial Stadium Your donation at work: $3,000- Player Scholarship $2,000- 1 night in a hotel for Team $1,000- Team meal $500- Player pack $200- Helmet $100- Gloves $50- Hoodie $25- Game Day T-shirt
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Project RISHI
By Tanvi Thummala
Stretch Goal: $7,500 Help us implement sustainable development projects and promote the growth of rural Indian communities!
Stretch Goal: $7,500 Help us implement sustainable development projects and promote the growth of rural Indian communities! Project RISHI (Rural India Social & Health Improvement) is a student-run non-profit organization whose mission is to promote the sustainable development and growth of rural Indian communities. Currently, our chapter works in a village called Bharog Baneri in Himachal Pradesh, India on initiatives that include: rainwater harvesting, education, health camps, and women's empowerment programs. Since the beginning of the pandemic, we have been working to provide assistance to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and the burden it has placed on the community. We are currently expanding our existing projects to make a bigger impact on our 2022 India Trip, and we would love to get support to implement the following: Rainwater Harvesting Rainwater Harvesting plans and helps implement the building of rainwater harvesting systems in Bharog Baneri. Because agriculture is crucial to the villagers' livelihoods, access to water is extremely important. Funds will go towards subsidizing these systems (the materials and labor costs) to ensure that families can secure enough water for their farms. Education Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in India, the entire education system of the country has had to go online. In Bharog, this means that some students have difficulties with accessing online content due to a lack of video playback devices. Furthermore, the secondary school in Bharog is currently underfunded resulting in students not being able to pursue streams of their choice as information about their options is not available. Funding would not only go towards helping students gain access to video playback devices but also remaining funds would be used in providing the students with a career panel where professionals provide information on possible avenues for students. Women’s Empowerment The Women’s project group focuses on initiatives related to women’s health and empowerment. The Women’s project group is currently working with a New Delhi-based organization called PINKISHE. The funds allotted for our Women’s project group will be directed towards reusable pad distribution and menstrual hygiene workshops that will be held in Bharog Baneri. Funds will also be allotted to implementing initiatives, such as livelihood programs, that promote women's empowerment. Health: The Heath project group is focused on community health development through the Primary Health Center as well as directly in the village through sustainable initiatives aimed at increasing awareness, accessibility, and quality of healthcare. The funds allotted for our Health project group will be directed towards the organization of a clinic hosted by auxiliary nurse-midwives. This will provide villagers easier access to primary care to manage chronic diseases and detect health conditions. Additionally, funds will go towards raising awareness and education programs surrounding the need for immunizations. Remaining funds will be used to assist the Primary Health Center in providing quality care for the villagers. For the 2021 - 2022 year, our crowdfunding funds will be distributed between the four project groups as follows: Project RISHI Berkeley is excited to bring our passion for rural sustainable development to upcoming projects in Bharog Baneri this summer. At RISHI, making a difference is rooted in learning about other communities and listening to them rather than imposing our own vision. With your help, we as a community can work towards empowering others and confront the challenges that Bharog Baneri faces. If you have any questions, please reach out to our Director of Fundraising at tanvit@berkeley.edu or send us a message on our social media platforms: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ucbprojectrishi/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ucbprojectrishi/
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California Ice Hockey | Spring 2018 Campaign
By Sami Morse
STRETCH GOAL OF $7,500
STRETCH GOAL OF $7,500 Cal Ice Hockey's thanks you for your unrivaled support! We have already reached our initial goal of $3,500 and we're implementing a new stretch goal of $7,500! Your money will go towards adding more games in our schedule, expanding our financial aid program for our players, and various upgrades to improve your experience as fans, such as a larger school store and more reliable livestream equipment! -- As a student-run organization, California Ice Hockey strives to embody the values of UC Berkeley on and off the ice. As a team, we have improved our record from 4-11 to 17-2 over the past four seasons, earning second place in the league tournament this past year; furthermore, we have gotten involved with programs like Try Hockey for Free, a national effort to introduce kids from underprivileged communities to hockey. Going forward, we hope to further develop our team’s competitive strength, while leading various other youth outreach programs with the East Bay communities. Will you help us by making a gift today? As a growing hockey program consisting of 20 players in the Bay Area, we require a large budget to fund our road trips and pay for ice time at one of the only rinks in the area. Each year, we use around $80,000 (detailed below), and this past year we were forced to hold a last-minute donation drive in order to help raise enough money for our season. Nevertheless, we had to retroactively increase our dues and cut practices just so we could play the minimum amount of games to be a member of the league. For the upcoming season, we are looking to avoid this issue and hope to fundraise enough money to improve our team as a whole and allow for promising student hockey players who have the talent to play, but lack the funds, to compete. Moreover, additional funds will also allow us to launch various initiatives within the community, as discussed further on. In spite of our 17-2 regular season record this past year, we finished 18th in the Western region of the American Collegiate Hockey Association (ACHA) and we lost in the Finals of the PAC-8 league tournament. Because of our low regional standing, despite our won-loss record, our inability to win the PAC-8 tournament meant that our season was over at that point. If we had been able to face more top-tier teams throughout the season, we would have been better prepared for the championship tournament or earned a high enough regional standing to earn an invitation to the ACHA’s Western Region tournament. With the funds we raise, we hope to grow as a program; we intend to schedule additional practices in better time slots (currently we practice after midnight for the lower cost ice time), play higher-ranked teams, and raise our skill level, so that we can improve our level of play, earn top ten in the region, and qualify for regionals. Most importantly, with more funds, we'll be able to impact the community in more substantive ways. This past year, we participated in our first Try Hockey for Free Event at Oakland Ice and are looking to expand our community involvement efforts. With more money, we'll have the resources to participate in more of these events and sponsor our own programs to inspire kids to play hockey at a young age, and bring hockey to disadvantaged communities in Oakland and Berkeley. Your donation will go a long way to help both the team and the community. Please make a gift today! Check out our social media! Facebook: @calicehockey Twitter: @Cal_IceHockey Instagram: @californiaicehockey Website: https://www.calicehockey.com Feel free to contact us at jordankthompson@berkeley.edu sami.morse@berkeley.edu
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Fastpitch Softball at Berkeley Fall 2021
By Emily Ramey
Help Fastpitch Softball at Berkeley rent fields and purchase equipment!
Help Fastpitch Softball at Berkeley rent fields and purchase equipment! Hello. We are a group of girls who have started a club softball team at Berkeley! We are just a bunch of college aged women who love softball and want to provide the opportunity for experienced players to play fastpitch softball as well as teaching new players the joys and wonders of the sport. We first started this organization back in 2019, but just as our efforts were about to pay off, COVID-19 happened and our dreams of playing in the National Club Softball Association were dashed. But this year, with the world opened back up, we fully intend to have regular practices, play scrimmages with local schools, and compete in the NCSA representing UC Berkeley. We are depending on your support to pay league dues, purchase team equipment, rent practice space, and travel to tournaments, and through these efforts we hope to make softball more accessible and fun for Berkeley’s students. Here are some of our budget items for this year: League dues: $950 Team uniforms: $200 Field costs (subject to COVID): $350 Transportation: $400 Total: $1,900 We are asking for 600 dollars in hopes that with smart financial decisions, we will be able to stretch this money to last us through at least this semester. We will travel to a few local scrimmage games in the fall and will play four league conference tournaments in the Spring. If you have any questions, you can contact us at berkeleyclubsoftball@gmail.com or contact anyone on our leadership team: Captain: Emily Ramey, emily_ramey@berkeley.edu President: Mikayla Blair, mikaylablair@berkeley.edu Vice President: Lianne Wong, liwong10@berkeley.edu Treasurer: Amanda Tai, amandahltai@berkeley.edu Fundraising: Rachel An, rachelan2001@berkeley.edu You can also follow us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/calclubsoftball/ We hope that you will consider donating to help us reach our goal, and please share our page with your friends and family! Thank you so much for stopping by! - Emily, Mikayla, Lianne, Amanda and Rachel
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OWN IT
By UC Berkeley
To empower the young women of today's society by offering them with the opportunity to interact with other successful and experienced women.
To empower the young women of today's society by offering them with the opportunity to interact with other successful and experienced women. The funding from this project will support a day long OWN IT summit on April 7th of 2019 that is designed for female college-aged students, and is offered at a very affordable price to them. This summit is similar to a business conference, but it is different from other business conferences held on campus because it is geared towards encouraging young women to be their most authentic selves rather than specifically being a business conference for only networking purposes. The summit will consist of several keynote speakers as well as breakout sessions in which attendees will be able to listen to other speakers in a smaller setting, allowing them to ask questions and interact with these speakers. We expect that around 200 people will attend this event, a demographic audience we expected to be comprised of mostly college- aged females; however, it is not limited to just college-aged females. The summit will be an all day event, from around 9 am- 4 pm. Our mission is to bridge the gap between female leaders of the 21st century and the young women who look up to them, so this event will serve as an opportunity to interact and learn from some of these successful female leaders. This event will be the main event of OWN IT for this school year, so all donations and preparation will be geared towards this event. Below is a breakdown of our budget to see what funds will go towards: For more information about OWN IT feel free to contact Nadine Horneck at nadinehorneck@berkeley.edu. Any support is greatly appreciated, thank you!
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TechHive Teen Makerspace
By Hilary Lai
Fund a makerspace and internships at UC Berkeley to give a diversity of teens authentic design experiences in engineering and technology.
Fund a makerspace and internships at UC Berkeley to give a diversity of teens authentic design experiences in engineering and technology. This project has ended, but you can still support amazing Berkeley initiatives by visiting give.berkeley.edu. Your continued support of our students, faculty and staff will ensure that Berkeley remains the #1 public university. Go Bears! THE IDEA The Maker movement has tremendous potential to engage youth with hands-on science and engineering. Makers – amateur designers who combine technology and traditional arts to make creative projects – learning by doing and sharing their knowledge with others. Some K12 schools have begun to take advantage of the maker movement by creating “makerspaces” where their students can use technology to create their own projects and participate in this growing community, but many youth don't have access and are being left behind. This is especially true of girls and minorities – demographics that are already underrepresented in science and engineering. What if we could provide diverse teens access to a space where they could imagine, create, and apply what they learn in school to real world projects? The TechHive at the Lawrence Hall of Science is exactly that type of space. TechHive is designed as an in-depth internship experience where teens engage their interests while learning design, engineering, science, and coding through mentorship by professional engineers, Cal engineering students, and industry representatives from leading Silicon Valley companies. Interns work on teams to create interactive exhibits and design events like makeathons, which teach others science and engineering. Through this work, teens learn technical skills, teamwork, communication, and leadership skills. THE BACKGROUND TechHive is inspired by the spirit of Cal engineering and the Maker movement. Our interns become makers – amateur designers who combine technology and traditional arts. They make creative projects by using newly learned skills, such as coding and computer-aided design to create real life projects. They are then encouraged to showcase and explain their work at events like the Bay Area Maker Faire (reaching over 100,000 attendees in 2015). While “makerspaces” are popping up in schools and clubs, many youth are still left behind. The TechHive Studio aims to provide access for all, which includes increasing engagement for girls and minorities – demographics that are already underrepresented in the STEM field. THE PROGRAM Internship: TechHive will engage 75 high school students from around the Bay Area this school year. Split into three cohorts, they meet every Saturday for a 10 week intensive internship. Each cohort includes several returning students who mentor incoming students. After a series of skill building workshops, teens are challenged to work on design projects for the Lawrence Hall of Science, industry partners, schools, and/or other community partners. These hands-on projects help teach other children and families about science, technology, and engineering. A subset of teen graduates are promoted to serve as mentors for the next cohort. Teen interns are also eligible for paid positions during the summer at the Lawrence Hall of Science. Deliverables: After a series of skill building workshops, teens are challenged to work on design projects, which may include exhibits, public programs, product design, or events in collaboration with industry partners, schools, and other community partners to help teach other children and families about science, technology, and engineering. Interns often go on to participate in other Lawrence Hall of Science programs, which creates a pathway for further STEM engagement. THE INTERNS Interns need no prior experience in technology or engineering; just some interest and willingness to learn, and work on a team. The program recruits teens from around the East SF Bay Area that represent the cultural, economic, and racial diversity of the region. Interns include both high school girls and boys. The program provides the opportunity for youth to learn about and from each other, to be immersed in using technical language of science and engineering practices with high and low-tech tools, and to be mentored by Lawrence Hall of Science educators, Cal students, and designers. SUPPORT TECHHIVE TechHive relies on private financial support to remain accessible for teens. Our goal is for all students to participate in the internship regardless of financial need, background, or lack of experience. We need your support. Your tax deductible gift today will enable us to provide this learning opportunity at no cost to local youth. We have already established a community of educators and a makerspace in the Lawrence Hall of Science, stocked with the tools and technology necessary to run the program. All funding goes towards hands-on materials, staffing part-time mentors who run the program, field trips to labs, and travel expenses for interns. $200 will support one week of programming for one student. Your gift could fund a teen for a week, a month, or a full 10-weeks of life-changing and impactful experiences. Give now to propel teens along a meaningful learning pathway and give them experiences which can inform their future careers. We are excited to share that the impact of your donation will be doubled! Chevron, one of the world's leading integrated energy companies and a champion of U.S. science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education, has generously agreed to match every donation up to $5,000. We have a chance reach and exceed our goal by working together! Donate now to support TechHive. THE IMPACT “I didn’t even know that engineering could be fun.” - Sam Lee, TechHive Intern “We design things that help each other and other people.” - Ming Horn, TechHive Intern “TechHive is really cool because I got to learn a bunch of things about building things and coding.” - RJ Viray, TechHive Intern “It’s good to have a place with people who also think science is cool.” - Briana Sydney,TechHive Alum "Being a part of TechHive gave me access to plenty of valuable high-tech resources that I’ve greatly admired." - David Xie, TechHive Alum Testimonials like these illustrate how TechHive creates positive learning experiences and associations with STEM for teens. An equal numbers of girls and boys currently participate. In the coming 2015-2016 school year we will continue to provide opportunities for underrepresented and female high school students. With your support, we can offer more students from the East Bay these transformative internships. Beyond personal development, TechHive is a connector in the community surrounding UC Berkeley, the Lawrence Hall of Science, Bay Area companies, and local communities. Over the past three years, TechHive has developed a welcoming community and space outfitted it with soldering irons, power tools, design software, 3D printers, basic electronics, and a paper cutter. We employed two part-time design educators, partnered with the Berkeley Engineers and Mentors, attracted Cal students to mentor interns, and built a growing learning and teaching community. Just this last year, TechHive created a Mole-A-Whack exhibit that won 7 awards at MakerFaire, built and wired an interactive haunted house for a local high school, designed cardboard robotics for a Robot Petting Zoo Makeathon to teach STEM to other SF Bay Area teens, and delivered a new festival with interactive learning activities about nanotechnology, electricity, and conductivity. Returning students and alumni share their experiences with their classmates, teachers, and co-workers, bringing new meaning and insight to our local community. FOR MORE INFORMATION Contact: Sherry Hsi at techhivestaff@googlegroups.com Visit the TechHive Homepage See teen-made Cardboard Theater Designs using sensors, servo motors, code, and banker boxes. The TechHive makerspace is located in the amphitheater of the Lawrence Hall of Science
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Cal Figure Skating 2018
By Cal Figure Skating Team
THANK YOU for helping UC Berkeley's nationally-ranked figure skating team stay competitive! We appreciate your support!
THANK YOU for helping UC Berkeley's nationally-ranked figure skating team stay competitive! We appreciate your support! Cal Figure Skating Team Cal Figure Skating thanks you tremendously for your support during our campaign. Altogether, we surpassed our $5,000 stretch goal by $1, raising 200% of our initial goal! THANK YOU! -- A huge THANK YOU to our generous donors for helping us reach our initial $2,500 goal in just 5 days! We are overwhelmed by and so grateful for all of your support! We have created a new stretch goal of $5,000, which will further subsidize the cost of competition, travel fees, and new apparel for upcoming seasons. Please continue to show your support by sharing or donating today! -- We are Cal Figure Skating, a nationally-ranked student athletics team that represents the University of California, Berkeley in the National Intercollegiate Conference. Please consider making a gift to help us remain competitive! Since being founded in 2003, we have grown in both size and impact. Our team now has over 90 members, with 30 traveling to competitions throughout the academic year. In addition to being full time students and athletes, many members of our team are active in other clubs across campus. We are a diverse group of students, ranging from dietetics to engineering to business majors, but with shared principles of competitive spirit and sportsmanship. Cal Figure Skating is a 100% student-run organization with no coaches or managers. As such, we pay out-of-pocket for practice time, transportation, competition fees, and other associated costs out of love for the sport. As you can imagine, these expenses add up, and as our team continues to grow, so do our costs. We are enlisting the help of our community to allow our team to keep flourishing and competing nationwide. All funds raised will go toward competition fees to ensure that every student has the chance to participate as a member of Cal Figure Skating. Accounting for the cost of flights, car rentals, hotels, and registration fees required for each skater to participate in often out-of-state competitions, insufficient funding can easily be a limiting factor. Every dollar goes a long way, and we really appreciate any support you are able to give. If you are unable to support us financially at the moment, please consider sharing this campaign and spreading the word! This year, we have competed and anticipate to compete in a total of three Pacific Coast Section qualifying competitions culminating in Nationals in the spring: November 2017: Tiger Challenge (Colorado Springs, CO) January 2018: Golden Bears Skate (Oakland, CA) February 2018: City of Angels Classic (Burbank, CA) April 2018: U.S. Intercollegiate Championships (Denver, CO) Cal Figure Skating has qualified for the U.S. Intercollegiate Championships every year since 2011, and has placed in 2012 (Pewter), 2013 (Pewter), and 2015 (Pewter). For more information, please visit our website here, and feel free to contact us with any questions. Thank you, and go bears!
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PHAA Diversity Scholarships | 2019
By UC Berkeley
The PHAA Scholarship supports underrepresented minority students with a one-year, $2 thousand scholarship for the next academic year
The PHAA Scholarship supports underrepresented minority students with a one-year, $2 thousand scholarship for the next academic year New STRETCH GOAL $20,000 to fund 3 additional Diversity Scholarships for 8 total by 2/28. Thank you to our over 70 donors for helping make school more affordable to deserving students. Each additional $2,000 funds an extra Scholarship. Why Diversity & Inclusion Matters Diversity benefits any field, but it is particularly vital in public health. Despite major advances in public health in the past few decades, disparities in health and health care persist in the United States. Racial and ethnic minority groups in the United States are at a greater risk of being uninsured, lacking access to care, and experiencing worse health outcomes from preventable and treatable conditions. Research has shown that a culturally competent public health workforce is needed to address health-related issues in diverse populations. And the United States and particularly our state of California, are growing more diverse all the time. The development of a diverse public health workforce must start in the schools of public health. According the the Sullivan Commission on Diversity in the Healthcare Workforce, three overlying principles will lead to diversity in health care: To increase diversity in the health professions, the culture of health professions schools must change. New and nontraditional paths to the health professions should be explored. Commitments must be at the highest levels. Students and alumni celebrate at a spring brunch during the School's 75th Anniversary One of the values of the UC Berkeley School of Public Health is “Strength through Diversity” and the School community embraces diversity in education, research, and service. The School's URM representation has improved dramatically in recent years and the School community is working hard to create an inclusive equitable environment. But the student body is still not as diverse as the population of California, particularly the Latino/a population. We are asking alumni and friends of the School to do their part to ensure that students are receiving the support they need to thrive at the School of Public Health and in their public health careers. PHAA Diversity Scholarships If you donate to our crowdfunding campaign, you will be supporting 5 underrepresented minority students, each with a one-year, $2 thousand scholarship for the next academic year. If we substantially exceed our goal, we may be able to fund additional scholarships. Last year we gave out 8 scholarships. One huge hurdle to achieving diversity in education is the increasing rate of tuition and the many costs associated with being student. High costs can have an even greater impact on underrepresented students and financial aid can be a deciding factor for many. We want to ensure money is not a deterrent in pursuing a degree for those who want to pursue a career in public health. Our association has given out 14 of these scholarships in the past two years, and we have seen them help students succeed. About Us The Public Health Alumni Association Board of Directors is a group of alumni volunteers who represent all alumni of the UC Berkeley School of Public Health. We help alumni support the mission of the School and strengthen personal and professional relationships among public health alumni and students. One of our particular goals is to support diversity in the field of public health and ensure an inclusive, welcoming climate at the School for all of our students. The team of board members working in support of this campaign are: Marta Cieslak, MPH ’10, President Sarah Ismail, MPH '11, President-Elect Dennise Rosas, MPH '11 Sonny Vernard MPH '14 & MPP '14 Bob Frangenberg MPH '78 Alberto Ortega, PhD '13 The team of School of Public Health staff working in support of this campaign are: Eileen Pearl, Director of External Relations Programs & Annual Giving Linda Anderberg, Director of Communications & Marketing Make a Difference We need your help to revive our annual PHAA Diversity Scholarship program! Together we can make a real difference for these students, who will then go on to make a difference in diverse communities in the state of California, in our nation, and around the world. Our alumni community is more than 15,000 members strong and growing each year. If each of us give even a small amount we will easily meet our goal. We Appreciate You and Your Support! For any specific questions please contact Berkeley SPH Alums: Sonny Vernard (sonnyv2007@gmail.com) or Denise Rosas (denniserosas@gmail.com)
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UC Berkeley Pie Queens Spring 2017
By Queens!
New stretch goal of $5000!
The UCB Pie Queens is a women's ultimate frisbee program, focused on growth, empowering women, and making lifelong friendships.
New stretch goal of $5000! The UCB Pie Queens is a women's ultimate frisbee program, focused on growth, empowering women, and making lifelong friendships. Thank you to all our donors and to everyone who helped us reach our goal! We now have a stretch goal of $5000 and until the end of April to reach it! :D A long, long time ago, the UC Berkeley women's ultimate team decided to stop at Lois the Pie Queen in Oakland, CA for some food after a fantastic weekend of ultimate. They had never been to this slice of heaven before, so they were excited to find that Lois served some good ol' soul food. It just so happened that one particular item stood out above the rest... THE PIES! There was apple, sweet potato, lemon ice box, berry, cherry, pecan...the list goes on! These pies were the best. things. ever. and so, our team decided to name ourselves after Lois the Pie Queen and have been loyal customers ever since! The Pie Queens have strong roots and have been around since 1988. The Pie Queens program is focused on continual growth and currently has around 50 members! In the Fall, everyone is a Pie Queen! We play together, compete in tournaments, and have plenty of fun. In the spring, we split into an A and a B team: Queens and Tarts. The Queens are nationally competitive, and attend spring tournaments in San Diego, Santa Barbara, Palo Alto, and Seattle. In the 2016 season, the Queens had a 9th place finish at Nationals in Raleigh, NC. The Queens are currently ranked as one of the top ten teams in the U.S. and hope to return to Nationals in Cincinnati, OH this May! The Tarts are regionally competitive, and attend tournaments in LA, Santa Barbara, Santa Clara, and Irvine. Both teams practice 3 times per week at our Cal’s Memorial Stadium. Although the teams practice and play separately in the Spring, we still get to spend a lot of time together and both teams have dedicated coaches, strong veteran leadership, and TONS. OF. FUN. Players come and go, but once a Pie Queen, always a Pie Queen (#PQ4Lyfe) and every year we reunite at our alumni tournament where rookies and "retired" vets can meet and play together. This program has given Cal women an opportunity to try a new sport, be a part of a great community, and make life long friends. In order to continue the growth and longevity of the program, we need to fundraise so that the financial burden of being a member of the program does not deter any individuals from joining. We would use the donations to purchase new equipment, and help make the program more accessible/affordable by offsetting the cost of team dues. We would love to host more clinics to share the sport with younger kids, especially girls. We have teamed up previously with BAWSI (Bay Area Women’s Sports Incentive) to volunteer as coaches in sports events for the girls, but often we had low numbers because of transportation costs. Your donation will not only allow us to keep our program running and accessible but also maintain the quality of our program by having proper equipment as well as amazing and dedicated coaches that volunteer their time for us at practices and tournaments. Please donate to help us reach our goal of $3000 today! Thank you for helping us continue to fund our program! Meet the teams!! Our B Team, The Tarts! Where are you from? What Berkeley College are you in? What sports did you play before frisbee? What is your favorite type of pie? Also for fun, see a classic Berkeley original Tarts cheer below: https://youtu.be/CfGTjs0Y1Mk Now meet our A team, The Queens! Where are you from? What Berkeley College are you in? What sports did you play before ultimate frisbee? What is your favorite type of pie? See what we're up to on social media! Pie Queens Facebook Tarts Twitter @TartsCal Queens Twitter @piequeens Tarts Instagram: cal_tarts Queens Instagram: piequeensultimate
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UC Berkeley Pie Queens Spring 2022
By UC Berkeley
This inclusive ultimate frisbee program seeks to empower members, gain long lasting relationships, and fundraise for operational & tournament costs!
This inclusive ultimate frisbee program seeks to empower members, gain long lasting relationships, and fundraise for operational & tournament costs! After nearly two grueling years since the COVID-19 pandemic ended our most recent competitive season, we are extremely grateful to say that the UC Berkeley Pie Queens are back and ready to compete in a full schedule of tournaments this spring! After our season was cut short in Spring 2020, we had no choice but to practice on a strictly virtual basis for the entirety of Fall 2020 and Spring 2021. The unfortunate truth is that it was really difficult to feel the same connection through online interactions and this period of time was rough on us all. Now that we’ve finally returned to in-person practices as of last fall, we’ve realized more than ever how much joy this program brings to our lives. Spending our last fall practice playing Goalty with the best coaches around The Pie Queens program has been around since 1988 which means this will be our 34th year in the business! In a typical fall season we compete as one big team and travel to tournaments throughout Northern California. Fall is all about team bonding and skill development. This last fall we were able to make it to one tournament in Chico where we all had the time of our lives. The BIGGEST SMILES you've ever seen after we got to play in the Chico tournament last fall! Was all this dress up just a flair practice or was it Halloween? We love that either of these answers are realistic! In the spring, we split into our A and B teams: the Queens and Tarts. The Queens will attend regular season tournaments in San Diego, Stevinson, and Seattle as well as scrimmage neighboring teams like Stanford Superfly. They have earned two appearances at Nationals in the past few years, placing 9th in 2016 and returning in 2017 for another 9th place finish. With the unpredictability of teams this coming season, who knows what could happen but the Queens definitely have their sights set on nationals! Spring 2020 Queens at the Stanford Invite. We had so much potential and were sad that we had to leave the end of this season to the unknown. The Tarts are regionally competitive, and attend tournaments in Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Santa Clara, and Irvine. Tarts are a great team for those looking to continue developing their skills under a more flexible commitment expectation. Although the teams practice and play separately in the spring, we still get to spend a lot of time together and both teams have dedicated coaches, strong veteran leadership, and an abundance of fun! Spring 2020 Tarts after they crushed it at a tourney In order to continue expanding this program, we need your help! Fundraising helps us relieve some of the financial burden so that being a member of the program does not deter any individuals from joining. We have a team of dedicated and passionate coaches who volunteer their time to help us improve, but there are still many costs associated with the sport. We will use the donations to pay for tournament fees, travel, field space, uniforms, and equipment, and to help make the program more accessible and affordable to everyone by offsetting the cost of team dues. Additionally, due to extra health precautions that we are taking to ensure the safety of our team in the midst of a global pandemic, our costs for housing, travel, and health supplies are significantly higher than they have been in the past. With your donation, we can continue building this magical program and increasing the accessibility of our sport. Help us reach our goal of $3000! If you are unable to donate, please consider sharing this link with anyone you know. We are very grateful for any and all of your support! Find us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook @piequeens and find our highlight videos on Youtube! Learn more about the players in our program! We have no Capricorns in our program ah!
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In Memory of Dr. Valerie Morash | Vision Research
By Bay Area Vision Research
Make a gift in memory of Dr. Val Morash to help further vision research.
Make a gift in memory of Dr. Val Morash to help further vision research. Bay Area Vision Research Please donate to Val's memory. Proceeds help share vision science through the student-led Bay Area Vision Research Day conference Dr. Valerie (Val) Morash tragically passed away at age 32 due to acute carbon monoxide poisoning. Because of Val's commitment to both advancing and sharing knowledge freely, the proceeds of this project will go to the Bay Area Vision Research Day conference, a free conference hosted by graduate students where she spoke in 2016. The student organizers and Val's former students agree there is no better way to honor our Colleague. Dr. Valerie (Val) Morash 1984-2017 Val completed doctoral work at UC Berkeley with Dr. Martin Banks. She earned a MA degree in statistics in 2013 and a PhD in psychology in 2014. Throughout her undergraduate and graduate studies, Val was awarded numerous scholarships, fellowships, and recognition for her work as a researcher. Combined with her ability to build the necessary tools to pursue field-based research questions, Val consistently produced rigorous, evidence-based recommendations for practitioners. Val and her husband Roger relaxing with their cat Val was one of the few modern researchers who sought to bridge the gap between rigorous scientific work conducted in the fields of psychology and engineering, with the practical problems faced by practitioners who educate and rehabilitate individuals with visual impairments ranging from blindness to the visual challenges exacerbated on by age. Val brought a scientific rigor to her work that led to publications in high-impact journals, bringing issues relevant to the field of vision impairment to the forefront of scientific inquiry. Given Val’s extensive contribution to science, we would like to honor her with in memoriam donations, towards a one-day conference sponsored by the Vision Science Program called the Bay Area Vision Research Day, or “BAVRD”. This conference brings 250+ researchers from different scientific disciplines, the premier research institutions and leading industry professionals from across the Bay Area together to discuss new findings in these different fields. BAVRD has always been free to all attendees with the goal of spreading research and advancing knowledge. Val presented her research at BAVRD last year and strongly supported the progression and communication of all scientific research endeavors. Please donate now in Val’s honor to keep this unique conference free for all academic and industry attendees. Thank you for your support of Val and her amazing work and please help us spread the word.
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Fastpitch Softball at Berkeley Spring 2022
By Rachel An
Fastpitch is fundraising to cover league dues, equipment, and other team expenses.
Fastpitch is fundraising to cover league dues, equipment, and other team expenses. Hello. We are a group of girls who have started a club softball team at Berkeley! We are just a bunch of college aged women who love softball and want to provide the opportunity for experienced players to play fastpitch softball as well as teaching new players the joys and wonders of the sport. We first started this organization back in 2019, but just as our efforts were about to pay off, COVID-19 happened and our dreams of playing in the National Club Softball Association were dashed. But this semester, we fully intend to have regular practices and compete in the NCSA representing UC Berkeley against local schools. We are depending on your support to pay league dues, purchase team equipment, rent practice space, and travel to tournaments, and through these efforts we hope to make softball more accessible and fun for Berkeley’s students. Thanks to past contributions, we have been able to fund our home tournaments for this semester. However, we still need to cover travel to our away tournaments and plan for league dues next year. Here are some items we are fundraising for: League dues for next semester: $950 Transportation: $400 Total: $1,350 We are asking for $1000 in hopes that with smart financial decisions, we will be able to use money left over from last semester, plus this semester's fundraising, to cover these dues and transportation costs. Suggested Donations $20 will buy the team gatorade or snacks $35 will give us one hour of field time $63 will pay league dues for one player $93 will cover an umpire's salary for one home game If you have any questions, you can contact us at berkeleyclubsoftball@gmail.com or contact anyone on our leadership team: Captain: Emily Ramey, emily_ramey@berkeley.edu President: Mikayla Blair, mikaylablair@berkeley.edu Vice President: Lianne Wong, liwong10@berkeley.edu Fundraising/Outreach: Rachel An, rachelan2001@berkeley.edu You can also follow us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/calclubsoftball/ We hope that you will consider donating to help us reach our goal, and please share our page with your friends and family! Thank you so much for stopping by! - Emily, Mikayla, Lianne, and Rachel
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Cal Triathlon Club (Fall 2018)
By Katie Patrick
NEW STRETCH GOAL $7500! Official Triathlon Team of UC Berkeley. 6x USA Collegiate National Champions. 180+ Members. Swim. Bike. Run. Go Bears.
NEW STRETCH GOAL $7500! Official Triathlon Team of UC Berkeley. 6x USA Collegiate National Champions. 180+ Members. Swim. Bike. Run. Go Bears. Cal Tri wants to say a HUGE thank you to everyone who has donated to our Crowdfunding Campaign so far! We have had an overwhelming amount of support far beyond what we expected! Since we have hit our stretch goal of $7,500, the team has decided to announce a NEW SUPER STRETCH GOAL of $10,000! Thank you to all of our donors, it has been truly inspirational to see the massive support system behind Cal Tri. Hello and welcome from UC Berkeley’s California Triathlon Club (Cal Tri). We are one of the largest sports clubs at UC Berkeley, and among the top 3 largest triathlon teams in the nation! Since 1989, Cal Tri has grown to over 150 members, including National Champions and Olympic hopefuls as well as first ever swimmers, cyclists, and runners trying out the sport. Here at Cal Tri we bring out the best in every athlete by promoting healthy living through community and team family. We are a student-run club that receives no financial support from the school, meaning that all of our activities are funded by members' dues and fundraising efforts. That’s why we need your help! We are a committed group of hard working students who need the funds for loaner gear, invaluable training camps, subsidies for nationals travel to events, and for many other camps and races throughout the year. Can you make a gift today? Triathlon can be an expensive sport, but we aim to bring the multi-sport lifestyle to anyone who is interested, regardless of their financial ability to pay for dues or training equipment. Therefore, donations of either money or equipment help spread and support triathlon on our team and in the Berkeley Community. The money raised through Crowdfunding will help student athletes travel, compete, and train with the Cal Triathlon Team. Our coach’s motto is "with consistent hard work over time success is achievable." This is the refrain our team uses when we train and race, and will be our motto for Crowdfunding as well. With 150+ athletes and a plan for growth, Cal Tri is helping more and more UC Berkeley students explore the benefits of consistent hard work over time. The athletes on Cal Tri make lifelong friends, gain a network of current students, graduate students, and alumni, and get to train with a family with a common interest in healthy living. If you are interested in helping us take triathlon to a higher level of athleticism and sportsmanship, please support us. Cal Triathlon intends to continue to be at the forefront of the collegiate club sports scene and take the sport of Triathlon to new levels - but we need help. Triathlon is no longer a fringe sport for endurance athletes - it is an official Olympic event (the most watched live Olympic event!), and participation is exploding at all levels of the sport. USA Triathlon estimates that 1,280,000 athletes participated in at least one triathlon last year, and USAT membership has grown from 19,000 members to 150,000+ members in the last ten years. 72% of triathletes are between the ages of 16 and 45, and 50% of triathletes spend more that $4000 per year on equipment, sports nutrition, and coaching. Collegiate triathlon has become a key point of entry for new triathletes, who then often remain involved in the sport for decades. Your support of our student-run, student-funded team is crucial. Please help us help our community. Thank you. Follow us on social media Twitter: @CalTriathlon https://twitter.com/CalTriathlon?lang=en Instagram: @cal_triathlon https://www.instagram.com/cal_triathlon/ Facebook: Cal Triathlon Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/CalTriathlonTeam/ Website: Caltriathlon.com Questions?? Email katiepatrick@berkeley.edu
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iGEM at Berkeley: An Open Biohacker Space
By Jacob Luo
We are an open-access community of biohackers that funds student-originated projects and provides wet-lab opportunities.
We are an open-access community of biohackers that funds student-originated projects and provides wet-lab opportunities. Our Story Presently, we are facing a growing issue that there are simply not enough research opportunities or graduate mentors to accommodate the ever-increasing number of students interested in research. iGEM@Berkeley was founded on the principle that research should be accessible to all students. Through iGEM, our members will gain research experience and will naturally mature into mentors for a younger class of students--ultimately creating a self-sufficient, scalable research space. Our Work iGEM@Berkeley provides students the unique opportunity to perform original genetic engineering projects in a one-of-a-kind undergraduate-led research space. We are assembling a diverse team of determined students to design and build biotechnological solutions to real world environmental, medical, and technological problems. Past iGEM projects include engineering crops to be resistant to climate change, using bacteria to produce fuel, and even developing modified viruses as potential solutions to antibiotic resistance. Furthermore, students of iGEM@Berkeley may showcase their novel synthetic biology research at the international iGEM competition. Donations Every aspect of running our lab space, from writing grants to conducting experiments, is done by students. This means every dollar donated is critical to our operations. As you see our budget breakdown below, we have thousands of dollars in material costs for experimentation, equipment purchases, and competition travel. In short, your donations will allow students to bring their ideas to life--inspiring the next generation of bioengineers. Visit Us! Instagram @igematberkeley Facebook @igematberkeley Twitter @igematberkeley Website https://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~igem/
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Danceworx Fall 2019 Showcase!
By Danceworx
Help Danceworx hold it's end-of-semester showcase to give all of our hardworking dancers a chance to perform what they have been working towards all semester!
Help Danceworx hold it's end-of-semester showcase to give all of our hardworking dancers a chance to perform what they have been working towards all semester! Danceworx Danceworx is the oldest student-run dance organization at UC Berkeley. We seek to provide opportunities to perform and a supportive and fun environment for dancers to learn and grow in jazz, urban, and tap. Each semester, Danceworx puts on several events for our members and a final showcase of all of our student-choreographed pieces at the end of the semester. Because we are a student-run organization, the majority of our funding comes from the community around us, specifically people who have benefitted from being part of the Danceworx family. Whether you have encountered Danceworx through being a dancer or from being a family member or friend of a Danceworx dancer, we would love and appreciate any donations to help us to hold our showcase and make sure that all of our hard working dancers get a chance to perform what they have been working towards all semester! All of the donations we receive will go directly towards the cost of renting Zellerbach Hall for our showcase. If you have any questions, please reach out to dwx.treasurer@gmail.com or dwxpresidents@gmail.com ! You can also find more information on our website: dwx.berkeley.edu
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UC Berkeley Men's Ultimate (Spring 208)
By Cal UGMO
STRETCH GOAL OF $7,500! UGMO is the UC Berkeley Men's Ultimate Team. To continue on our path to national domination, we need your help.
STRETCH GOAL OF $7,500! UGMO is the UC Berkeley Men's Ultimate Team. To continue on our path to national domination, we need your help. Cal UGMO Project Update: THANK YOU!!! From myself and everyone at UGMO, THANK YOU to everyone who donated to our crowdfund campaign! We were able to raise $5,729 with 67 donors in a month, surpassing our original goal of $3,500!!! All of UGMO is super grateful for your support, and look forward to another excellent season next year! Your contributions made one of the most memorable seasons is UGMO history possible. From winning Stanford Open, to flying up to the Northwest Challenge, to taking 3rd at Presidents Day, I can say personally that this season was one I will remember forever. I know my fellow Monkey's would agree. THANK YOU SO MUCH for making this possible for this season! They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Here is a thousand 'Thank You's!' from the Ugly Monkey from California. STRETCH GOAL REACHED!!! FINAL GOAL: $7,500 We are so thankful for all of the support you all have been showing this past month! You have truly blown away all of our expectations! Since reaching our initial goal, your extra donations have helped us cover the entire cost of upcoming Regionals (JUST 1 WEEK AWAY)! After taking second place at Sectionals, we'll be fighting for the opportunity to extend our season and a spot at prestigious Nationals. With all of your support this last month, we feel ready to take on the biggest and baddest teams the Southwest has to throw at us. Be sure to follow us on twitter for donor thank-you's and score updates! Our final goal of $7,500 will allow us to help cover the costs of attending Nationals, but could also serve as a way to cover hotel costs for the season! Help us reach our new goal before our campaign ends in just one week! -UGMO <3 STRETCH GOAL SET: $5,000 All of us here at UGMO are so thankful for all of the support you have been showing us! Your help so far has pushed us past our initial goal in only 5 days! We still have 25 days left, and we think that we still have some room to grow! So far, your donations have paid for all of our tournament registration fees for this spring season! If we hit $5,000, that will cover not only the tournament registration fees, but the hotel costs for an additional tournament! Stay tuned for more information as this project moves forward. None of this would be possible without all of your help so far! -UGMO Who We Are UGMO (short for Ugly Monkey), UC Berkeley Men’s Ultimate team, has been representing Cal since 1989. Since then the team has taken many forms as people come and go from Berkeley, but one thing stays the same: having a blast playing Ultimate. This year the team is looking extra fresh with a 3rd Place finish at the Presidents Day Invitational and a 1st Place finish at the Stanford Open! UGMO is looking to continue having a successful Spring, and we need your help! But first, a little more about us. The 2017/2018 iteration of UGMO has 24 members ranging from many different walks of life. We’re made up of engineers, chemists, computer scientists (a lot of those), biologists, economists and businessmen. But more importantly, what brings us together day in and day out is our shared love for the sport of ultimate and each other. For many on the team, the experience of being on UGMO is the highlight of their time at Berkeley. Player Quotes UGMO is a great community. As someone from across the country, I struggled to find a solid support group in my first semester, but joining UGMO really gave me a tight-knit community that helped me adjust to life at Cal. - Munis “Guppy” Thahir - Nuclear Engineering/Premed, Class of '21 Playing for Cal UGMO has been the central defining feature of my college experience. My experience at Cal UGMO for the past 4 has been relaxing, intense, challenging, and most importantly, just plain fun. I discovered a lifelong passion in ultimate frisbee with which I plan on devoting many years to. More importantly, I discovered a community and a friend group; without them, my life would be completely different. - Rajiv Sambharya - Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Graduate Student UGMO is like a colony of bacteria: a warm and mushy community. - Jace “Space Jace” Bruner - Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Class of '21 Community Community is very important in the sport of Ultimate and on UGMO. In partnership with our fabulous Women’s team on campus, the Pie Queens, UGMO has been giving back to the community by coaching a Middle School Ultimate program. UGMO and the Pie Queens send players twice a week to Longfellow Middle School in Berkeley to teach the kids about our sport. Players from our program also help out at local ultimate events and are active throughout the whole ultimate community. With your donations we will be able to make UGMO affordable so anyone and everyone can be a part of and enjoy UGMO. Below you can see a breakdown of our expenses for a typical season. Your donations will allow us to keep competing with the best teams in the country and having a blast doing it. Your Donations Your donations to this project will go towards making UGMO Ultimate affordable to all. Below, you can see a simple graphic describing some of the costs an individual and the team experience on UGMO. Learn More Check out our highlight reels so far this season! Santa Barbara Invite Stanford Open Presidents Day Invitational Click on the Project Owner pictures on the right to read more about some of us! Follow us on Facebook and Twitter!
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UC Berkeley Symphony Orchestra Central European Tour, Summer 2022
By UC Berkeley
The UC Berkeley Symphony Orchestra needs your support to provide student musicians the opportunity to perform on our upcoming international tour
The UC Berkeley Symphony Orchestra needs your support to provide student musicians the opportunity to perform on our upcoming international tour UCBSO members pose for a photo in Spain, 2017 UCBSO is going on Tour! The UC Berkeley Symphony Orchestra is embarking on a tour to Budapest, Vienna, Prague, and Bratislava in the Summer of 2022! This tour was originally planned for Summer of 2020 but was postponed due to COVID-19. After 18 months of virtual rehearsals and seminars, now, we are eager to return to live performances on stage and share our music with our audiences. We are commissioning two new works by UC Berkeley’s own composers to present in each city. We will not only demonstrate the latest developments in music technology and composition but also showcase the artistic achievements of UC Berkeley students through our expanding classical canon. The orchestra's past tours to Central Europe and Spain were met with enthusiastic audiences and international acclaim. To embark on the next stage of our journey, we need your support to help provide every deserving student with this unforgettable opportunity. The Orchestra: UCBSO performs in Hertz Hall, 2019 With its 90-year history, the UCBSO is the longest standing orchestra in the UC system. It is comprised of 120 UC Berkeley undergraduate and graduate students, staff, and members of the community. Our purpose is to provide unique and innovative programming to the campus and the Bay Area, performed with astonishing intensity by students in all disciplines, including science, technology, and medicine. Now, the Orchestra will share this purpose with global audiences as well. The work of the UCBSO exemplifies the outstanding depth of musical achievement from the students of an already internationally renowned university. The diversity of our members makes this group a special and vital part of our community. The ensemble provides compelling performances of difficult repertoire, despite most of the musicians focusing on academic fields outside of music. The orchestra is replete with high-achieving undergraduate and graduate students working in all fields, from biostatistics to law. Nonetheless, every member attends bi-weekly rehearsals, prepared to work diligently on our repertoire and driven by a shared sense of community and love for music. While our members are improving the world with their personal research, our orchestra is improving our community by making it a more inclusive and united space through music. Why We’re Asking for Your Help: UCBSO musicians smile before a performance, 2017 As an orchestra, we are more than a community--we’re a family, greater than the sum of our parts. We need the full participation of every member in order for the tour to be a success; however, the majority of our students do not have the financial means to cover the cost. While we still have access to funds from our past 2020 crowdfunding campaigns, the economic consequences of COVID-19 have been devastating to many families, and we are fundraising to offset their financial burden. 100% of your contribution will go directly toward student scholarships, which cover travel, lodging, food, music rentals, and instrument transportation. With your help, we can ensure that every student has a place and that no one misses the tour due to a lack of resources. Together, our students will flourish musically and mature culturally, gaining an invaluable worldly experience. With your contribution, you are directly supporting a student’s participation in this summer’s tour. All donations are tax deductible and will receive an official university tax acknowledgement and ID. Learn more at https://orchestra.berkeley.edu/summer2022tour/
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Make a difference for Teachers. Make a difference for Kids.
By the Bay Area Writing Project
NEW STRETCH GOAL OF $8000 - Support teachers to participate in an Invitational Summer Institute where they will write and become better teachers of writing.
NEW STRETCH GOAL OF $8000 - Support teachers to participate in an Invitational Summer Institute where they will write and become better teachers of writing. the Bay Area Writing Project NEW STRETCH GOAL OF $8000 We reached our initial goal and are now trying to raise more money to support more teachers. Every $1000 will be put towards another teacher stipend. Let's see how many teachers we can support! Thank you to all of the wonderful donors who have helped us reach our goal! We are extremely grateful for your support! The BAY AREA WRITING PROJECT (BAWP), based at the University of California, Berkeley, is an organization of, by, and for teachers of writing at all grade levels and in all disciplines, dedicated to improving the teaching and uses of writing through a variety of programs–both on the university campus and in Bay Area schools. Every day these committed, excellent teachers are making a difference in the lives of students. BAWP’s Invitational Summer Institute is one of the ways we invest in educators to help them further develop their teaching skills. The institutes engage teachers in writing, developing and sharing demonstrations of their teaching practice, and creating knowledge in critical areas such as serving the needs of culturally and linguistically diverse student populations. These leadership opportunities equip teachers to lead work in their schools and districts, and in the larger community of Bay Area educators seeking to realize equitable outcomes for all students. Each summer our Invitational Summer Institute supports the learning of twenty teaching fellows, whose work directly impacts an average of 1,700 students. With your help, we would like to raise money to support local teachers to participate in the Invitational Summer Institute. Increased financial resources will strengthen our efforts to recruit and continue to support more teachers of color and teachers serving socio-economically disadvantaged populations. We seek to provide stipends of $1,000 for each of twenty teacher fellows participating in our intensive four-week institute. In the midst of the skyrocketing cost of living in the Bay Area and the increasing necessity for teachers to secure summer employment, stipends help make this learning opportunity accessible to more teachers. Stipends honor teachers’ time commitment to learning and help defray transportation and childcare costs. Our $5,000 goal would pay for five of the stipends for teachers to attend the summer institute. The federal grants that formerly supported our Invitational Summer Institutes have disappeared. Our state funding sources were cut, and more cuts are always a threat. We are lucky to have the solid support of Berkeley’s Graduate School of Education, but we must nevertheless actively and constantly seek outside sources of funding to sustain our vibrant network of dedicated teachers, our continuity of programs and our scholarships to deserving students to participate in our summer writing workshops. No gift is too small! With your help -- or the help of people you may know who are looking for a cause worthy of their donation dollars -- we can continue offering the intensive summer writing experiences that our teachers recall so passionately. No one knows better than Writing Project teachers that writing has the power to transform lives, create deeper learning, and connect us to the world's collective knowledge. And no one knows better than Writing Project teachers that the commitment to writing is only the start of a long journey toward real and sustainable educational change.
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Fall ‘18 3D Bioprinting at Berkeley
By Bioprinting @ Berkeley
A group of undergraduate students doing research on 3D bioprinting and tissue engineering.
A group of undergraduate students doing research on 3D bioprinting and tissue engineering. Bioprinting @ Berkeley We are a team of undergraduate students coming from an array of different disciplines such as Bioengineering, Molecular and Cell Biology, Mechanical Engineering, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, and more. “Bioprinting Adherent Regenerative Tissue” (BART) is a student-led project that combines the field of engineering and biology. Its main goal is to 3D print functional living tissue by contributing knowledge to the field of tissue engineering in the hopes of patients getting organ transplants faster. Funds are needed to purchase reagents for culturing cells and synthesizing hydrogels as structural support for the cells, and developing mechanical parts for a custom-designed bioprinter. BART provides students the opportunity to develop cutting-edge bioengineering technology while collaborating with and learning from peers across different fields. The overall goal of BART is to print functional tissue constructs, specifically muscle tissue and tendon. Will you help us by making a gift today? Our project is divided into two teams: the Bioscience Team and the Engineering Team. With limited resources, the Engineering Team has been able to inexpensively and efficiently modify a regular 3D printer (Hictop Prusa i3) to become a 3D bioprinter, tailoring it specifically to bioprinting needs. However, they now plan to design and implement a dual-extrusion head for this makeshift, modular printer. Since we’re trying to make this technology more accessible, we also intend on investing in a club membership at Jacobs Hall, where we can utilize their 3D printer to create a versatile extrusion head. Jacobs Hall also has their own online store, so with a membership, we can acquire our materials for a cheaper cost at a more convenient location. The Bioscience Team will be experimenting with new formulations for hydrogel synthesis. For this project, club members will be utilizing a common cell line: either C1C12 (mouse muscle cells) or NIH 3T3 (mouse fibroblast cells). A group of students will cultivate the cells, incorporate them into a polymer scaffolding, bioprint the mixture in various geometries, and culture these bioprints to allow them to develop into constructs more closely resembling tissue. They will then quantify the properties of these constructs and the embedded cells with various tests that reflect cell viability. The main goal is to determine which specific hydrogel formulation will increase cell longevity and function while maintaining structural integrity. We thank you for taking the time to read our project and hope you can contribute in any way you can. Although we are undergraduate students, we believe we can make an impact and change lives through teamwork and passion for technology and medicine. Please make a gift today!
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Support the Science Policy Leaders of Tomorrow!
By Vetri Velan
New stretch goal of $2500! Support our efforts to raise voter turnout among STEM students, advocate in California's Capitol, and host exciting community events.
New stretch goal of $2500! Support our efforts to raise voter turnout among STEM students, advocate in California's Capitol, and host exciting community events. Vetri Velan Update: We hit our initial goal! Our new stretch goal is $2,500 to support members traveling to science policy conferences and to provide extra support for our state-level advocacy. Who We Are Advocacy. Policy literacy. Career development. The Science Policy Group at Berkeley (SPG) immerses and educates STEM graduate students in all of these areas. We are a coalition of primarily Ph.D. students in fields across the scientific spectrum, including Bioengineering, Chemistry, Nuclear Engineering, Physics, and Plant & Microbial Biology, seeking to increase engagement at the intersection of science and policy. We are asking for donations to support our projects on increasing voter turnout among STEM students, advocating for science issues in Sacramento, holding large-scale events for the Berkeley community, and supporting students’ travel to science policy conferences. SPG was formed in 2017 in order to fill an unmet campus need of tailored educational and professional development for students who wish to apply their advanced STEM degree to a career in science policy. Since then, we have grown rapidly. We regularly host anywhere from 20 to 50 students at our meetings and monthly speaker series, and we have over 200 students signed up for our newsletter. We have hosted dozens of speakers with careers in science policy, planned public events for the Berkeley community, and run multiple initiatives to engage policymakers with scientific issues. Our members have traveled to Washington, D.C. to learn about science funding, proposed bills that have been taken up the state legislature, and been recognized for student advocacy at the national level. But we want to do more, and we need your support! Our Projects When you donate to us, your donation will be used for several projects. The first is our STEMvotes initiative, which aims to increase the number of STEM students voting in local, state, and federal elections. In 2016, only 44% of STEM students voted, far below the national average. SPG sought to change this in 2018. We registered a dozen UC Berkeley students to vote, and we hosted a Voter Information Night, where 100 students learned about the referenda and initiatives on the ballot. Over the next two years, we want to spend time understanding what worked in our 2018 campaign and expand our efforts for the 2020 elections. STEMVotes Voter Information Night, October 18, 2018. Left: SPG Co-Founder Kathy Shield explaining California Proposition 2 to STEM graduate students. Middle: The audience; we had 100 attendees total. Right: A sample "ballot" that attendees used to mark their thoughts on the ballot measures. Second, you can support our trips to the California State Capitol in Sacramento, where our members advocate for science-based issues that are important to them. We have gone on three trips in September 2018, December 2018, and March 2019, and we plan to continue these trips on a quarterly basis. During our visits, our members have met with legislative offices and advocated for the creation of a Science Advisor to the Governor, biotechnology education in public schools, and research experience as a way for high schoolers to demonstrate proficiency in science. Your support will allow us to continue our trips and engage more science policy students from around the state. SPG Members advocating for science-based policies in the State Capitol. Left: Members with Senator Nancy Skinner. Right: Members with Senator Richard Pan, advocating for biotechnology education in public schools. Finally, your donation will support large-scale events that we hold for the Berkeley community. This semester, four of our members are attending the Catalyzing Advocacy in Science and Engineering workshop in Washington, D.C. to learn about science budgeting and meet with legislative staffs; when they return, they will host a “Lessons Learned” workshop to educate the community on advocating for science funding. We will also conclude the year with our inaugural Presidential Speaker Series, which will feature a keynote address by a distinguished speaker. Your support is critical to help us continue hosting similar high-quality professional and educational science policy events in the future. SPG meetings. Left: We hosted Professor George Lakoff, who spoke to us about framing issues for scientific communication. We had an attendance of over 50 students. Right: We hosted Professor Claudia Polsky, Director of the Environmental Law Clinic at Berkeley Law School, who spoke to us about her work testifying before Congress and advocating legislation to protect California scientists from harassment. By giving to our group, you will allow us to continue and expand our work in science policy advocacy. Can you support us with a $100 donation today? (Of course, we appreciate any gift, as much as you are able.) Please see our budget below for more details on how the money will be spent, and also see some of the perks you can get for donating at a particular gift level! To learn more, visit our website, follow us on Twitter, and check out the short bios of some of our team members below. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us at calscipol@gmail.com. Thank you for your support! Budget Gallery
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California Triathlon Club Fundraising (Spring 2020)
By Kate Kennedy
NEW STRETCH GOAL $12,000! Official Triathlon Team of UC Berkeley. 180+ member team, back-to-back Collegiate National Champions. Swim, Bike, Run. Go Bears!
NEW STRETCH GOAL $12,000! Official Triathlon Team of UC Berkeley. 180+ member team, back-to-back Collegiate National Champions. Swim, Bike, Run. Go Bears! A MASSIVE THANK YOU! Cal Triathlon has raised over 150% of our goal! We couldn't have done this without our amazing donors and we are so grateful for the continuous support from the team, alumni, family, and friends. Welcome to the Crowdfunding page of the California Triathlon Club! Thank you for taking the time to look at our project, and I hope you enjoy learning more about our team. Since 1989, Cal Tri has grown into one of the largest sports clubs at UC Berkeley, and the largest collegiate triathlon team in the nation. With a team of over 170 members, we bring together people from all athletic backgrounds, ranging from first-time swimmers, cyclists, and runners to elite athletes aspiring to be National Champions and Olympians. Over the course of our club history, we have won seven national titles and this past year, we won the women’s national title for the second year in a row! Our success can be largely attributed to the commitment of our club and the support provided by a fantastic group of coaches, who volunteer much of their own time to help each team member excel in training while having fun through the sport. We are a student-run club that receives no financial support from the school, meaning all of our activities are funded by members’ dues and fundraising efforts. That’s why we need your help! Triathlon can be an expensive undertaking for any college student hoping to get involved, but we aim to continue our legacy of being a welcoming, no-cut, and inclusive team by supporting everyone regardless of their financial ability to participate. Therefore, donations help support our team and promote the multi-sport lifestyle by easing the financial burden of equipment and uniforms, funding scholarships for training camps, and subsidizing race travel costs. A more in-depth look at our budget breakdown can be found below! The money raised through Crowdfunding will help student athletes travel, compete, and train with the Cal Triathlon team. Our coach’s motto is "with consistent hard work over time success is achievable." This is the refrain our team uses when we train and race, and will be our motto for Crowdfunding as well. Will you consider making a gift? Cal Triathlon intends to continue to be at the forefront of the collegiate club sports scene and help take the sport of triathlon to new levels - but we need your help. Triathlon is one of the fastest growing sports at every level and distance, all over the world. Collegiate triathlon has become a key point of entry for new triathletes, who then often remain involved in the sport for decades. If you are interested in helping us take triathlon to a higher level of athleticism and sportsmanship, while also promoting the health and fitness of UC Berkeley students, please consider donating or spreading our Crowdfunding project link in your networks! Your support of our student-run, student-funded team is crucial. Please consider donating! Thank you! If you would like stay updated with our fundraising progress and training journey, follow our social media pages below! Instagram: @cal_triathlon https://www.instagram.com/cal_triathlon/ Facebook: Cal Triathlon Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/CalTriathlonTeam/ Website: Caltriathlon.com Twitter: @CalTriathlon https://twitter.com/CalTriathlon?lang=en Questions? Email kathryn.kennedy@berkeley.edu Picture Credits to Andy Jessop! https://pics.andymjessop.com/
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UC Berkeley Engineers Without Borders
By UC Berkeley
STRETCH GOAL of $10,000!!
Engineers Without Borders is working with communities in Panama, Peru and Nicaragua to meet water needs for underserved communities.
STRETCH GOAL of $10,000!! Engineers Without Borders is working with communities in Panama, Peru and Nicaragua to meet water needs for underserved communities. STRETCH GOAL OF $10,000 TO FURTHER FUND OUR PROJECTS! Thank you so much to all of our donors who helped us reach our initial goal of $7,000! We have extended our goal to $10,000 in order to cover further costs of project planning and implementation. These projects are very expensive so any donation helps! Engineers Without Borders - University of California, Berkeley (EWB-UCB) envisions a future where basic human needs are met across the world on a daily basis. We engage and empower developing communities through projects which implement sustainable solutions to real problems and leave a lasting impact. EWB-UCB is a chapter of the national organization Engineers Without Borders - USA, and is composed of about 130 UC Berkeley undergraduate students studying a variety of topics, and about six professional mentors. For each project, a team of students and mentors is assembled to work in tandem with a developing community abroad to find sustainable solutions to a given problem. Projects require many travel trips to the partner community for field research, community outreach, and implementation. Projects last five to ten years. Currently, EWB-UCB has two ongoing projects in Panama and Peru. Please make a gift today to support our efforts! The Panama Project aims to provide clean, reliable drinking water to the community in Kuna Nega, Panama through the construction of a water distribution system and community led participation. Kuna Nega is a rapidly growing community of about 1,200 residents outside of Panama City and is located adjacent to the Panama City dump. The pollution in this area makes the local water source unusable and has created a plethora of health problems. To avoid using this water, people rely on water that is irregularly trucked into the community. Many residents wait with buckets for the trucks to arrive and fill as many as possible at one time because they do not know when the next delivery will arrive. Storing water in these mass quantities over long amounts of time allows bacteria to reproduce and spreads water-borne illness and disease. The construction of a safe, reliable, water distribution system throughout the community will directly combat the growth of bacteria in water and spreading of illness throughout the community, as people will no longer have to store excess quantities of water. Please make a donation to help fund the completion of this water distribution system! The Peru project has focused the past nine years on providing clean drinking water within three communities on the Peruvian Altiplano. In 2007 a meteor struck the community of Carancas, Peru on the Peruvian Altiplano leading to high quantities of arsenic in the community’s drinking water. The Peru project has designed and implemented multiple technologies such as a Simple Iron Matrix (SIM) filter, a rainwater catchment system, and an arsenic coagulation system to improve water accessibility and quality in the region. Over the course of 7 years, we have aided three different communities in Peru with our technologies. The Peru team is currently in the process of beginning a new project as our project in Peru is coming to a close. This semester, we have begun a new project in Nicaragua, developing sanitation technologies. Donate today to help fund the continuous work of EWB-UCB! To learn more about our projects and team members check out our website at https://ewb.berkeley.edu/ and like us on facebook at https://www.facebook.com/EWB.UCB/. Thank you!
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The Doctor Will See You Now
By Elizabeth Minor
Help an Ancient Egyptian Physician Make his Rounds at the Hearst Museum.
Help an Ancient Egyptian Physician Make his Rounds at the Hearst Museum. This project has ended, but you can still support amazing Berkeley initiatives by visiting give.berkeley.edu. Your continued support of our students, faculty and staff will ensure that Berkeley remains the #1 public university. Go Bears! Help an Ancient Egyptian Physician Make his Rounds at the Hearst Museum The Hearst Museum is gearing up for the 2016 reopening of our remodeled Kroeber Hall gallery. One of our goals is to highlight rarely- seen objects in our gallery space, such as The Doctor. This 2,500 year-old, three-ton coffin lid is from the burial of Psamtik, a chief physician in ancient Egypt. The lid is decorated with spells asking fifteen gods for protection, ensuring his name was remembered for his eternal afterlife. Given its size and weight, it is not currently accessible except for research requests and special visits. Stone coffin lid (PAHMA 5-522), donated by William Randolph Hearst The Doctor is part of the Hearst Museum’s impressive Egyptian collection, one of the largest and most important collections outside of Egypt. We believe that the research, teaching and public programming potential of what is the heaviest and one of the most impressive pieces in our collection of 3.8 million objects is significant. Detail of the winged goddess Isis, meant to protect the spirit of the deceased Aside from its visual appeal, The Doctor will serve as an introduction and bridge to: Museum History - Early collecting, and importance of the Hearst family in founding the museum. The Practice of Anthropology - Collecting objects, observing cultural practices and recording context to learn about diverse cultures, places and times. A Research & Teaching Institution - The research value branches out into interdisciplinary studies, including Archaeology, History, Language, Religion, Art History, Digital Humanities and Museum Studies. Collections Management - How we care for our collections and the behind-the-scenes activities of a museum, from documenting and conserving, to moving, storing and tracking. Visitor Engagement and Community Outreach - To be located at the Hearst Museum’s new entrance, The Doctor will be a gathering point for visitors, and play a key role in K-12, campus- and community-facing programming. We’ve checked with the structural engineers and the floor can hold the weight, and we’ve made a plan to move The Doctor from offsite storage to Kroeber Hall. Now we need to raise $20,000 to put the plan into action, including fabricating a new display mount, producing signage and an interactive digital display for a 3D model of the lid. Thank you, and we hope you would be willing to consider making a gift to support our project to bring The Doctor to the public. Visitors see The Doctor in storage Budget: $20,000 $5000 - transport the Doctor from our offsite storage to Kroeber Hall gallery $5000 - build new display mount to support the sarcophagus $5000 - design and install museum labels and didactic panels $5000 - 3D model the artifact and build digital touchscreen interactive display Detail of hieroglyphs from magical funerary spells, including the jackal god Anubis
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Public Health Alumni Association Diversity Scholarships 2017
By Daniel S. Madrigal MPH '10
PHAA seeks to provide scholarships so diverse students can attend Berkeley and then serve diverse populations in CA and the world.
PHAA seeks to provide scholarships so diverse students can attend Berkeley and then serve diverse populations in CA and the world. Our 2018 campaign is underway! Visit bit.ly/berkeleysph to donate! Thank you to all our amazing donors last year for the 2017 Diversity Scholarship Campaign! This year's campaign will run until 2/23 so please encourage people you know to donate. If we exceed our goal of $10,000 to fund 5 scholarships, each additional $2,000 will go towards another student receiving a scholarship. Don't forget to share the bit.ly/berkeleysph via text, social media and e-mail so others you know can contribute. Diversity benefits any field, but it is particularly vital in public health. Despite major advances in public health in the past few decades, disparities in health and health care persist in the United States. Racial and ethnic minority groups in the United States are at a greater risk of being uninsured, lacking access to care, and experiencing worse health outcomes from preventable and treatable conditions. Research has shown that a culturally competent public health workforce is needed to address health-related issues in diverse populations. And the United States and particularly our state of California, are growing more diverse all the time. The development of a diverse public health workforce must start in the schools of public health. According the the Sullivan Commission on Diversity in the Healthcare Workforce, three overlying principles will lead to diversity in health care: To increase diversity in the health professions, the culture of health professions schools must change. New and nontraditional paths to the health professions should be explored. Commitments must be at the highest levels. One of the values of the UC Berkeley School of Public Health is “Strength through Diversity” and the School community embraces diversity in education, research, and service. The School's URM representation has improved dramatically in recent years and the School community is working hard to create an inclusive equitable environment. But the student body is still not as diverse as the population of California, particularly the Latino/a population. We are asking alumni and friends of the School to do their part to ensure that students are receiving the support they need to thrive at the School of Public Health and in their public health careers. PHAA Diversity Scholarships If you donate to our crowdfunding campaign, you will be supporting two underrepresented minority students, each with a one-year, $5 thousand scholarship for the next academic year. If we substantially exceed our goal, we may be able to fund one or more additional scholarships. One huge hurdle to achieving diversity in education is the increasing rate of tuition and the many costs associated with being student. High costs can have an even greater impact on underrepresented students and financial aid can be a deciding factor for many. We want to ensure money is not a deterrent in pursuing a degree for those who want to pursue a career in public health. Our association has given out six of these scholarships in the past, and we have seen them help students succeed. About Us The Public Health Alumni Association Board of Directors is a group of alumni volunteers who represent all alumni of the UC Berkeley School of Public Health. We help alumni support the mission of the School and strengthen personal and professional relationships among public health alumni and students. One of our particular goals is to support diversity in the field of public health and ensure an inclusive, welcoming climate at the School for all of our students. The team of board members working in support of this campaign are: Sheila S. Baxter MPH ’10, President Bob Frangenberg MPH '78 May Funabiki MPH '02 Michelle Loya-Talamantes MPH '04 Daniel Madrigal MPH '10, Chair of the Diversity Committee Baljeet Sangha MPH '10, Past-President Renita Sinn MBA, MPH '10 The team of School of Public Health staff working in support of this campaign are: Eileen Pearl, Director of External Relations Programs & Annual Giving Linda Anderberg, Director of Communications & Marketing Matthieu Kaminski, Multimedia & Technology Joven Chacon, Publications & Communications Coordinator Make a Difference We need your help to revive our annual PHAA Diversity Scholarship program! Together we can make a real difference for these students, who will then go on to make a difference in diverse communities in the state of California, in our nation, and around the world. Our alumni community is more than 15,000 members strong and growing each year. If each of us give even a small amount we will easily meet our goal.
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Parliamentary Debate - Texas Two Step Swing Fall ‘19
By Parliamentary Debate
STRETCH GOAL OF $5,000! Please donate today to support the most successful student-run team continue to our passion for learning formal NPDA-style debate.
STRETCH GOAL OF $5,000! Please donate today to support the most successful student-run team continue to our passion for learning formal NPDA-style debate. Parliamentary Debate Thank you to all our donors for helping us reach our initial goal! Can you help us get to $5,000? Any donations beyond our initial goal will go towards sending an additional two teams to the Two-Step and setting up a scholarship fund for members with financial need. Parliamentary Debate at Berkeley, UC Berkeley’s national championship-winning NPDA debate team, provides individuals of all experience levels with the opportunity to successfully compete in intercollegiate parliamentary debate. We are currently hoping to fundraise for six of our two-person teams to attend the Texas Two Step, a week-long debate tournament in January. Most other universities that compete in this form of debate have full-time coaches, a budget, and administrative support, but we rely on your donations and support to keep our program running and attend tournaments. The $3,000 we are aiming to raise will go directly to covering the additional transportation and registration costs of sending more than two teams, and would allow us to send at least two more teams to the tournament. We have had great successes at the Texas Two Step in the past! Last year, a UC Berkeley team took second place and won an award for the best preliminary record. We have also had individual debaters place first and second in speaking points, with three others in the top 20. Right now, we have the financial ability to send only two partnerships, which usually end up being students with the most competitive experience and have also attended multiple other travel tournaments. Because the Two Step is actually two back-to-back tournaments, it doubles our teams’ chances to qualify for Nationals and attend two tournaments for the price of one. Any donations we receive will directly benefit our less experienced teams to allow for debate education, as well as lower income students who might otherwise be unable to compete. Please donate today to support our mission in keeping debate inclusive to all our passionate students. If you have any questions about the team or want to get in touch, please feel free to reach out! You can contact us via email at calparli@gmail.com, or through our Facebook page at facebook.com/ParliDebateAtBerkeley/. Also, keep track of the team's progress at parli.berkeley.edu!
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Cal Band Rehearsal Hall Upgrades
By Melody Carey
New goal of $25,000! Where family and fun comes together to make music and memories. Help us reach our goal to upgrade our rehearsal facilities!
New goal of $25,000! Where family and fun comes together to make music and memories. Help us reach our goal to upgrade our rehearsal facilities! Thank you to everyone who has already donated and helped us reach our initial goal! We have a new goal of $25,000 which would cover 75% of our costs. Please consider making a donation today! The University of California Marching Band is a student-run organization dedicated to spreading the California spirit and bringing excitement to Cal fans through our music and performances. As a group funded primarily through private sources, we depend on the generosity of our donors. In the fall, Cal Band practices every day to rehearse music and run through our marching routines for our football pregame and halftime shows. When we are not practicing on the field, we proudly wear our Straw Hat Band uniform to all manner of sporting events like basketball, and volleyball, to show our support to our athletes and entertain Cal fans. Most recently, we performed in the Super Bowl 50 halftime show alongside Coldplay, Beyonce, and Bruno Mars and embarked on an international tour to perform in China and Japan. These memorable experiences truly demonstrated our ability to work with professionals and showcase our traditional marching style to audiences of over 150 million people around the world. We hope to continue to reach out to new audiences and further spread the California Spirit in future performances and tours. Amazing opportunities like these have allowed us the chance to extend our reach to not only our Bay Area fans, but also to the international community. However, in order to continue growing, we depend upon the generosity of individuals so we may travel to entertain new fans and maintain our facilities. We are currently working to raise money to install a sound and video system within our rehearsal hall, which will also require the removal of asbestos from the building’s ceiling. Our current rehearsal facility has not been updated since it was built in the 1960s and it does not contain any form of proper sound or video equipment. Thus, as our band continues to grow and spread our outreach around the world, we would like to use this new equipment as a teaching tool to help us improve our shows and enhance our music and marching capabilities. Currently, we do not have the funds necessary to complete a renovation of our performance facility and install an up-to-date sound and video system. Therefore, with your support during this campaign, we hope to raise at least $15,000, out of our estimated $30,000-$40,000 project cost. Please make a gift today. With your donation we can continue to improve and extend our performances to an even larger audience! If you have any questions or concerns please contact Melody Carey at mccarey96@berkeley.edu!
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Third World Liberation Front Research Initiative
By TWLF Research Initiative
Help us honor the 50th anniversary of the Third World Liberation Front at UC Berkeley through intergenerational and digital research initiatives
Help us honor the 50th anniversary of the Third World Liberation Front at UC Berkeley through intergenerational and digital research initiatives TWLF Research Initiative As we commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Third World Liberation Front (twLF/TWLF) at UC Berkeley, the TWLF Research Initiative is providing an important snapshot of this historic moment. The work of the TWLF has profoundly influenced and changed the course of the university, at UC Berkeley and beyond, founding the first ever programs in Chicano Studies, African American Studies, Native American Studies and Asian American Studies. In 1999, the twLF banner was taken up again (now as twLF) to demand and win more spaces and resources for students of color, first generation students, working class students and other marginalized student populations. This includes the Multicultural Community Center, the twLF mural (in progress), the Center for Race and Gender (the first of its kind), and more faculty hires in the existing departments. Related struggles have brought us projects such as the American Cultures requirement and the various Recruitment and Retention centers that service these student populations. Indeed, this student movement links our campus to some of the most important struggles for social justice over the past 50 years; including the American Indian Movement, the Black Panther Party, the movement to dismantle Apartheid in South Africa, the first Asian American political organization, and the Chicanx Movement to name only a few. Imagine courtesy of Ethnic Studies Library This strike and subsequent activism, however, remains largely obscured at UC Berkeley outside of the spaces that have been directly influenced by the TWLF. To address this silencing of the past, the TWLF Research Initiative is working to develop a creative and dynamic online portal - hosted at twlf.berkeley.edu - that will provide open access to these crucial activist histories. As a creative and living archive-linking project, the TWLF Portal is a critical first step in this process to properly honor and acknowledge the work of these historic student leaders. Your donations will directly fund necessary steps in this process: including the collection of oral histories from veterans of the various strikes, archival research and website development. Your funds will go directly to honoraria, travel costs and technical needs of documentation. The importance of the twLF cannot be overstated, and is largely a silenced and erased history here at UC Berkeley. With all this important work being done on campus and beyond, there still does not exist any centralized place to learn about and educate our communities about this crucial student movement. Each of these wins over the past 50 years have had tremendous impacts on the whole UC system and have proven to be pivotal moments in the trajectories of social movements and public education at large. The need for this sort of relevant and community-engaged education is more necessary than ever in these times. Help us build this important website to honor and celebrate this historic and ongoing revolutionary work!
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Democracy Camp 2019 | Spring 2018
By Lisa García Bedolla
STRETCH GOAL of $7,500! Democracy Camp is a spring break bootcamp for Cal students interested in public service. Students get engaged, empowered and informed!
STRETCH GOAL of $7,500! Democracy Camp is a spring break bootcamp for Cal students interested in public service. Students get engaged, empowered and informed! After successfully launching Democracy Camp last year, we are excited to announce Democracy Camp 2019! We invite you to take a look at our page, share with friends, and consider making a gift in support of the program. Thank you for your support! -------------------------------------------------- On behalf of IGS and the Matsui Center we are sending out a huge thank you to all of our generous donors who helped us reach our initial goal of $5,000 in less than two weeks! We are overwhelmed by the support and so excited about Democracy Camp. We have created a new stretch goal of $7,500, which will fully fund the Camp this year. Please continue to show your support by sharing our project with your networks and friends! Thank you so much, and Go Bears! Help Students Answer the Call to Public Service, Sooner! Democracy Camp is a new program for Cal students interested in enhancing our democracy through public service. This four day spring break “boot-camp” will help 16 undergrad students get engaged, empowered and informed faster about how to make an impact in their communities and beyond. Democracy Camp will help students chart their path to a meaningful public service career. Please make your gift today and help us spread the word! This program will train a new generation of leaders: young people who reflect our society and come from all walks of life. We believe that attracting people with varied perspectives and life experiences to public service will ensure more effective and representative government moving forward. Democracy Camp will give students first-hand exposure to different facets of a public service career: legislative paths, community organizations, local, state and federal government, and philanthropy. Participants will learn directly from presenters about the opportunities available in these fields. They will have networking opportunities and build a cohort amongst themselves to support their career goals. There will also be skill-building modules that focus on practical and tangible takeaways: interviewing, resume writing and mentoring. Democracy Camp is sponsored by the Institute of Governmental Studies (IGS) and the Robert T. Matsui Center for Politics and Public Service at the University of California, Berkeley. IGS stands at the forefront of research, teaching and service in California and American politics and policy. Interdisciplinary and non-partisan, we foster thoughtful discussions of issues across party lines that focus on solutions – not just problems. Our mission is anchored by a belief in the transformational power of public service. How You Can Help With your help, we hope to raise $5,000 to fund Democracy Camp. Democracy Camp will primarily serve first generation, non-traditional and transfer students. This program increases access and opportunity for all Cal students, especially those who can’t afford to participate in an unpaid summer internship. In addition to the experiential learning program and additional reading materials, all meals and snacks will be provided to students during the week. This will help defray costs for students who may otherwise be concerned about food insecurity during Spring Break. IGS staff are donating their time to create this opportunity for students will facilitate this program. Additional funds raised above our goal will offset these costs. Please help us reach our goal of $5,000 by making a gift today! Your support will ensure that we are able to provide the best educational experience possible for UC Berkeley’s motivated change-makers! To learn more, visit: igs.berkeley.edu/student-learning/democracy-camp Thank you for your support!
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Solar Decathlon
By UC Berkeley
Solar Decathlon is constructing a sustainable, net-zero home to enter UC Berkley into the 2017 US Department of Energy Solar Decathlon competition.
Solar Decathlon is constructing a sustainable, net-zero home to enter UC Berkley into the 2017 US Department of Energy Solar Decathlon competition. We have met our $10,000 goal! Help us get to $20,000 by sharing our page on social media! solardecathlon.berkeley.edu | @solardecathlonatcal | berkeleysolardecathlon@gmail.com INTRODUCTION We are Berkeley’s first Solar Decathlon Team! The Solar Decathlon is a competition sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, where student teams design, build, fund, and transport solar powered, net-zero energy homes that compete in a decathlon of competitions. We have designed our home specifically for Richmond, California in an effort to address urbanization and gentrification while still focusing on the sustainability and solar goals of the competition. Our home will be stackable, sustainable, and affordable, for families in a growing urban area. We are a diverse and multidisciplinary group of students with backgrounds ranging from design, engineering, and architecture, to business and economics. Yet, we all share the common goal of building a home that presents solutions to environmental concerns and addresses affordability and rapid urbanization. Our versatile and innovative approach to the competition will shed new light on housing solutions that will be applicable in not just Richmond but many areas across the country. We have been working on this project for over a year now; we have implemented new strategies, been mentored by professionals, held outreach events, and have a team of dedicated students that will ensure the success of our house - but we need your help to be successful! Please consider making a gift to our Solar Decathlon Team. THE PROJECT We have been working on our house since 2015 and we are getting closer to seeing all of our hard work come to life. We are building a house that is zero net energy and an affordable, sustainable alternative for housing in areas suffering from gentrification like Richmond, California. OUR DESIGN Our team wanted to encompass our design goals into a name that we felt represents what we are about. We decided on the name RISE, which alludes to our unique, multi-story design. Further, upon shaping our team values to address the needs of our target city - Richmond, California, we encompassed our design philosophy with the four words that are name stands for. THE IMPACT We want our impact to inspire others and provide a long-lasting, sustainable solution for Bay Area gentrification. This project also represents an opportunity for students, in Richmond and at UC Berkeley, to learn about sustainability through hands-on experience. To accomplish this, we have been working with high school students in Richmond, through an in-class workshop to teach students about energy and sustainability. The workshop encourages students to engage with the design process through a “theoretical” Solar Decathlon Competition. Working with the Richmond community to critique and improve our project has been a top priority of our team. We have begun to work with the Richmond Community Foundation to find a final location for our home, after the competition next October. FOR MORE INFORMATION Check out our website at solardecathlon.berkeley.edu or email us at berkeleysolardecathlon@gmail.com
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UC Berkeley Women's Club Soccer | 2018
By UC Berkeley
Donate today to support Cal Women's Club Soccer!
STRETCH GOAL OF $10,000!
Donate today to support Cal Women's Club Soccer! STRETCH GOAL OF $10,000! Thank you to all of our wonderful donors, we have already reached our initial goal of $7,000! We've created a new stretch goal of $10,000. We are excited to announce that we have been granted an "at-large" bid to Nationals in Foley, Alabama and truly could not have done it without your support! History and Mission UC Berkeley Women's Club Soccer was founded in 1995 as a way for academically driven women to continue playing soccer in college. Since its founding, the size of the club has grown exponentially and now includes two teams with a total of almost 50 talented women; many of whom turned down offers to play D1 soccer at other schools in order to attend UC Berkeley. Cal Women’s Club Soccer allows us to be a part of a smaller community on a large campus. At an institution as rigorous as UC Berkeley, it can often feel impossible to make time for ourselves and our passions outside of school. We are incredibly lucky to have a community on campus that promotes both physical and mental health, and allows us to achieve our academic goals while continuing to play the sport that we love. Your support today will ensure that our team continues to thrive! As a historically self-funded and self-run organization, we have relied heavily on personal sacrifices from our players, generous donations from family and friends, and annual player dues to stay afloat. We were thrilled to have been able to attend Nationals last year in Phoenix, AZ and truly could not have done it without the generous donations from our supporters. These donations also allowed us to provide adequate training resources for players, give everyone a jersey, and send every player to a state or nation-wide tournament in the spring. We're hoping to continue this legacy of sending all players to at least one tournament a semester, and support our development as a team by hiring new coaches. We would greatly appreciate your support as it would play an integral part not only in helping our club continue to grow as an organization, but also in supporting us in our pursuit of a national title this upcoming season in Foley, Alabama. Please make a gift today to support Cal Women’s Club Soccer; we are truly grateful for any contribution! Expenses Your Donation Will Go Towards Who We Are Since Fall of 2016 we have expanded our program from one team to two in order to increase the opportunities for women on campus to play competitive soccer. This semester we have a diverse group of almost 50 girls! (Not all pictured). A Team B Team Keep Up with Us! Please contact us at calwomensclubsoccer@gmail.com with any additional questions! To learn more and find our schedule, visit our website at http://www.calwomensclubsoccer.com/. Follow us on social media for more regular updates! Facebook: Cal Women's Club Soccer Instagram: @calwomensclubsoccer
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Cal Dragon Boat | Spring 2018
By Cal Dragon Boat
Cal Dragon Boat is one of the most successful DB teams in California. Help our team continue to represent Cal on the International stage!
Cal Dragon Boat is one of the most successful DB teams in California. Help our team continue to represent Cal on the International stage! Cal Dragon Boat Who are we? PADDLES UP! Cal Dragon Boat carries on the 2500 year-old tradition of Dragon Boat, using modern training techniques and old-fashioned hard work. Dragon Boat is the ultimate team effort. A crew of 20 paddlers and a steersman work together in unison, in a display of paddling power unlike anything else. Cal Dragon Boat is a co-ed team of 60, representing Cal in both collegiate and international races. We’re primarily funded through fees collected out-of-pocket from our members as well as limited ASUC funds. Our expenses and race registration fees often outstrip what our individual members are capable of paying. Will you help us continue our success by making a gift to support our team today? Our team was founded in 1998, a group of pioneers who developed a culture of passion and friendship that has endured. We have been an ASUC sponsored organization for 14 years. Today, Cal Dragon Boat is a proud member of the fastest growing water sport in the world, with a strong presence in the local and international Dragon Boat communities. We have been one of the most successful collegiate programs in California. Our back to back victories in all categories of competition at the annual California College Championship are unparalleled in the history of the race. We are seeking support to pursue our next great challenge: international competition. The Concord Pacific Dragon Boat Festival is among the largest, most competitive, and well-attended festivals in North America. It offers a world-class level of competition that will evoke both inspiration and rivalry in our young paddlers. This race is an opportunity for Cal Dragon Boat to represent Berkeley and the paddling community in California on the International stage. Not only will our paddlers grow from racing side-by-side with the best in the world at this sport, but by giving a strong showing, we can inspire other young paddlers in their journey. This year, at the 30th anniversary of this storied race, help our team grow the sport of Dragon Boat and fight for Cal! Please make a gift today! What does your donation support? We are seeking assistance with the race fees for our most important events as well as expenses for the training tools we need to be competitive. Your donation supports: Paddling Ergometer (featured in our video!)- $850 Concord Pacific DB Festival Race Registration- $1405 College Championship Race Registration - $600 Coaching Equipment- $645 Thank you for your contribution to our team. Your donation helps us grow and share the sport and community we love! For more info, visit us at: FB: https://www.facebook.com/caldb/ Website: https://caldragonboat.berkeley.edu/ Instagram: @caldragonboat Email: caldragonboat@gmail.com
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A Better Place to Dump
By Rachel Sklar
Preventing to haphazard dumping of human waste in communities and water sources by turning waste into fuel.
Preventing to haphazard dumping of human waste in communities and water sources by turning waste into fuel. This project has ended, but you can still support amazing Berkeley initiatives by visiting give.berkeley.edu. Your continued support of our students, faculty and staff will ensure that Berkeley remains the #1 public university. Go Bears! We have met our goal! Thank you for your support. With these funds, we will run a pilot transfer station in one community for at least 3 months. We are continuing to raise funds until May 6. Extra money we raise beyond our goal will help us build more transfer stations for another community in Kigali and provide more sanitation workers with the training and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) kits. We are students of the Berkeley Water Group Idea Lab. We know that 1.6 million people die every year from diarrheal diseases because they lack access to safe drinking water or basic sanitation. We know that to combat this, organizations and governments around the world are making their agenda building toilets. But we’re not impressed. Toilets are not enough 3.8 billion people use toilets that are not connected to sewer systems because they are the cheapest and only available option for slum locations. Sooner or later, these toilets fill. When there is no room to build a replacement pit, the old pit must be emptied. Mechanical emptying is costly and vacuum trucks often cannot access households in the narrow alleyways of dense urban settlements. Manual emptiers remain the cheapest and most accessible way for households to empty their toilets. Manual Emptier Excavating a Pit Latrine Manual emptiers are poorly paid and cannot afford safety gear. Many emptiers use alcohol or drugs to numb themselves before jumping into pits of festering fecal solids. Without a means to transport the waste away from the community, it is dumped or buried in nearby streams or ditches, contaminating drinking water sources and exposing the community to toxins and pathogens. Manual emptying has been outlawed in many places due to its danger for emptiers, surrounding community, and the environment. Emptiers often keep their work secret, even from their families. Generations of these workers have endured humiliation and inhumane work conditions to separate communities from feces. This is an explosive violation of human rights. Our Project-Collecting Waste to Make Fuel If handled properly, human waste can be transformed into an energy rich resource that can be used as fuel. Our solution to eliminating inhumane work conditions and haphazard dumping is to connect two key players: pit emptiers and fuel companies. We will partner with Pivot, a waste-to-fuel startup company, to develop the hardware and local capacity needed to collect waste from informal communities and turn it into fuel. Pivot is based in Kigali, Rwanda and like most cities in sub-Saharan Africa, the majority of Kigali’s residents – over 60% – live in informal settlements and use pit latrines that are emptied into ditches or streams in the community. The Berkeley Water Group will support the construction of transfer stations, which will provide a local and safe place to dump so that emptiers are no longer forced to illegally and haphazardly dump human waste in public spaces. A transfer station is a holding tank that acts as an intermediate dumping point to reduce the transport distance required to travel to a safe disposal site. Once a transfer station fills up, Pivot can safely empty the waste from the transfer station and convert it to clean, green, solid fuel--an alternative to fossil fuel for industrial uses. It’s a win-win-win. For Pivot, the more waste they collect, the more revenue they can generate from fuel sales. Workers will benefit from training and personal protective gear and emptying tools that Pivot will provide to keep their partners healthy. Communities will realize the health benefits of less contaminated water sources. Emptier Safety Training Conversion of Human Waste to Fuel at Pivot's Pilot Plant Our partners at Pivot will match the funds we raise in this campaign and we’ll use the sum of the funds to construct first transfer station, equip emptiers with protective gear, and help design safety protocols that minimize worker exposures to pathogens. Our interdisciplinary group of students and practitioners from the fields of engineering, earth sciences, sociology, and public health will also design monitoring programs and tracking tools to ensure that infectious human waste is reaching the treatment site safely, reliably, and cost effectively with minimal risks to workers at all stages in the process. We will run a transfer station pilot in at least one community for at least 3 months. If we exceed our fundraising goal, we can build more transfer stations for other communities and provide more sanitation workers with the training and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) kits. The Team Rachel Sklar: Industrial Hygiene Sharada Prasad: Energy and Resources Group Megan Maurino: Conservation and Resource Studies Estrella Sainburg: International Development Studies Narayan Gopinathan: Environmental Science and Policy Christine Tyler: Political Science Meghna Patnaik: Sustainable Design
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ANova Hacks 2019
By Berkeley ANova
ANova Hacks is an overnight, free of charge hackathon for under-resourced high school students, designed to change the way they think about computer science.
ANova Hacks is an overnight, free of charge hackathon for under-resourced high school students, designed to change the way they think about computer science. Berkeley ANova Our team hopes to raise $4000 for our annual hackathon. We will use the money to provide the best experience for our students from under-resourced backgrounds. Would you be interested in supporting our cause? A hackathon is rooted in the simple, but complex world of "creation". During hackathons, teams come together to bring one of their own ideas into tangible reality using technology. Regardless of their interest in computer science, students are exposed to the wonders of technology and its impact on our world. Together, we can inspire the next generation of innovators to hack to new heights. Every semester, ANova puts on a hackathon for students in underserved communities. This year, ANova Hacks will be an overnight, free of charge hackathon designed to change the way our students think about computer science. We want to give them the skills and experience necessary to achieve their career aspirations, and spread their ideas to the world through technology. We imagine a diverse tech environment where age, gender and background do not limit one’s ability to pursue computer science, and the mission of ANova Hacks is to make that a reality. As students at a top school for Computer Science, ANova recognizes the importance of diversity. The majority of our students come from urban areas where most students are not exposed to computer science or higher education. We hope to not only transform the spark of an idea into a prototype, but also to ignite a passion for computer science in our participants. By presenting a firsthand look at virtual reality, gaming, information security, artificial intelligence and more, we provide students with an exciting look into the forefront of technological innovation. ANova Hacks merges the fundamental computer science techniques taught at our weekly site visits with workshops geared towards the construction of a project. Workshops and panels about financial aid, college life and the application process inspire students to pursue higher education in one of their passions. We offer students knowledge and advice from successful, experienced industry leaders as well as mentorship from passionate UC Berkeley students. Most of all, ANova Hacks is about forming friendships with these students so that they have the resources they need to achieve their goals. Oftentimes, the hackers who attend hackathons have built before and have been exposed to the infinite possibilities out there. Computer Science has consistently been more prevalent in communities with consistent access to computers and the tech industry. However, a significant amount of potential computer scientists don’t have these opportunities, and that’s where ANova Hacks fits in: a hackathon specially for students in under-resourced communities to instill the belief into our students that every one of them can change the world through a college education and through the power of technology. We hope to empower our students through this hackathon so that they can transcend the limits of their circumstance and ignite a passion towards becoming an engineer in the future. We hope that you can be a part of this journey and help us make this possible for our students! Our hackathon aims to empower our students to not only pursue a college degree, but also use technology for social good. Through ANova Hacks, we aim to give them the skills and experience necessary to spread their ideas to the world. We imagine a diverse tech industry where age, gender and background do not limit one’s ability to pursue computer science, and ANova Hacks aims to make that a reality. To introduce our students to various kinds of technologies they may be able to use throughout the hackathon, we will bring in industry experts and host a variety of workshops. Last year, we led workshops ranging from sessions on financial aid and higher education to lessons on web design and hardware. Our experienced ANova members also led workshops on web design and development, hardware, and introductory Python. At ANova Hacks 2019, we hope to bring even more interesting and enlightening workshops to our students, such as sessions on computer security. Thus, in addition to having 24-hour mentorship for projects, each student will have access to educational workshops throughout the hackathon led by passionate UC Berkeley students. ANova Hacks is about forming friendships with these students and empowering them so that they have the resources they need to achieve their goals. To make this valuable experience accessible to our students, we host this hackathon free of charge. We aim to ultimately raise $8,000 for our hackathon so that we can run as many workshops as we can in a spacious venue with awesome prizes for our hackers. These $4,000 from Crowdfunding are only the first step in our journey to providing students with a safe, encouraging environment to work, learn, and have fun. Our goal for this crowdfunding campaign is to raise enough money to fund our venue for our Hackathon and be able to provide an amazing experience to our students free of charge. If we raise over $4000, we'll spend that money towards providing students with BART tickets to attend the hackathon! Your support will help make this possible. Please donate today! In addition, last year, several students were unable to attend ANova Hacks 2018 due to conflicts with transportation to and from the venue. In order to encourage more students to attend our event, we would like to offer a transportation reimbursement option or pre-paid BART tickets, which would support students who would otherwise be unable to afford a trip to the hackathon. With extra funding, we’d like to encourage more students to attend our event by covering their transportation fees. We hope that you’ll be a part of our movement to inspire as many students as possible with Computer Science, mentorship, and a supportive, hands-on learning environment! To truly expose our students to what industry is like, ANova has partnered with industry leaders like Google, Facebook, and HackerEarth in previous years to provide swag and panelists for our hackathon. Our sponsors have made previous hackathons possible with their invaluable experience in helping out with workshops and panels to give our students the full experience. We would like to thank them below for making previous ANova Hacks amazing: Facebook Google XYZ Webdam Make School Trader Joe's Soylent HackerEarth Ivanti ANova is a registered student organization in UC Berkeley dedicated to improving computer science education in under resourced communities across the Bay Area. We partner with middle and high school teachers and administrators to develop curriculum catered individually for each classroom. Our outreach and mentorship efforts strive to introduce students of all backgrounds to Computer Science. We currently reach out to over 100 students at ten different middle/high school programs. To be considered for our program, each one of these schools must provide above 40% free and reduced lunch. Every site has its own curriculum catered to its own specific needs. As part of our mission, we also host ANova Hacks annually, an event dedicated to showing the wonders of computer science to our students. Help ANova fund a 24-hour hackathon for under-resourced students and spread the love for Computer Science! Please make a gift today! Thank you for your support! To find out more about us, visit us at berkeleyanova.org or facebook.com/BerkeleyANova.
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Greater Good Science Center
By Emiliana Simon-Thomas
"Greater Good In Action" will be a new interactive website that shares research-tested tips promoting happiness, well-being, and social connection.
"Greater Good In Action" will be a new interactive website that shares research-tested tips promoting happiness, well-being, and social connection. This project has ended, but you can still support amazing Berkeley initiatives by visiting give.berkeley.edu. Your continued support of our students, faculty and staff will ensure that Berkeley remains the #1 public university. Go Bears! The Greater Good Science Center is an independently funded non-profit based at UC Berkeley that studies and shares the "science of a meaningful life." We feature cutting-edge research and everyday tips to promote happiness, emotional health, connection with others, and stress reduction. With your support we hope to launch a new web-based tool called Greater Good in Action that can enhance the life of everyone who uses it (including you!). Choose the positive emotion you'd like to cultivate -- joy, awe, empathy, forgiveness -- and receive scientifically validated, step-by-step instructions. Our online audience of over 250,000 people worldwide ensures that the impact of GGIA will be huge. But we receive all our funding from donors and friends like you, and we're $12,000 away from being able to finish the project. So we ask you to please make a gift so this first-of-its-kind resource can be a reality. Thank you!
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Campanile Peregrine Webcam
By Campanile Peregrine Cam Team
NEW STRETCH GOAL: $16,000! We will install a webcam system on the UC Berkeley Campanile so that everyone can enjoy the nesting peregrine falcons!
NEW STRETCH GOAL: $16,000! We will install a webcam system on the UC Berkeley Campanile so that everyone can enjoy the nesting peregrine falcons! Campanile Peregrine Cam Team “THANK YOU!” to everyone for helping us reach and exceed our funding goal! We can now look forward to setting up a webcam system on the Campanile so everyone can watch the peregrines "Up close and Personal". We have created a new stretch goal of $16,000 to secure additional funds for maintenance and repair of the webcam system AND to hire a student intern for research, video archiving and preparing educational materials. Please join us in helping to reach our stretch goal. Thank you very much for all of your support! Campanile Webcam: Get Up Close and Personal with UC’s Nesting Peregrine Falcons Peregrine Falcons, the world’s fastest animal, were once on the brink of extinction. Due to the ubiquitous use of persistent pesticides such as DDT, California’s population of Peregrine Falcons declined from hundreds to just two known breeding pairs by 1970. Thanks to the tireless efforts of scientists, falconers, citizen scientists and academics, we now enjoy these truly magnificent birds as they reclaim not only their natural habitats but also new urban nest sites such as the UC Berkeley Campanile, where they were discovered in 2017 (Photo 1). Photo 1. Adult female peregrine falcon on west balcony of the Campanile, voicing her displeasure during out inspection of her nest, April 21, 2017 (Photo: Doug Bell) Realizing that the pair living on the Campanile did not have anything to nest on, we obtained emergency permission from state and federal authorities and UC Facilities Management to install a temporary nest shelf on the Campanile in 2017 (Photo 2). Photo 2. The temporary nest shelf and gravel with 3 falcon eggs installed in 2017. (Photo Doug Bell). To wide-spread interest, the pair of falcons hatched and raised two nestlings – later named after Berkeley’s motto in a campus-wide competition – Fiat and Lux. In 2018 we installed a permanent nest shelf on the Campanile for the falcons, which paid off when they successfully raised 3 nestlings! The 2018 nestlings were named in a campus-wide competition after three elements discovered at UC Berkeley, Berkelium, Californium and Lawrencium. All three juveniles learned to fly quickly and eventually left campus, with Lawrencium, the juvenile female, seen in the fall of 2018 at the Golden Gate Raptor Observatory in the Marin Headlands! Although we have been monitoring the falcons from the ground using spotting scopes set-up near the Campanile for the past two years, the most common question we get from students is: “Is there a webcam?” Unfortunately, we cannot currently see the nest site on the upper balcony of the Campanile from the ground, so our observations are limited to the adult falcons until the juveniles are ready to fly. The goal of this campaign is to install a webcam so that everyone can enjoy and study UC Berkeley’s “own” peregrine falcons in real time and in much greater detail than through ground-based spotting scopes. With a webcam system, fans of UC Berkeley’s resident falcons will be able to peek in on the growing falcon family whenever they’d like. Researchers will be able follow the chronology of nesting without disturbing the falcons and determine exactly when the eggs are laid, hatching occurs and when to band the chicks. Will you make a gift today to help us purchase and install this webcam system? The Campanile’s Peregrine Falcon webcam will advance research on urban nesting peregrines and document a host of key life-history and ecological parameters such as hatching success, prey base, and fledging success. The webcam will also be a tremendous benefit to UC Berkeley and the campus community and would highlight a great conservation success story in our own backyard. Costs: We hope to raise $10,141 total. This will cover the purchase of 2 pan-tilt/zoom cameras and associated equipment and installation costs ($8,172) plus 1-2 years maintenance ($1,969). We plan to place one camera in front of the nest shelf itself to have full view of the birds and a second camera in the northeast corner of the upper balcony. This will give us full views of three sides of the Campanile’s balcony to see not just the nest but the action and behavior of the falcons as they move about the tower. Thank you for your support! Timeline: We hope to move fast! We plan to install the webcams in December of this year to give the falcons plenty of time to get used to the system before mating and their first eggs are laid in early Spring. Photo 3. The adult female peregrine defending her nest on UC’s Campanile. (Photo: Maria Garcia-Alvarez) Further Information: This is a collaborative effort between UC Berkeley and the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology (www.mvz.berkeley.edu) (follow us on Twitter), the East Bay Regional Park District (www.ebparks.org), the Golden Gate Raptor Observatory (www.parksconservancy.org/programs/ggro) and the Institute for Wildlife Studies (www.iws.org). Total Fundraising Goal: $10,141.00 includes: Purchase and installation of webcam system: $8,172.00 One year maintenance of webcam system: $1,969.00 Budget Breakdown: Peter Sharpe, Ph.D. (Institute for Wildlife Studies, PO Box 2500, Avalon, CA 90704; www.iws.org), will purchase, configure, and install the webcams and associated equipment. The total budget of $10,141.00 has two components: 1. purchase and installation of the webcam system ($8,172.00) and 2. maintenance of the system ($1,969.00). Budget 1 below covers the purchase, configuration, installation, and quality control of two pan/tilt/zoom cameras to monitor the peregrine falcon nest shelf on the west balcony of the Campanile and the north and east sides of the Campanile upper balconies. The latter would allow for observing the young falcon’s movement on the balcony after they have ventured out from the nest shelf. The upper balconies of the Campanile are closed to public access. The system would use power available on-site to power all equipment. One day of Dr. Sharpe’s time is allocated for equipment purchase and testing prior to installation, and two days of installation to allow for placing equipment on the UC Campanile and at a remote site if the video signal needs to be transmitted elsewhere. Based upon the photos of the clock tower, Dr. Sharpe proposes mounting 2”x 8” boards on the inside of the upper balcony railings using expandable rods attached to the boards so that there is no drilling into the building structure. This technique would 1) allow the cameras to be attached with no damage to the existing structure, and 2) keep the cameras and associated hardware hidden from view from the ground. Since the cameras would be facing the tower and situated at the level of the banisters, the cameras would not be able to pan out to the ground below the Campanile. Budget 2 below covers the cost of one year of maintenance of the system. One year of maintenance will provide time for fundraising future maintenance funds from other sources.
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Help build a "Discovery Cart" for the Botanical Garden!
By Christine Manoux
STRETCH GOAL - $7,000! Help the UC Botanical Garden create a mobile Discovery Cart, where visitors of all ages and backgrounds explore the world of plants!
STRETCH GOAL - $7,000! Help the UC Botanical Garden create a mobile Discovery Cart, where visitors of all ages and backgrounds explore the world of plants! We have a new stretch goal of $7,000! Help us add more features to the Discovery Cart including hands-on science equipment, a better shade structure, and more! The UC Botanical Garden is among the most botanically diverse landscapes in the world. The research-based collection of over 10,000 taxa is also a 'living museum' and a major attraction for the public and school groups. The Garden's 80+ Docents receive hundreds of hours of training in order to be expert interpreters on docent-led tours. However, most of the public comes into the Garden not on tours, but on a drop-in basis as a general visitor, with the most diverse audience coming on our monthly Free Admission day. Our goal with this campaign is to create a mobile Discovery Cart that will reveal to visitors of all ages and backgrounds the wonder, diversity and importance of the botanical world. A butterfly themed Discovery Station at the UC Botanical Garden could be recreated and transformed with a Discovery Cart. The Project The proposed Discovery Station Cart will be the locus for public interpretation, offering interactive materials--such as seed pods, living and dried plant specimens, garden animals, and items made from plants--to engage visitors with hands-on exploration of such topics as patterns in nature, pollination and seed dispersal, food, fiber and dye plants, and the evolution of plant diversity. Our goal is to build a platform for visitors to engage with docents and these materials on a personal level toward advancing the visitor's understanding and appreciation of the plant world. By doing this, we aim to also increase the visitor's future sense of stewardship for nature and conservation. How You Can Help We hope to raise $5,000 to cover the cost of designing, materials, and building of the mobile Discovery Cart. With a fun, inviting presence, the Discovery Cart will house natural materials, provide shelter from sun, and offer multiple surfaces to conduct hands-on investigations. By being mobile, it will allow Docents the flexibility to move to various plants and locales in the collection. Building on the success of our current discovery stations, we anticipate over 2,000 visitors will benefit from our Discovery Cart program in the first year, with that number growing as the program continues. Please contribute whatever you can to help us make this Discovery Cart a reality. Your support will create a special place for all Garden visitors to see plants with new eyes, through the lens of the Discovery Cart experience!
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FORUM UNBOUNDED: Expanding and Engaging Greater Communities
By The Berkeley Forum
The Berkeley Forum, a non-partisan student group that hosts debates, talks, and panels, needs your support to further expand in and engage new communities.
The Berkeley Forum, a non-partisan student group that hosts debates, talks, and panels, needs your support to further expand in and engage new communities. The Berkeley Forum Who We Are The Berkeley Forum is a completely nonpartisan, student-run nonprofit that organizes debates, talks, and panels that are open and accessible to UC Berkeley students and our community. Since 2012, the Berkeley Forum has hosted more than 100 events and 6,000 attendees. From MythBusters co-host Jamie Hyneman to PayPal founder Peter Thiel, guests of the Forum have created opportunities for intellectual dialogue both within and beyond UC Berkeley. Our events have been covered by C-SPAN, CNN, FOX News, and the New York Times. Our current semester includes a record 18 debates, panels, and talks. As our organization seeks to consistently reach new audiences and promote more viewpoints, our limitations as a completely student-run nonprofit have created barriers that inhibit these goals. With your support, we hope to overcome this through the following 3 initiatives: 1) Expanding the Breadth of our Lineup: Out-of-State and International Speakers Fund While the Forum’s lineup has always sought to cover a range of topics and guests, factors of cost prohibit our Programming team from actively inviting out-of-state and international speakers. In order to expand the variety of our lineup for the Spring 2018 semester, $2000 of the money raised from this campaign will be used to establish a fund that actively works to invite a greater breadth of speakers. 2) Establishing our Presence in Unprecedented Venues: Community Venues Fund As the Forum seeks to continuously expand its lineup and number of events, the organization needs access to a plethora of venues around and outside campus. However, the past year has seen a drastic limitation of our venue options. Off-campus and more community-based venues are available but expensive, with the average event costing over $500 per venue. By allocating $1500 to booking these venues, we can secure centrally located, easily accessible spaces. 3) Engaging Greater Audiences from the Berkeley Community: High School Outreach Program The Forum’s growth also comes with increased audiences. We would like to catalyze this process by reaching out to local high schools, and hope to direct $500 of this campaign towards establishing an outreach program that allows younger students to easily access our events and talk with Forum members about their UC Berkeley experiences. How Your Support Helps Through your support, the Forum will: Increase out-of-state and international speakers by 25% in our 2018 lineup Host 2 to 3 more events in accessible community venues such as Hotel Durant, Berkeley City Club, and the Bancroft Hotel Implement a High School Outreach Program in 2 to 3 local classrooms in Spring 2018 Being a nonprofit, the Berkeley Forum depends primarily on donations and limited university grants for support - resources that cover only a fraction of the cost of just a single event. Many times, Forum members pay out of their own pockets for events. The Berkeley Forum is excited to expose our community to incredible ideas and diversity of thought, which is why your support is CRUCIAL. The Berkeley Forum holds a panel on women in technology. U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro speaks about housing rights, gentrification, and homelessness. Robert Krulwich, co-host of NPR's Radiolab, takes the audience on a journey exploring the intersection of science and mystery. To find out more about us and our events, visit us at forum.berkeley.edu and like us on Facebook.
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Boalt on Break
By Hannah Flanery
NEW STRETCH GOAL OF $4,000!
Help support Berkeley Law students traveling to Central Appalachia to provide pro bono legal services.
NEW STRETCH GOAL OF $4,000! Help support Berkeley Law students traveling to Central Appalachia to provide pro bono legal services. NEW STRETCH GOAL OF $4,000! Thank you to all who have donated and shared our page so far and helped us reach our initial goal! We now have a new stretch goal of $4,000. Just as before, we will use 100% of our donations received for travel expenses, lodging, and meals. OUR MISSION Boalt on Break is one of Berkeley Law’s Student-Initiated Legal Services Projects (SLPS). We are a brand new alternative service break organization that offers students the opportunity to provide pro bono legal services outside of the Bay Area. Students work alongside established grassroots legal services agencies, gaining insight into the ways these organizations adapt their work to the unique challenges and needs of their respective communities. Boalt on Break is a service-learning experience that helps equip students with the tools to understand the complex needs of communities similar to and different from their own, helping foster an active generation of thoughtful community lawyers. For the 2017-18 school year, Boalt on Break participants will travel over spring break to eastern Kentucky, where they will work with local legal aid organizations and attorneys in the area. Under the supervision of attorneys, students will provide clients with direct legal services in the areas of wills, divorces, disability benefits claims, and Black Lung benefits claims. OUR STORY Boalt on Break was founded by Amanda Allen and Hannah Flanery, current second-year students at Berkeley Law. From the beginning, we knew we wanted to launch the organization with a trip to eastern Kentucky. Hannah was born and raised in Ashland, a town of 20,000 in eastern Kentucky, and her roots in Appalachian Kentucky go back many generations. And Amanda grew up not far away, in Louisville. Anyone in the law school who knows us almost certainly knows that we’re from Kentucky—it’s a fact that we’re both really proud of, and we love to talk about our upbringing and experiences there. And the need for legal services is certainly there. Eastern Kentucky has some of the highest poverty rates in the country. According to a new Appalachian Regional Commission report, 37 Eastern Kentucky counties were designated as “distressed” based on unemployment, income, and poverty data. That’s nearly every single county in Appalachian Kentucky, and that number is vastly disproportionate to the numbers in every other Appalachian state. Beyond the needs in the communities, we see Boalt on Break as a way to expose many Berkeley Law students to communities different from their own. Particularly in a time when America’s political climate is more divisive than ever, we think it’s important for students to be exposed to the complexities of a region that is known for little more than its poverty, opioid epidemic, and hillbilly stereotypes. It’s a region we both hold very near and dear to our hearts, and we think it’s important for students to see why. OUR 2017-18 TRIP Six student participants and two student leaders will travel to eastern Kentucky to do pro bono work with local community legal organizations. Students will be divided into two groups. Each group will consist of three student participants and one student leader. GROUP A: Group A Students: Caitlan Rocha, Megan Wang, and Benjamin Phillips Group A student participants will spend three days with the Appalachian Research and Defense Fund (AppalReD) in Prestonsburg, KY, where they will conduct a wills clinic and divorce clinic. Here, students will use direct client services and legal research and writing skills to assist high needs residents with drafting wills and uncontested pro se divorce forms. Group A participants will then spend two days with Ned Pillersdorf, a local attorney actively involved in pro bono work in the region. Currently, Pillersdorf, along with AppalReD and other pro bono attorneys in the area, represents former clients of Eric Conn, an eastern Kentucky disability attorney recently convicted of carrying out the largest fraud scheme in Social Security history. In relation to Conn’s eventual conviction, the Social Security Administration terminated benefits for more than 800 of Conn’s former clients. Students will assist with Pillersdorf’s efforts to have those benefits reinstated. GROUP B: Group B Students: Sara Ramsey, Alex Copper, and Jarrod Ingles Student participants will spend the week partnering with the Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center (ACLC) in Whitesburg, KY. At ACLC, students will assist attorneys in developing black lung benefits claims for former coal miners. This work will include meeting with clients, drafting claim briefs, and other similar tasks. Students from both groups may also have the opportunity to participate in non-legal volunteer work in the community. They will also meet with local community members, organizations, and activists to learn more about social and environmental justice work being done in eastern Kentucky communities. Additionally, they will have the opportunity to explore the role of coal mining in the region, through touring an abandoned coal mine and visiting mountaintop removal sites. Leading up to the trip, students will work to develop an understanding of the culture and history of eastern Kentucky and the surrounding Central Appalachian region. This will likely be done through monthly meetings, which will take the form of reading groups, film viewings, panel discussions, and guest speakers. YOUR FUNDING Boalt on Break will draw from a number of funding sources in order to keep the trip virtually free for all student participants. This will allow us to recruit a diverse group of students from various socioeconomic backgrounds, many of whom plan to pursue careers in public interest legal work, earning a fraction of their legal peers in the private sector, despite massive amounts of student loan debt. 100% of your donation will go toward travel expenses, lodging, and meals. For more information, visit boaltonbreak.org.
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Project SMILE Fall 2021
By Zi Lin Li
Project SMILE is a student-run nonprofit organization offering academic & emotional guidance to middle schoolers by serving as tutors & role models!
Project SMILE is a student-run nonprofit organization offering academic & emotional guidance to middle schoolers by serving as tutors & role models! Project S.M.I.L.E stands for Project Spreading Multiculturalism and Inspiring Leadership through Education. Through our program, Berkeley students have the opportunity to be mentors to students at two local middle schools, Longfellow and Willard Middle School. Our mentors are role models for the students and form strong relationships with them through weekly mentoring and special weekend events.... Our mission is to provide mentees and mentors with an opportunity to develop relationships built on respect, trust, and support. Through pod match-ups with students from the two middle schools, Project S.M.I.L.E seeks to promote and instill values such as the appreciation of diversity, leadership abilities, educational awareness, and a proactive sense of community. We hope to enhance the experience of both the mentees and mentors by creating a generation of motivated and inspirational leaders who are academically enlightened and socially adept. Help us support our community! During the school week, our mentors assist the students with homework help or any after school activities. In addition to assisting in after school activities, our mentors also lead themed workshops and enrichment activities to fulfill our mission. Such workshops include educating mentees about Black History Month or Women’s History Month to spread the ideals of inclusion and diversity. Some of the most exciting activities that our organization hosts are weekend field trips to promote bonding between our mentors and mentees. Each year, we go on a camping field trip together and engage in team-building activities! Project S.M.I.L.E has been a mentoring organization at UC Berkeley for over 20 years and is still going strong with new mentors and mentees joining each year! In response to the ongoing pandemic, we continuously follow CDC guidelines in regards to social distancing, masking, vaccinating and surveillance testing. Since we are a non-profit, we are counting on you to help us continue our services. The funds we raise will be distributed according to the graphic below, and we would truly appreciate it if you could donate or spread the word to your networks! Help us give to our community! Make a gift today to support our work! Keep up to date or contact Project SMILE through our platforms: Website- http://www.berkeleyprojectsmile.org/ Email- psmileinfo@gmail.com Instagram- @ucbpsmile Facebook- Project S.M.I.L.E (@CALProjectSMILE) https://www.facebook.com/CALProjectSMILE *For any questions, comments, or concerns in regards to Project SMILE, please direct your emails to psmileinfo@gmail.com, or directly to the fundraising coordinator, Zi Lin Li, at zilinli@berkeley.edu
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The Interstellar Microgravity Experiment (TIME)
By Olivia Hsu
Be part of sending Berkeley to space in 2017! Help us fund a hands-on, student-based research experiment to enable the future of space exploration.
Be part of sending Berkeley to space in 2017! Help us fund a hands-on, student-based research experiment to enable the future of space exploration. Be part of sending Berkeley to space in 2017! Help us fund a hands-on, student-based research experiment to enable the future of space exploration. Who We Are Space Technologies @ California (STAC) is a group of passionate scientists who want to push the frontier of space research and the space industry. We are not a typical engineering club that focuses on a set competition but rather we focus on making strides in innovating the field of space research! Our innovation in space technologies is a multi-campus effort with UC Santa Barbara. Figure 1. STAC in Action! Overview The Interstellar Microgravity Experiments (TIME) are a group of experiments that we would like to test in outer-space to further aerospace research at Berkeley and around the nation. TIME details how being in a low-gravity environment - like space - will affect lifeforms, optics, and physical mechanics. We recently won the Blue Origin Payload Competition at Dent:Space. This means that we will send a mini enclosure in to space for free through Blue Origin’s New Shepard Spacecraft. Figure 2: Blue Origin New Shepard Spacecraft The launch will create a microgravity, outer-space environment for our payload, where we will conduct various experiments, including: (1) observing life’s ability to survive in microgravity by re-animating roundworms, (2) testing laser communications and using lasers to remove space debris, and (3) testing the mechanics of robotic motors. Figure 3: Our Payload Prototype Figure 4: STAC Build Day Timeline/Budget Figure 5: Timeline Figure 6: Budget Breakdown* *The extra $5,000 that we plan to raise from our stretch goal will be used to pay for the payload delivery to Blue Origin in late Fall 2017. Blue Origin requires that we deliver the payload 2 weeks before the launch, however, the payload needs to delivered the day of the launch to keep the roundworms alive. In order for the company to accommodate us, they need a $5,000 same-day integration fee. Any extra funding we receive beyond our stretch goal will be used to sponsor two other projects that STAC has been working on: a Cube Satellite that we plan to launch into space and high altitude balloon testing. Collaboration We will be working closely with UC Santa Barbara and their NASA Space-grant funded group, the Deepspace Laboratory. We have also started collaborating with the Space Sciences Laboratory (SSL) here at Berkeley in order to design, test, and build our experiments. During the design and implementation stages of our project, we have been working with Berkeley’s engineering department, biology department, and Jacobs Institute for Design. Awesome Perk Categories Details of TIME C. elegans & Roundworms C. elegans have been prominently used in spaceflight research. Recently, it was shown that C. elegans also have the ability to undergo suspended animation after being exposed to cooling agents. Specifically, they have been said to withstand .6 Mrad and can be suspended for up to 10-15 years. To test their ability to be the first specimen to be included on the maiden interstellar voyage, our project would involve suspending the C. elegans into an immobile state, and re-animating them once they are in space to see how they react. Moreover, The two C. elegans groups would each have a paired control group on earth in our labs. Laser Communication and Ablation The UCSB DeepSpace Laboratory has already written papers on the applications of laser communications in space. Alongside their researchers, we will send some of their laser communication electronics into low-gravity to see if the transmission is affected in any way. Our stretch goal is to include a small vacuum with an asteroid-like sample or space-debris sample to image the plume exhaust from laser ablation to compare the effect with what we see in the lab in gravity on Earth. Robotics Based off of previous studies on how friction and gravity influence mechanics, we will build mini robotic arm, along with an information encoder, to experimentally see how being in a low-gravity environment influences the mechanics behind robotic movement. The issue with robotic manipulators on earth is the requirement for high torques to compensate for gravity. Motors must constantly fight the static forces due to gravity, which takes up the majority of the power input. Robots in close contact with humans must be safe and so cannot have high gear trains. We would like to test the possibilities for brushless direct drive robotic manipulators for human related tasks in space. These measurements we can collect are critical for the design of assistive robots in space for automation, which could greatly impact the future of human space exploration. Thank you for your support! To find out more about us, visit us at stac.berkeley.edu or www.facebook.com/stacBerkeley. You can also email us at calstac@gmail.com.
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Suitcase Clinic | Share the Warmth
By UC Berkeley
Campaign to raise funds for winter clothing and sleeping bags for the underserved within our community.
Campaign to raise funds for winter clothing and sleeping bags for the underserved within our community. For decades, the Suitcase Clinic has been on the frontlines of advocacy in the East Bay community. We began our mission of advocacy and solidarity driven by a desire to tackle disparities in access to some of the most basic social and health resources that many of the vulnerable and underserved within our community face. While our roots trace back to operating out of suitcases in order to respond to the needs of our clients, our spaces and resources have evolved over the years. Today, we operate out of three clinics that serve distinct demographics and are located throughout the city of Berkeley. Among these clinics are Womxn’s Clinic, Youth and LGBTQ+ Clinic, and General Clinic. On average, each of these spaces serve between 40 to 70 clients a night as we provide services ranging from professional medical services to foot washing and haircutting. In understanding that that there are various components to health, we as well work alongside community partners and clients to address issues of housing and food insecurity and engage in political advocacy. In the spirit of continuing our mission, we seek allies to help by donating whatever they can financially to fund our Share the Warmth campaign. While many of the donations we have received from our community have helped in the past, our most recent winter made clear our inability to adequately meet the needs of our clients in the face of severe weather. Thus, the Share the Warmth Campaign arose to fund the purchase of adequate winter gear for all the men, women, and children who enter our clinic spaces. We require sleeping bags, winter jackets, and winter clothing, all of which can be purchased through the help of your donation. What your Donations Can Help Provide: $110 Men’s Rain Jacket $60 Women’s Rain Jacket $50 Sleeping Bag $40 Child Rain Jacket $20 Blanket As students and caseworkers at the suitcase clinic, we stand in solidarity alongside the needs of our fellow community members. Through your donation, you can join us in our mission of advocacy and directly respond to the expressed needs of our community. Help unite at a time when most seem to be divided, and please help share the warmth. Thank you. Join us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/suitcaseclinic Check out our Site: http://www.suitcaseclinic.org/volunteering
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Books for Summer BUILD
By UC Berkeley
STRETCH GOAL of $2000. Help us give students participating to our summer programs books to read!!
STRETCH GOAL of $2000. Help us give students participating to our summer programs books to read!! Thanks to your support we were able to raise $1,630! Your generosity will allow us to purchase a book for our scholars participating to our summer program. We now have a stretch goal of $2000. This will permit more kids to benefit from the summer program and have access to books to continue to read and learn during their vacation. Background The Berkeley United In Literacy Development (BUILD) Program is a student-led program that believes in educational equity. We are one of the largest reading programs in the East Bay 215 Cal student mentors providing one-to-one literacy support to 850 students who are reading below grade level. Launched in 2005, the program was then dedicated to mitigating literacy loss during the summer, especially students whose families could not afford to pay for literacy support. Now, each semester, the program sends reading tutors to schools in Berkeley and Oakland who work with students in kindergarten to fifth grade. Present in 20 after school locations in Oakland and Berkeley, school literacy coaches and community partners provide trainings for our reading mentors to equip them with adequate tools to serve our students’ literacy needs. Each mentor works individually with 3 students in 30-45 minute sessions at least twice a week. They work with the same students for at least one semester, and sometimes for years, building strong relationships with one another. Our Project During the summer, BUILD continues to promote educational equity thanks to our tutors who are present in Berkeley summer camps, playground programs and participate to the Bears summer program so that children can keep reading, learning and progressing even when they are out of school.Summer break is a critical time of the year for students who are at risk of “summer slide,” which is the loss of knowledge and skills they acquired during their school year. This is especially a risk for low-income students. Our tutors are serving all the children participating to the different program and particularly assisting those who are already behind in reading and need the extra help our tutors can provide. How You Can Help Thanks to generous donations, we will be able to buy necessary books that will spark children's interests, engage them in reading, and permit them to keep learning during the summer. Your donation will allow youth to stay on track and keep those skills we all know are so fundamentally important for their academic and professional futures. Please consider making a gift today and sharing our project with friends and family you think might support our cause! Gifts of any size will make a tremendous impact in our students’ lives and our goal of getting them their books. For every $25 we raise, 5 of our students will get a book! If we raise $1,000, we’ll be able to buy 200 books for our students to read for the summer. Thank you from the BUILD staff!
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CalSol - The UC Berkeley Solar Vehicle Team FA’ 21
By William Ang
CalSol, the UC Berkeley Solar Vehicle Team, is a student team that designs, builds, tests, and races fully solar-powered vehicles at competitions.
CalSol, the UC Berkeley Solar Vehicle Team, is a student team that designs, builds, tests, and races fully solar-powered vehicles at competitions. Driven by a vision for sustainable technology, CalSol is a team of almost 100 Berkeley undergraduate students who design, build, and race high-speed, street-legal solar vehicles. We provide our members with unparalleled, hands-on experience in engineering, project management, supply chain interactions, teamwork, problem-solving, and more. Zephyr on display in San Francisco We’ve built a team that welcomes students from all backgrounds and experience levels. This year, we’ve seen the highest turnout of new members in years: more than 100 students have joined the team in the past few weeks. We’re eager to introduce them to the world of cutting-edge solar and renewable energy technology. We have built 9 generations of racing vehicles, enhancing our designs with each iteration. Our newest car, Tachyon, has had a long and successful career. We’ve raced Tachyon at the 2019 Circuit of the Americas race in Austin, Texas, coming second for the second year in a row. In the 2019 Bridgestone World Solar Challenge, the world’s most prestigious international solar car race, Tachyon placed 13th. In light of the pandemic, we couldn’t send our cars into races in 2020, but in 2021, we came back strong, driving Zephyr for more than 700 miles in the American Solar Challenge and winning 6th place. Currently, we are crowdfunding for the construction of our 10th generation vehicle, Excalibur. Excalibur is set to be the fastest and most efficient vehicle our team has built since its conception, but the cost for building such an incredible machine is high. Our $10K goal will primarily go towards purchasing molds for its exterior shell — as opposed to painstakingly building student-made molds and extending our vehicle’s construction timeline by two years. With your contribution, we can provide more opportunities for members to tackle hands-on design and manufacturing work, as well as improve the final quality of the car shelll’s outer surface to carry on our legacy of success. CFD testing results for the new car, Excalibur Will you make a tax-deductible donation today to support CalSol and make it all possible? Your donation will contribute to Excalibur’s manufacturing, as well as the development of solar and renewable energy technology and the education of brilliant engineers. Approximate breakdown of costs necessary to race Excalibur in 2022! We’d love to hear from you! Feel free to contact us on our email or social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter: @BerkeleyCalSol Learn more about us on our website: https://calsol.berkeley.edu/
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Women's Club Lacrosse | Spring 2020
By Kate McDowall
Donate today to support Cal Women's Club Lacrosse's goal to foster a supportive environment where we can continue playing the sport we love!
Donate today to support Cal Women's Club Lacrosse's goal to foster a supportive environment where we can continue playing the sport we love! Cal Women’s Club Lacrosse offers players a chance to continue the sport we love, competing against other college club lacrosse teams primarily in California and Arizona. As a club sport, we are a student-created and student-run team that receives minimal funding from the university. We rely on annual dues from players, fundraising, and generous donations from our supporters to attend tournaments, travel to games, pay our wonderful coaches, and remain a competitive team. Our team at WWLL Playoffs last season Our team was founded in 2008 as a Division II club team, but soon won the Division II WWLL Championship and moved up to the Division I level. We play against other club programs including UCLA, UCSB, Santa Clara, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, UC Davis, ASU, Grand Canyon University, and St. Mary’s. In recent years, our team has proven itself to be a strong competitor in the WWLL, one of the strongest leagues in the WCLA. Last year, we were ranked among the top 20 D1 club teams in the nation, and have been ranked in the top 20 again this year in the pre-season poll. We hope to play in Nationals in coming years, and we need your support to help build our program! Our team this year is comprised of about 30 members from all grade levels and many fields of study, including English, Statistics, Physics, Public Health, Biology and Economics. Through club lacrosse, we are able to continue playing the sport we love and also pursue our academic goals at an excellent university, while making great friends and further developing our teamwork and leadership skills. Together, we hope to maintain and grow our team, giving more women the chance to play lacrosse, improve leadership and teamwork skills, and have a positive community at Cal. Please consider making a donation today & sharing this page! By supporting our team, you will be supporting a positive community in which women can develop lifelong skills and friendships, while pursuing their academic interests and having fun playing lacrosse, regardless of financial situation. Here’s what your donation can help us cover this season! For questions or concerns, email calclublacrosse@gmail.com. To stay updated on our season, follow us on Facebook and Instagram! Eileen, one of our wonderful coaches, at the Santa Barbara Shootout last year
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Future Advancement of Science and Technology
By Neem Patel
A huge thank you to our community for helping us surpass our goal! Please continue to support science and technology mentorship with our new goal of $2500.
A huge thank you to our community for helping us surpass our goal! Please continue to support science and technology mentorship with our new goal of $2500. UPDATE: A huge thank you to all our supporters for helping us reach our initial goal! We deeply appreciate your donation - your contribution helps nourish our mentees' passion for STEM and has a long-lasting impact on their lives. In light of our great, but pleasantly unexpected, success, we've set our intentions on a new stretch goal of $2500 to help support the expansion of FAST into other Bay area school districts. Please help by continuing to spread the word about FAST to support the advancement of science and technology in our communities! Future Advancement of Science and Technology (FAST) pairs graduate students in STEM with high school students in nearby districts to provide long-term scientific mentorship. This year-long partnership culminates in a research symposium at Stanford University. Here students not only have the opportunity to present their research, but meet and interact with students from other school districts as well as current graduate students and professors in STEM. FAST is designed to assist students from underserved school districts, who would otherwise be unable to explore their curiosity in science and technology. We aim to address the gross lack of diversity in STEM by the active inclusion of historically underrepresented individuals. We provide students with the resources, advisement, and infrastructure necessary to pursue their personal interests in STEM research, this in turn allows graduate students further develop their mentorship skills. Mentees have the opportunity to explore open-ended scientific questions while developing their abilities to collaborate on a team, refine their scientific skills, and gain inspiration for careers in STEM and beyond FAST was developed by a team of graduate students at Stanford, who began mentoring students in San Jose. The program has since expanded into Hayward, allowing the participation and provision of mentorship by graduate students here at Cal. FAST is a non-profit organization and we hope to continue expanding within the Bay Area and beyond. To help facilitate the provision of resources and growth of our network, we are hoping to raise $2500 USD. These funds will help provide the supplies and resources necessary for student projects, lunches during our long six hour Saturday sessions, and finally transportation to the end-of-year symposium. We are grateful for anything you are able to donate and thank you for your contribution. We also ask that you share our story within your networks in hope of garnering additional support. Lastly, to keep an eye out for our monthly newsletter to stay up to date on all the fun. For further information about the program please visit fast.stanford.edu (Cal website under construction) or email us at berkeleyFAST@gmail.com. FAST Budget Breakdown
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Cal Figure Skating | 2019
By Cal Figure Skating
New Stretch Goal: $6000! THANK YOU for helping UC Berkeley's nationally-ranked figure skating team stay competitive! We appreciate your support!
New Stretch Goal: $6000! THANK YOU for helping UC Berkeley's nationally-ranked figure skating team stay competitive! We appreciate your support! Cal Figure Skating We are Cal Figure Skating, a nationally-ranked student athletics team that represents the University of California, Berkeley in the National Intercollegiate Conference. Please consider making a gift to help us remain competitive! Since being founded in 2003, we have grown in both size and impact. Our team now has over 80 members, with between 25 and 30 traveling to competitions throughout the academic year. In addition to being full time students and athletes, many members of our team are active in other clubs across campus. We are a diverse group of students, ranging from English to engineering to business majors, but with shared principles of competitive spirit and sportsmanship. Cal Figure Skating is a 100% student-run organization with no coaches or managers. As such, we pay out-of-pocket for practice time, transportation, competition fees, and other associated costs out of love for the sport. As you can imagine, these expenses add up, and as our team continues to grow, so do our costs. We are enlisting the help of our community to allow our team to keep flourishing and competing nationwide. All funds raised will go toward competition fees to ensure that every student has the chance to participate as a member of Cal Figure Skating. Accounting for the cost of flights, car rentals, hotels, and registration fees required for each skater to participate in often out-of-state competitions, insufficient funding can easily be a limiting factor. Every dollar goes a long way, and we really appreciate any support you are able to give. If you are unable to support us financially at the moment, please consider sharing this campaign and spreading the word! This year, we have competed and anticipate to compete in a total of three Pacific Coast Section qualifying competitions culminating in Nationals in the spring: November 2018: Tiger Challenge (Colorado Springs, CO) February 2019: Ride the Tide (San Diego, CA) March 2019: City of Angels Classic (Pasadena, CA) April 2019: U.S. Intercollegiate Championships (Newark, DE) Cal Figure Skating has qualified for the U.S. Intercollegiate Championships every year since 2011, and has placed in 2012 (Pewter), 2013 (Pewter), and 2015 (Pewter). For more information, please visit our website here, and feel free to contact us with any questions. Thank you, and go bears!
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The Berkeley Forum: Funding Free Speech
By Tanya Mahadwar
The Berkeley Forum, a non-partisan, student group that hosts debates, talks, and panels, is asking for your support to further expand and improve our events.
The Berkeley Forum, a non-partisan, student group that hosts debates, talks, and panels, is asking for your support to further expand and improve our events. Who Are We The Berkeley Forum is a non-partisan, student-run organization at the University of California, Berkeley. Founded in 2012, the Forum hosts debates, panels, and talks by leading experts in a wide variety of fields. The Berkeley Forum plays an important role in the community by providing unique opportunities for students, faculty, and community members to come together and engage in the discussion and presentation of a diversity of relevant and important topics and issues. The unique platform the Forum hosts allows experts to share their passions with an engaged, excited audience, but also allows the audience to interact and grapple with the ideas being posed to them. The Berkeley Forum has a long history of hosting events with a range of distinguished speakers. In the past, we have hosted Chief Justice of California Tani-Cantil Sakauye, US Senator Rand Paul, ACLU President Susan Herman, Olympic Swimmer Natalie Coughlin, 88Rising Founder Sean Miyashiro, and many more. How Your Support Helps The Berkeley Forum was founded on the principles that its events ought to be open and accessible. We consistently strive to improve the quality of experience and discourse we foster, but these goals come with a significant financial burden. Unfortunately, the funding we are provided from the university cover just a limited fraction of our overall costs. Frequently, Forum members, who are all undergraduate students, are required to pay out of their own pockets for our events. Thus, we are hoping to receive support from the Berkeley community that will help us continue putting on our events. Our current semester includes a total of 13 debates, panels, and talks. As our organization strives to stay true to its founding values, our financial limitations as a prominent student-run organization have begun to inhibit our abilities to achieve our goals. With your support, we hope to overcome these issues in three areas: 1) $1750 to increase the number of debates and panels. As opposed to our talks, which only feature one speaker, our debates and panels often feature 2-4 speakers which can multiply the costs of an event significantly. For instance, flying one speaker out from the East Coast can cost $450, but flying two speakers costs $900. As a result, we limit the number of debates and panels we can put on. $1750 of this crowdfunding campaign will be used for organizing more debates and panels and, thus, diversifying our platform even more. 2) $1250 to host more high-profile speakers. High-profile speakers often cost the Forum more money because of higher venue costs (bigger venues cost more money), higher transport and accommodation costs (many high-profile speakers are not based in the Bay Area), and higher security fees. We hope to allocate $1250 towards accommodating such speakers and exposing the Berkeley community to more well-known speakers. Hosting just one high-profile speaker includes costs such as transport ($350 flight), accommodation ($100 hotel/night), security ($250), marketing ($50), and venue ($500), totaling $1250. 3) $1000 to host more events at off-campus venues. Recently, we have not been able to use many of the venues we used to get for free (especially in the Haas School of Business) because of changes in administrative rules. As a result, we will end up having to spend more money on venue rentals. To compensate for this, we would like to allocate $1000 towards increased venue costs as well as towards hosting more events in venues that are off-campus to make them more accessible. Follow us on Social Media! https://www.facebook.com/berkeleyforum/ https://www.instagram.com/berkeleyforum/ https://twitter.com/berkeleyforum
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UCB Symphony Orchestra Tour to Spain - Summer 2017
By UC Berkeley
The UCBSO is planning an international tour to Spain in the summer of 2017 to play four concerts in four cities.
The UCBSO is planning an international tour to Spain in the summer of 2017 to play four concerts in four cities. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you so much for all of your continued support of the UCBSO! All of us at the UCBSO have been blown away by the generosity of our friends and patrons. Without you, we would not be able to share our passion for music and do what we love the most without you! Your donations are going to help bring many students to Spain! Click here for a message from us to all our friends, family, and patrons! -- The UC Berkeley Symphony Orchestra is going to Spain! The UCBSO is planning an eleven day international tour to Spain in the summer of 2017! We will play four concerts, showcasing exciting pieces from the standard repertoire, as well as new musical works and technologies developed by UC Berkeley's own composers and researchers. Your support will make this tour a reality for the UCBSO. Please make a gift today! The orchestra is comprised of nearly 100 UC Berkeley undergraduate and graduate students, staff, and members of the community. We provide unique and innovative programming to our campus and the Bay Area, performed by students who will become tomorrow's national leaders in all industries. UC Berkeley is already known on an international level in numerous fields, and we want to heighten awareness of the outstanding depth of musicality that our orchestra possesses. To this end, the UCBSO will be touring four major cities of Spain - Barcelona, Madrid, Granada, and Valencia - and playing to audiences of over 2,000 people. This will put UC Berkeley and its music program on the international map. We need your help to make this tour happen - please consider making a gift to the UCBSO today! This tour will be an extraordinary experience for our students, enriching their lives and broadening their perspectives through the exploration of a foreign culture. It will undoubtedly foster the growth of our students as global citizens and augment the merits of UC Berkeley abroad. However, many of our young students lack the financial support to cover the cost of this tour. In the current challenging economic environment at our public university, philanthropy is particularly crucial for our members. Gifts that enable our young musicians to take part in major performance initiatives will make a difference in their lives that will last a lifetime. Your support will go directly to students who do not have the financial means to go on the tour and create a strong foundation for our fundraising campaign throughout the season. Every little bit helps; every dollar bring one of our talented musicians closer to Spain. Thank you for making this opportunity possible for our musicians! We will make Berkeley proud. Go Bears! Liszt Academy of Music, Budapest - UC Berkeley Symphony Orchestra, May 2014 Questions? Concerns? Contact Andrea Mich at ucbso@berkeley.edu. Thank you and Go Bears!
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Cal Triathlon Club (Spring 2022)
By Jessica Powell
Support the official Club Triathlon Team of UC Berkeley! 2021 National Champions. Swim, Bike, Run. Go Bears!
Support the official Club Triathlon Team of UC Berkeley! 2021 National Champions. Swim, Bike, Run. Go Bears! Welcome to the Crowdfunding Page of UC Berkeley’s Triathlon Team! Thank you for taking the time to view our page. We hope you enjoy learning about our team and will consider making a donation! The Triathlon Club at UC Berkeley is a 150+ member family, ranging from first-time swimmers, cyclists, and runners to elite athletes who are aspiring to be National Champions, as well as all talents in between. Our success can be largely attributed to the commitment of our club members as well as the support provided by a fantastic group of student coaches, head and assistant coaches, and board members, who dedicate their own time to help each team member excel in training and have fun through the sport. We pride ourselves on being a no-cut, welcoming and inclusive team, open to any UC Berkeley student who wants to learn more about the multi-sport lifestyle, achieve their highest athletic potential, or simply find a supportive family here at Cal. The pandemic made it difficult for us to train and spend time together like we used to, and we are making an effort to build back our team and come back stronger than ever! We are a student-run athletic club that receives no financial support from the school. We are the largest collegiate triathlon team in the country and one of the most decorated collegiate triathlon teams in history - and have achieved all of this merely through the financial backing of team fundraising efforts and membership dues, alongside the countless hours our coaches volunteer for the team. The cost of training equipment, dues, and race travel can be an expensive undertaking for any college student and a barrier for those hoping to get involved in the sport. For a regular semester, the bare minimum, in order to fully participate in Cal Triathlon requires a starting cost of $2500, plus $1000 for each subsequent year of participation. We seek to bring the triathlon lifestyle to anyone who is interested, regardless of their financial ability to participate. As such, financial assistance or equipment donations help support our team and promote triathlon to the greater UC Berkeley community. We have taken some major losses due to the pandemic, as we have been unable to host our home race and participate in other fundraisers. It is our primary goal to make up for these losses and be in a more comfortable financial position where we can better support our athletes. The money raised through Crowdfunding will help student athletes travel, compete, and train with the Cal Triathlon Team. Our coach’s motto is "with consistent hard work over time success is achievable". Each year, Cal Tri is helping more and more UC Berkeley students explore the benefits of consistent hard work over time. The athletes on Cal Tri make lifelong friends, gain a network of current students, graduate students, and alumni (such as your lovely selves), and get to train with a family with a common interest in healthy living. This is the refrain our team uses when we train and race, and is our motto for Crowdfunding as well. The unprecedented times of the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in us competing in two Collegiate Nationals in a single year. We competed in Malibu in September 2021, due to the 2020 Nationals being postponed, and earned the title of National Champions once again. Cal Tri will also be competing in Georgia in April 2022 to defend our title. Nationals is one of our most costly races of the year especially when it is on the other side of the country, as it includes flights, hotels, rental cars, and race registration, entirely funded from the pockets of athletes and your donations. Having two events in one year puts a strain on our budget, and we want to do everything possible to reduce the costs for participants and get our whole team there! Our team and the sport of Triathlon as a whole lacks ethnic and socio-economic diversity. We launched a diversity initiative, Cal Triversity, to encourage and support the involvement of historically underrepresented and disadvantaged groups within the Cal multisport community. This year we are directing 15% of the money we raise from crowdfunding to the Cal Triversity Initiative so we can increase outreach, financial support, and mentorship to make our sport more accessible and equitable for all. Our current head coach has kindly donated his time to the team for almost ten years, but he will be retiring soon and we need to prepare for the compensation of our future coach. A detailed breakdown of how we will use your funds can be found below: If you are interested in helping us take triathlon to a higher level of athleticism, sportsmanship, and inclusion, please support us. Cal Triathlon intends to continue to be at the forefront of the collegiate club sports scene and take the sport of Triathlon to new levels - but we need help. Your support of our student-run, student-funded team is crucial. Please help us help our athletes and the triathlon community. Thank you! Please consider donating and sharing this page! If you would like to see more of us, check out our social media pages: Instagram: @cal_triathlon https://www.instagram.com/cal_triathlon/ Facebook: Cal Triathlon Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/CalTriathlonTeam/ Website: Caltriathlon.com Any questions?? Email jessicapowell@berkeley.edu
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Debate Society of Berkeley
By UC Berkeley
Support the #1 public university debating union in the nation.
Support the #1 public university debating union in the nation. The Debate Society of Berkeley is UC Berkeley's largest academic debate team, competing internationally in the American and British Parliamentary styles. Over the years we have grown to be the #1 public university debate team competing in British Parliamentary debate, having our competitors advance to elimination rounds at tournaments such as Yale, Stanford, and the 2017-18 national championship. The nature of our activity is such that flying across the country and around the world is necessary to succeed. In order to maintain and improve our position and continue representing UC Berkeley on the international debate circuit, we hope to send students to the most competitive tournaments. While the competition is fierce, the greatest challenge our students face is not strong opponents but rather having to personally pay for expensive flights. This January, Kevin, Emma, Varun, and Katherine had the opportunity to travel to Cape Town, South Africa and represent our team against more than 600 students at the World University Debating Championships. We hope to continue to be able to represent UC Berkeley at the United States national champions in South Carolina, as well the next world championship in Bangkok, Thailand. Travel, housing, and registration costs severely limit the number of students we can send to any tournament, especially ones on the other side of the globe, but your donation would make it possible to keep up and excel against the competition. As part of our membership in the national and international circuits for APDA (American Parliamentary Debate) and BP (British Parliamentary Debate), we are a part of a tremendous and diverse group of students from the world’s premier academic institutions. We’re a young team, but we are extremely grateful for the world of debate. As such, we love giving back to the community that inspired us. Every year, we host two tournaments, one for high school students competing in parliamentary debate, and the other for university students from the BP circuit. These tournaments give us the chance to inspire young students to continue their debate journey as well as actively engage our own team members, but hosting these events would simply not be possible without your support. Here's a breakdown of how your generosity would be put to use for our team: Your donation could help show the international debate community just how strong the Debate Society of Berkeley is, as well as give a debater the opportunity of a lifetime to compete on behalf of their university and enrich their education. The Debate Society of Berkeley is already the most successful British Parliamentary debate team from a public school in the country, your donation will take our success global. If you have any questions or would be interested in learning more, please visit our website at https://debate.berkeley.edu/ or get in touch by email at contact@debate.berkeley.edu.
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Cal Figure Skating | 2020
By UC Berkeley
We are Cal Figure Skating, a nationally-ranked student athletics team that represents the UC Berkeley in the National Intercollegiate Conference.
We are Cal Figure Skating, a nationally-ranked student athletics team that represents the UC Berkeley in the National Intercollegiate Conference. We are Cal Figure Skating, a nationally-ranked student athletics team that represents the University of California, Berkeley in the National Intercollegiate Conference. Please consider making a gift to help us remain competitive! Since being founded in 2003, we have grown in both size and impact. Our team now has over 80 members, with around 25 traveling to competitions throughout the academic year. In addition to being full time students and athletes, many members of our team are active in other clubs across campus. We are a diverse group of students, ranging from English to engineering to business majors, but we are connected by shared principles of competitive spirit and sportsmanship. Cal Figure Skating is an entirely student-run organization with no coaches or managers. As such, we pay out-of-pocket for practice time, transportation, competition fees, and other associated costs out of love for the sport. Understandably, these expenses add up, and as our team continues to grow, so do our costs. So, we are enlisting the help of our community to allow our team to keep flourishing and competing nationally. Insufficient funding can easily be a limiting factor due to the cost of flights, car rentals, hotels, and registration fees required for each skater to participate in often out-of-state competitions. Thus, all funds raised will go toward competition fees to ensure that every student has the chance to participate as a member of Cal Figure Skating. Budget: Average per participant cost (prices are calculated for the full academic year) Expenses Cost per Skater Flights $800 Practice Ice $500 Practice Ice (Competition) $80 Entry Fees $330 Rental Cars (+gas) $100 Hotel $200 Food $100 Our average cost per student-athlete per competition season is about $2100. This per participant cost includes travel and lodging at competitions, competition entry fees, practice ice, and equipment. With our competitive team of about 27 student athletes, that makes the cost of keeping us competitive at the national level around about $60,000 per competitive season. By raising at least $5000, we will be able to defray the hotel costs for a competitive season. This year, we have competed and anticipate to compete in a total of three Pacific Coast Section qualifying competitions culminating in Nationals in the spring: November 2019: Tiger Challenge (Colorado Springs, CO) February 2020: Golden Bears Skate (Oakland, CA) March 2020: Pioneer Open (Denver, CO) April 2020: U.S. Intercollegiate Championships (Minneapolis, MN) Cal Figure Skating has qualified for the U.S. Intercollegiate Championships every year since 2011, and has placed in 2012 (Pewter), 2013 (Pewter), and 2015 (Pewter). Every dollar goes a long way, and we really appreciate any support you are able to give. If you are unable to support us financially at the moment, please consider sharing this campaign and spreading the word! For more information, please visit our website here, follow us on Instagram @calfigureskating, and feel free to email us at ucbfigureskating@gmail.com with any questions. Thank you, and go bears!
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Joe Roth 40th Anniversary Memorial
By Spencer Bowen
Help raise $12,000 in honor of number 12.
Help raise $12,000 in honor of number 12. "I don't know a story that matches the Joe Roth story" - Dick Vermeil Joe Roth's No. 12 is the only retired number in Cal football history. Joe was good at playing quarterback - he may have been the best in the country - but it wasn't what made him great. On the 40th anniversary of Joe's last season, Cal asks you to help us raise $12,000 for the football fund in his honor. In honor of Joe, we ask the Cal Family to help ensure that we continue to create a positive culture that inspires young men both on and off the field. Gifts to The Friends of Cal Football fund in memory of Joe Roth will help fund scholarships and basic operational costs that directly support a well-rounded student-athlete experience. A transfer student from Grossmont College in San Diego, Joe dazzled Cal fans and professional scouts during the 1975 and 1976 seasons. In January 1977, Joe revealed that he was battling melanoma for the second time in his brief 21 years. Most who knew him best agree that Joe played the 1976 season knowing that the cancer had returned. Joe persevered through incredible pain and managed to turn in a paper just ten days before he passed away in February 1977. His courage, humility, and leadership remain an inspiration to the entire Cal Family. Please make a gift to help honor Joe today.
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Men's Water Polo | Fall 2017
By Samuel Naugle
STRETCH GOAL $5,000! DONATE TODAY! Thanks so much to everyone who helped us reach our goal!
STRETCH GOAL $5,000! DONATE TODAY! Thanks so much to everyone who helped us reach our goal! New Stretch goal of $5,000! Please donate today and help us reach it! We know we can do it! Cal Men’s Water Polo Club is a competitive team here at Cal comprised of current undergraduate and graduate students. Our goal is to provide a team for students who might not have the ability or time to play for the varsity team but still want to continue to play water polo in competitive environment. Our club has become a big part of college life for many of the students who play on our team, as our team often spends time together outside of the pool. Here's a photo of some members of the team hiking on a weekend. Our team has finished in the top 10 at nationals five years in a row now including two second place finishes and two third place finishes. We have also finished first in our region, which is composed of six different teams from the Pacific Northwest, five times in a row, and we are hoping to make that six this year. If we do finish first in our region again this year, we will travel all the way to Florida to play in the national tournament on November 10th and 11th. To prepare for nationals, we are practicing more than we ever have before, spending 5 nights in the pool a week. On top of this, each of the 20 people on our roster spend time working out on their own, in order to prepare as much as possible for the upcoming season. Here's a picture of our team after our 2nd place finish at the SDSU Invitational Any donations we receive will go directly towards assisting our team in our goal to win a national championship. Please make a gift today! After coming so close to bringing home the title so many years in a row, we are more motivated than ever and will not let anything get in our way. Because of the fact that we are a club team, most of our expenses, including gear, tournament fees, and travel, are paid for out of pocket. This means that whatever amount you can afford to donate to our team will be greatly appreciated and will help us pay for more water polo balls to practice with, weight belts to train with, and hotel rooms to sleep in while we are competing away from home. We are hoping that our dedication coupled with whatever support that you can provide will give us that final push we need to propel us past these third and second place finishes and finally bring home the title. Our team after winning Regionals last year.
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California Mock Trial
By Edie Sussman
STRETCH GOAL OF $3,000! Help the nationally-ranked Cal Mock Trial team continue to provide students with public speaking and trial advocacy skills for life!
STRETCH GOAL OF $3,000! Help the nationally-ranked Cal Mock Trial team continue to provide students with public speaking and trial advocacy skills for life! Stretch goal set: $3,000! Thank you to everyone who has helped us reach this milestone in our campaign! With 20 days left to go, we are now setting a new stretch goal of $3,000 for the campaign - that additional $1,000 would subsidize the cost of flying two more students to the National Championship later this month. Please continue to show your support for Cal Mock Trial by sharing our campaign with other people who may be interested in donating! None of this would be possible without you - thank you! We are California Mock Trial, UC Berkeley’s Official Mock Trial Team - and we need your support. Since our founding in 1999, Cal Mock Trial has grown to become a nationally ranked program and has consistently competed at the top levels of collegiate mock trial. We are currently ranked the #10 team in the nation by the American Mock Trial Association. Now I know what you’re asking: what is mock trial? Mock trial is a team-based speech competition that combines elements of law, speech, debate, and theatre. As a simulation of trial advocacy, mock trial also includes simulations of courtroom procedure and technique that reflect a real trial. As a mock trial team, we prepare a fake case for trial and compete against teams from across the country every year. Ever since our program began, we have been dedicated to providing a space for students to develop skills for life. Many of our members have gone on to top law schools, from Harvard to NYU to Berkeley’s own Boalt Law. Even those members who are not interested in law school gain valuable experience and develop abilities such as confidence, persuasive speaking, and presentation skills. The more our team grows and improves, the more opportunities we have to compete and travel to new locations. Recent years have seen the Golden Bears competing and winning trials at locations such as Washington D.C., New York City, Saint Louis, Miami, Santa Barbara, Newport Beach, Los Angeles, and San Diego. Cal Mock Trial is a constant presence at the National Championship Tournament each year, often qualifying two separate teams and placing among the top ten programs in the nation. To continue that success, we need your help. While we are grateful for every opportunity to compete, the chance to travel also means a higher financial burden on our members. By crowdfunding for our team, we hope to continue to allow students to develop their mock trial skills at the highest level, regardless of their financial situation. Every donation would help to ensure that Cal Mock Trial continues to provide a space for undergraduate students to flourish as public speakers, to develop an understanding of the U.S. legal system, and to gain valuable leadership experience on a student-run team. Please consider making a donation to the California Mock Trial team - every donation counts! Thank you for your support! For more information, check out our website here: http://www.calmocktrial.com/. To keep up to date on how the team is doing, like our Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/calmocktrial/, or follow our Twitter here: https://twitter.com/calmocktrial. Questions? Contact us at calmocktrial@gmail.com!
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AileyCamp at Cal Performances
By UC Berkeley
AileyCamp is an intensive summer camp program focused on helping students explore identity, personal responsibility, and creative communication through dance.
AileyCamp is an intensive summer camp program focused on helping students explore identity, personal responsibility, and creative communication through dance. STRETCH GOAL: We have reached our initial goal of $5,000 so we are pushing for our stretch goal of $10,000! This will help cover the costs for two campers to attend AileyCamp this summer! Thank you to the incredible donors who have already donated! -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Since 2001, AileyCamp has changed the lives of more than 1,000 Bay Area young people. AlieyCamp is transformative. During a six-week intensive summer camp program, students explore through dance their identity, personal responsibility, and creative ways to communicate and interact with the world around them. The strength and perseverance that they develop at camp is echoed not only in their dance practice, but perhaps most importantly, in their classrooms at school, and with their families at home. Together, we can give one camper a free summer camp experience with gifts to our crowdfunding campaign. Your gift provides a unique summer experience that includes daily dance classes, personal development workshops, transportation to and from camp, dance clothes and two daily meals. All of which are provided completely tuition-free for every camper. AileyCamp Builds Resilience. AileyCampers spend every day trying new dance moves, learning new skills, and working towards a common goal. In doing so, they learn that it often takes more than one try to be successful and that hard work pays off. AileyCamp Teaches Collaboration. Everyday campers take dance classes and work together in professional development workshops to learn about critical thinking and creative communication. They practice these skills in real time as they learn new choreography and come together to put on a final show for their family and friends. AileyCamp is Fun! Do you remember going to summer camp as a kid? Many AileyCampers don’t have access to activities throughout the summer and AileyCamp provides them with a place where they can learn and grow while dancing and playing with their peers. They enjoy activities on the UC Berkeley campus, trips to the pool, and other fun field trips! AileyCamp is free! AileyCampers come from around the Bay Area with varying levels of access to food, education, and adult guidance. The students receive professional dance training and transportation to and from camp, 2 meals a day, clothes for dancing, and all the supplies they need for every class. AileyCamp relies on your support! Your contributions to AileyCamp make an impact on the lives of the students and through them, on their parents, their communities and in their schools as they use and promote the skills they have learned while at AileyCamp. Thank you for your support of AileyCamp. Your donations will make a difference for the students who attend AileyCamp this summer!
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Fund the Heuristic Squelch
By Squelchos
STRETCH GOAL OF $2,000! The Heuristic Squelch is UC Berkeley's only intentionally funny publication, around since 1991. We need YOUR help to print more of it!
STRETCH GOAL OF $2,000! The Heuristic Squelch is UC Berkeley's only intentionally funny publication, around since 1991. We need YOUR help to print more of it! Squelchos Stretch Goal: If we make it to $2000 by October 31, we'll produce and print an additional issue! Help save the Heuristic Squelch by making a gift today! It may have a dumb name, but it’s a school institution, dating all the way back to 1991. That’s probably older than you are! And besides, it makes people laugh. That’s probably good, right? I bet you could find a study that said laughter was good for mental health or something. That sounds like a thing. Also, where else are aspiring comedy writers going to shove the jokes constantly spewing from their overloaded minds? After all, there aren't very many comedy publications that accept everyone, regardless of prior experience. What else can Berkeley students who secretly dream of someday creating some dumb sitcom do? They - and the campus as a whole - need a publication that allows real creative freedom. And of course, our jokes are always 100% appropriate and free of politics, and never contain even a hint of satire or sarcasm. Above: Some dumb comedy writers (Source: AP) We know print may seem like a dying medium, but there’s something to be said for holding a physical magazine in your own hands. I mean, just try throwing a website in the trash immediately after you’re handed it. Each magazine takes about 30 cents to print. Think about it! We’re basically handing out free quarters to everyone that walks by. So, if you just gave us $10 dollars, that’s like 30 magazines that you personally made possible! Please make a gift today. Just click that button. C’mon, you know you want to. SOCIETY wants you to fund something responsible and meaningful, like bringing clean drinking water to children in the third world or funding STEM programs for underprivileged kids. But you’re a rebel, AREN’T you? Yeah, YOU, the person reading this. You feel constrained, stifled. Constricted by conformity. You’ve always just gone through the routine of everyday life, but deep inside you know that you’re different. Unique. SPECIAL. For once, you want to be FREE, free from the rules, free from the straightjacket of misguided expectations. This is how you can do it. This is how you can prove you’re better than those blind, bland sheeple that surround you. So come on. Waste your money. Waste it. Waste it on dumb, dumb, stupid, terrible jokes. Just throw your money away. Stick it in a trash can. Light it on fire. Or, just give it to us. But for once in your life, do something with passion. With conviction. Do something REAL. It’s in your hands now.
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Kidney Disease Screening and Awareness Program (Fall 2021)
By Julia Zhou
We provide free kidney disease screenings and awareness events in underserved communities across the Bay Area to reduce high rates of kidney disease.
We provide free kidney disease screenings and awareness events in underserved communities across the Bay Area to reduce high rates of kidney disease. WHO WE ARE We are the Kidney Disease Screening and Awareness Program, or KDSAP! Our organization addresses the issue of the high rates of kidney disease in the Bay Area, which is our main geographic target due to its proximity to our base location in Berkeley, CA. In the United States, 1 in 3 adults is at risk for Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD), and CKD is also the 9th leading cause of death. CKD is an often overlooked disease since major symptoms only become apparent during the final stages of the disease, when kidney damage is irreversible. However, by providing early detection and awareness about the causes of CKD, Berkeley KDSAP aims to decrease the prevalence of this “silent killer” disease. We concentrate our efforts in the Bay Area, where a lot of minority populations with higher risk for CKD reside. The services that we provide are open to all, but we most actively target the Asian American, African American, and Hispanic communities, because these populations are at higher risk for kidney disease. As a student organization, we rely on fundraising and community grants in order to carry out our mission. WHAT WE DO As an organization, we have two primary objectives: to hold kidney screenings throughout the Bay Area and to organize awareness events for the public to learn more about how to maintain good kidney health. Our work addresses and advances health equity by ensuring that all the services that we provide (e.g. screenings, awareness events) are free and open to everyone. We also try to distribute information about these events to as wide of an audience as possible and make targeted efforts to reach the underserved in our community by working with community centers, churches, and other non-profit organizations. KDSAP partners with physicians from the University of California San Francisco, who mentor us in preparation for our various events, and volunteer to provide one-on-one consultations with patients at our screenings. We are a rapidly growing organization, and in the past 2 years have expanded both the number of screenings we hold per year as well as the locations in which we hold them. We plan to resume our screenings in the Spring when it is safe again to do so, with 8 screenings held each year, but due to the cost of screening supplies in conjunction with advertising, transportation, and other costs, our current sources of funding will not be sufficient to reach this goal. We would greatly appreciate your help as we work towards increasing engagement with the community and making a positive impact on more people’s health. Please make a gift today to support our mission! WHAT YOUR MONEY WILL GO TOWARDS Your donation will go towards the purchase of supplies such as urinalysis (urine test) machines, gloves, and glucometers (to measure blood sugar) that will allow us to conduct health procedures at our screenings, as well as train the volunteers who staff our screenings. We also plan on using funds to print outreach pamphlets and promotional fliers, and to boost our social media advertisements, so we can publicize our screenings and awareness events to a broader audience. By donating to our organization, you will help provide the public with more information about an often overlooked but serious disease, and will help people all around the Bay Area improve their health! Budget breakdown STAY CONNECTED WITH US! Learn more about us at our website and follow our social media for regular updates! Also, feel free to contact us at berkeleykdsap@gmail.com! Facebook: UC Berkeley KDSAP Instagram: @berkeleykdsap Twitter: @berkeleykdsap #BerkeleyKDSAP Thank you for your support! Please share our page and help us reach our goal!!!
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Cal Women's Club Water Polo | Cap Fundraiser
By Cal Women's Club Water Polo
STRETCH GOAL OF $3,000! Donate to the Cal Club Women’s Water Polo team and help us buy two new sets of water polo caps for our upcoming season this spring!
STRETCH GOAL OF $3,000! Donate to the Cal Club Women’s Water Polo team and help us buy two new sets of water polo caps for our upcoming season this spring! Cal Women's Club Water Polo Hello Cal Water Polo friends, family, and fans! Thank you to all of the donors who have helped us reach our original goal of $2,000! We are so excited to use this money to order new caps for our upcoming season in the spring. We now have a new stretch goal of $3,000 with the additional funding covering tournament fees and team travel expenses. The Cal Women’s Club Water Polo Team is excited for our upcoming season this spring and we are already underway in practices and team bonding to prepare. From freshmen to seniors to graduate students with biology, social science and chemical engineering majors, our team is a diverse set of players with water polo skills from experienced players to individuals brand new to the sport. With our large range of interests, we all come together in water polo for the love of the sport and competitive spirit. During the fall, our team practices twice a week to prepare for the spring season where our team has placed 1st, 2nd, and 4th at League Champs, winning Nationals in 2015. The 2019-2020 board is so excited for our upcoming season in the spring. In water polo, it is essential to have team caps to identify our team and for protection from getting hit in the ears by a water polo ball. Unfortunately, our current set of water polo caps are in inadequate shape from caps with unraveling strings, torn ear pieces, and holes in the fabric to caps that are completely split into two and unusable. Due to the quality of our caps this past season, many of our athletes had to change their cap numbers during the last two tournaments because of the lack of protection they offered. One of the best parts of water polo is bonding with all of our teammates! Cal Women’s Club Water Polo is a 100% student-run organization with no coaches or managers. As such, we pay out-of-pocket for lifeguards during practice, transportation, competition fees, and other associated costs out of love for the sport. As you can imagine, these expenses add up, and with new caps needed, we are enlisting the help of our community to ensure caps for the next few years of water polo members. Our projected spending on two sets of caps and team travel. All funds raised will go toward payment for new caps and team travel to ensure that each student athlete can safely play water polo and travel to tournaments. Every dollar goes a long way, and we really appreciate any support you are able to give. If you are unable to support us financially at the moment, please consider sharing this campaign and spreading the word! Team bonding inside and outside of the water! The triumphant A team after winning a game at UC Santa Cruz last March. Follow us on social media for updates! Facebook: Cal Club Water Polo-Women's Instagram: @calwclubwaterpolo Reach out to us with any questions at calwomens.waterpolo@gmail.com
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CalSol: Driving the Future of Clean Energy SP ‘16
By Neeka Mashouf
Fund hands-on engineering & project management experience for over 100 Cal undergrads, through a team building solar vehicles and the future of clean energy.
Fund hands-on engineering & project management experience for over 100 Cal undergrads, through a team building solar vehicles and the future of clean energy. CALSOL We are a passionate team of students at UC Berkeley, and we build cars that run entirely off of solar power. Our team’s indomitable collaborative spirit fosters unparalleled knowledge sharing & growing. We challenge ourselves every day, building complex and uncharted engineering systems from the ground up. We share our work with and make an impact on our community and world. We are passionate about building the future of clean energy transportation. We are CalSol. CalSol, the U.C. Berkeley Solar Vehicle Team, is a team of over one hundred passionate Berkeley undergraduate students who design, build, and race high-performance, street-legal solar vehicles. We have built 9 generations of racing vehicles, dating back to 1990, developing and enhancing our designs with each iteration. Our team welcomes all interested students and is home to a variety of majors across the University. The unifying force among all of our members is the passion for making a difference in developing the technological, sustainable future of transportation. We provide unparalleled hand-on experience in engineering, project management, supply chain interactions, teamwork, problem-solving, and more. CalSol is an incredibly unique student group, providing industry-level resources and projects for our members. Each vehicle is built entirely by our students, from scratch; the knowledge and experience gained is unparalleled. OUR PROJECT With our next generation vehicle, we plan to build something revolutionary, futuristic, and practical. This vehicle, lovingly named Tachyon, represents the future of energy efficiency and transportation, and is a monument to the innovative powerhouse of Berkeley Engineering. Our design features a fully solar-powered electric vehicle, but distinct from any of our previous generations -- it will be a multi-passenger car intended to realize our vision of promoting sustainable transportation practices. Leveraging our experience, knowledge, and passion, we strive to push the boundaries of even the most advanced cars on the market today and inspire a clean transportation future. This vehicle will compete in the 2017 World Solar Challenge, racing across the Australian Outback and being judged on practicality, functionality, and performance. Our team has the passion, drive, and knowledge to build this inspiring design. But we -- the 150 passionate students -- need your help. We are funded entirely by the support of our community, and building a high-performance vehicle can have quite a price tag. CalSol is reaching out to you for your help. Please consider donating to support our project, so our students can continue to build, learn, and innovate the next generation of energy efficient transportation solutions. Drive the future. BUDGET BREAKDOWN TIMELINE
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Funding the Forum
By Jean Song
Bringing today's most prominent people to speak on campus - including Peter Thiel, Rand Paul, and Khan Academy founder Sal Khan!
Bringing today's most prominent people to speak on campus - including Peter Thiel, Rand Paul, and Khan Academy founder Sal Khan! This project has ended, but you can still support amazing Berkeley initiatives by visiting give.berkeley.edu. Your continued support of our students, faculty and staff will ensure that Berkeley remains the #1 public university. Go Bears! About Us The Berkeley Forum is a completely student-run nonprofit that brings some today's most prominent thinkers and leaders to campus. Our guests have included Nobel Prize winners, Peter Thiel, the US Secretary of Homeland Security, and Salman Khan - the founder of The Khan Academy. In the spring of last year, the Forum’s Senator Rand Paul event was live-broadcasted on CSPAN, FOX News, and CNN. The next morning, Forum members woke up to find the event featured on the front page of the New York Times. All of our events are free to UC Berkeley students, and almost all are free to community members. Our mission is to make intellectual thought and dialogue accessible to all. We see our events as a way of keeping alive UC Berkeley's incredible history of intellectual debate and discourse. Our Project The Forum plans to use crowdfunding to support our organization's long-term funding as well as to host one of our largest events yet. This upcoming semester, The Berkeley Forum is excited to bring Anant Agarwal to come speak to the Cal community. Mr. Agarwal is the CEO and president of edX, a joint partnership between MIT and Harvard University that offers free online learning. edX has grown to become one of the world’s most prominent platforms for open source learning, allowing user worldwide to access courses from some of the world’s leading educational institutions, including Harvard, MIT, and UC Berkeley. The Berkeley Forum is excited to host an event with Anant Agarwal this November, discussing the role of technology in transforming education and learning. Why Your Support Matters As Berkeley students, we're all too familiar with the pressure our school is under due to decreasing state support. Donating to The Berkeley Forum means helping fight this exclusivity in higher education and intellectual discussion. It means supporting the right of everyone to learn, think, and be exposed to incredible ideas. Being a nonprofit, The Berkeley Forum depends entirely on donations and university grants for support. Even though we receive limited funding from the university, grants cover only a fraction of the cost of just a single event. Many times, Forum members pay out of their own pockets for events. Our members are dedicated to continuing giving the Berkeley community professional, high-quality events. As our events and speakers become bigger and better, your support will be more critical than ever before. The Berkeley Forum's Carter Keeling moderates an event with Peter Thiel Khan Academy founder Salman Khan gives a speech in Sibley Auditorium The Berkeley Forum's event with Senator Rand Paul is featured on the front page of the New York Times The Berkeley Forum has been featured in some of today's biggest press and media sources David Chase, the creator of Emmy winning series "The Sopranos," takes questions from the audience To find our more about us and our events, visit us at forum.berkeley.edu and like us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/berkeleyforum?fref=ts .
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Debate Society of Berkeley 2021
By Debate Society of Berkeley
We are Debate Society of Berkeley, UC Berkeley's largest academic debate team competing nationally and internationally. We also host two tournaments every year!
We are Debate Society of Berkeley, UC Berkeley's largest academic debate team competing nationally and internationally. We also host two tournaments every year! Debate Society of Berkeley The Debate Society of Berkeley is UC Berkeley's largest academic debate team, competing internationally in the American and British Parliamentary styles. Over the years we have grown to be the #1 public university debate team competing in British Parliamentary debate, having our competitors advance to elimination rounds at tournaments such as Yale, Stanford, and the 2017-18 national championship. In order to maintain and improve our position and continue representing UC Berkeley on the international debate circuit, we hope to send students to the most competitive tournaments around the world. While the competition is fierce, the greatest challenge our students face is not strong opponents but rather having to personally pay for expensive flights. This summer, Violet, Alec, Laurel, Nathaniel and Parmita represented our school against more than 600 students at the World University Debating Championships in Bangkok, Thailand. We hope to continue to be able to represent UC Berkeley in the tournaments nationally and globally. Travel, housing, and registration costs severely limit the number of students we can send to any tournament, especially ones on the other side of the globe, but your donation would make it possible to keep up and excel against the competition. As part of our membership in the national and international circuits for APDA (American Parliamentary Debate) and BP (British Parliamentary Debate), we are a part of a tremendous and diverse group of students from the world’s premier academic institutions. We’re a young team, but we are extremely grateful for the world of debate. As such, we love giving back to the community that inspired us. Every year, we host two tournaments, one for high school students competing in parliamentary debate, and the other for university students from the BP circuit. These tournaments give us the chance to inspire young students to continue their debate journey as well as actively engage our own team members, but hosting these events would simply not be possible without the support of our dearest donors. Here's a breakdown of how your generosity would be put to use for our team! Your donation could help show the international debate community just how strong the Debate Society of Berkeley is, as well as give a debater the opportunity of a lifetime to compete on behalf of their university and enrich their education. The Debate Society of Berkeley is already the most successful British Parliamentary debate team from a public school in the country, your donation will take our success global. Your support makes all these possible. Thank you so much for your generous donations! If you have any questions or would be interested in learning more, please visit our website at https://debate.berkeley.edu/ or get in touch by email at contact@debate.berkeley.edu.
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Berkeley Engineers and Mentors (BEAM) (Fall 2021)
By UC Berkeley
BEAM fuses science education with mentorship by leading weekly hands-on science and engineering lessons at local elementary and middle schools.
BEAM fuses science education with mentorship by leading weekly hands-on science and engineering lessons at local elementary and middle schools. Berkeley Engineers and Mentors (BEAM) fuses science education with mentorship by leading weekly hands-on science and engineering lessons at local elementary and middle schools. UC Berkeley undergraduate students provide accessible science education to our local communities in hopes of inspiring students of all socioeconomic backgrounds to pursue careers in STEM. We give a path for underrepresented students in public schools a chance to be introduced to STEM subjects through interactive and fun projects. Through our organization, we teach at 22 public elementary and middle schools in the local Berkeley and Oakland area - teaching close to 400 students a week! BEAM’s budget covers a number of different expenses. The majority of our budget will be used for Transportation and site supplies. Each semester we have 10+ lessons at over 20 different schools. Each lesson requires us to plan and purchase materials such that every student has the chance to experiment and build. Another large portion of the budget is allocated to transportation. BEAM covers all transportation costs to get our mentors to their respective elementary and middle schools sites. With most of our sites at a not walkable distance, it is important to make sure our mentors make it to the students we aim to teach. Expenses for risk management are used for fingerprinting and background checks for our Berkeley mentors who go to site. Finally, advertising/recruitment expenses support our initiatives to get more UC Berkeley students to join our team. We ask for your support through donations or through sharing our project page as we continue to pursue our mission of equitable STEM education for elementary and middle school students throughout the Berkeley and Oakland area. 100% of ALL proceeds go to BEAM’s mission through funds for expenses including transportation and club materials. To stay up-to-date on BEAM happenings or to hear more stories about our mentors, follow our Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/beam.teach/) or visit our website (https://beam.berkeley.edu/). Covid Note to Donors: As an organization, we strive to inspire and teach our mentees in all areas of STEM. A majority of students have fallen behind in their class and the opportunity to catch up may be expensive and inaccessible. It’s our mission to close the gap despite setbacks from the pandemic we are adapting and growing as a community. Transitioning back to in-person education is vital to getting mentees excited about learning again. As we work to achieve this through more in-person activities, we are prioritizing keeping our mentees safe! We have adopted all of our lessons this semester to be COVID-conscious by supplying students with individual materials and supplying mentors with PPE including gloves, Lysol wipes, and masks. Our students' safety is a top priority within our organization, and our logistics and curriculum team work hard to make sure the lessons are both fun and created in a way that allows a safe distance between students. Additionally, as part of our protocols, all mentors must sanitize their hands before the lesson and wear gloves as well as masks throughout the lesson. We thank any donor for supporting our mission and our endeavors to stay safe during the pandemic.
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PHAA Board of Directors Diversity Scholarships | 2020
By Elizabeth Ly
Diversity scholarships help ensure students with new and nontraditional paths can bring their unique perspectives into the public health profession.
Diversity scholarships help ensure students with new and nontraditional paths can bring their unique perspectives into the public health profession. With the generosity of over 70 donors we have reached our goal of crowdfunding $10,000 for the Public Health Alumni Association (PHAA) Diversity Scholarships! We are so humbled by and appreciative of our community's collective effort to support. But this campaign doesn't stop here! We have a stretch goal of $6,000 to fund an additional 3 scholarships at $2,000 each. The crowdfunding campaign doesn't come to a close until March 3, 2020. We have a little over a week left to raise even more funds for student scholarships! Please help us continue to spread the campaign and support students from underrepresented backgrounds. You can spread the word by sharing this link: https://crowdfund.berkeley.edu/project/18837. Diversity is vital in public health and the development of a diverse public health workforce must be centered in schools of public health. One of the values of the UC Berkeley School of Public Health is “Strength through Diversity” which our community embraces in education, research, and service. While our underrepresented minority student populations has increased in recent years, the School of Public Health could be doing more to create an inclusive equitable environment for graduate students from these diverse backgrounds. One real and tangible way to do that is by providing scholarships to these students. We are asking alumni, faculty, family, and friends of the School of Public Health to support these students by donating to provide the financial aid that they need to thrive at the School of Public Health and in their future public health careers. Please donate to support 5 underrepresented minority students, each with a one-year, $2000 scholarship for the next academic year. If we exceed our goal, we may be able to fund additional scholarships! Last year the Public Health Alumni Association was able to fund 7 scholarships through this crowdfunding opportunity! (Please note that there is a campus-imposed 5% gift fee on all donations and a 2.5% processing charge for credit card transactions but the remaining entirety of the donation goes towards student scholarships.) One huge hurdle to achieving diversity in education is the increasing cost of tuition and the many expenses associated with being a student. High costs can have an even greater impact on underrepresented students and financial aid can be a deciding factor for many. We want to ensure money is not an obstacle to pursuing a degree for those interested in careers in public health. The Public Health Alumni Association Board of Directors is a group of alumni volunteers who represent all alumni of the UC Berkeley School of Public Health. We help alumni support the mission of the School and strengthen personal and professional relationships among public health alumni and students. One of our particular goals is to support diversity in the field of public health and ensure an inclusive, welcoming climate at the School for all of our students. For any specific questions please contact PHAA Board Member Elizabeth Ly (elizabeth.ly@berkeley.edu).
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The Emma Goldman Papers
By UC Berkeley
We are a historical archive and educational resource committed to preserving, editing and democratizing documents related to Emma Goldman.
We are a historical archive and educational resource committed to preserving, editing and democratizing documents related to Emma Goldman. This one-month university sponsored crowdfund campaign ends today. Tomorrow (May Day!) you can still requests some perks with your donationto support the Emma Goldman Papers as always. Just click: https://give.berkeley.edu/browse/?u=39 — “ I want freedom, the right to self-expression, every body’s right to beautiful, radiant things” --Emma Goldman, Living My Life. (1931). Who are we? Emma Goldman (1869-1940) was a tireless advocate of free expression and social justice. Her papers are a treasure trove of women’s, immigration, ethnic, transnational, political, cultural, sexual, and civil liberties histories.The Emma Goldman Papers has been collecting, organizing, publishing, and transcribing documents by and related to Emma Goldman since 1980. What began as a standard reference work has expanded into a multi-source scholarly project of American radicalism, women’s contribution to the shaping of American history — and beyond. The Emma Goldman Papers’ Project papers includes original correspondence, oral histories and interviews from Emma’s contemporaries and supporters, including ACLU founder Roger Baldwin, Daniel Malmed, anarchists Mollie Steimer and Senya Fleshin, broadcaster oral historian Studs Terkel, writer Meridel Le Sueur, Ora Robbins, among others. Please help us preserve the Emma Goldman Papers by making a gift. As we near the publication of our fourth and final volume, we seek a stable and accessible home for the rich archive of administrative and institutional records of the project itself. Our forthcoming and final volume, "Democracy Disarmed, 1917-1919,” covers the tumultuous period when the United States entered World War I and culminates in Emma Goldman’s deportation to Russia by the Wilson administration for her opposition to conscription. It resonates strongly with concerns about immigration and deportation law, surveillance, limitations on free speech in times of national crisis, prison conditions, and the fragility of citizenship and residence for those who were not born in the U.S. As we find ourselves in a vast and often violent world in which the smallest forms of dissent are condemned as treason, human dignity itself is threatened. We believe that the messages championed by Emma and her contemporaries are even more important now, as is the critical issue of free speech. What we will do with your help: Your contribution will be put to use immediately. Anything you contribute will ensure the Emma Goldman Papers Project remain a valuable teaching resource, both for those interested in pursuing similar work as well as those who wish to learn research, writing, documentary editing and archival skills necessary for other fields. Indeed, it will also support the labor of finding a final major archival home for these records, including the costs of archival supplies, communicating with outside institutions and the times spent conducting inventories, organizing and processing these items. $5500 would provide the monetary compensation for the 3 students on our research and administrative staff and will underwrite segments of the preservation and organization of the material relating to Emma Goldman, as well as to the Emma Goldman Papers’ organizational records. With your support, we will be able to secure a permanent institutional home for the collection of tens of thousands of historical documents and organizational records that the project has amassed and produced over more than 37 years. A contribution of $50 will cover the preservation of 50 pages of EGP institutional records, while a donation of $100 would sponsor the archiving of 100 pages and $500, 500 pages! In this way, the Emma Goldman Papers’ will not be put to rest, but will remain accessible far into the future, one page at a time. To learn more about Emma Goldman and our project, please visit our website here. You can also find our Facebook here and follow us on Tumblr and Twitter. Feel free to email us if you have any questions at emma@berkeley.edu.
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Cal Figure Skating 2022
By Jill Liang
We are Cal Figure Skating, a nationally-ranked student athletics team that represents the UC Berkeley in the National Intercollegiate Conference.
We are Cal Figure Skating, a nationally-ranked student athletics team that represents the UC Berkeley in the National Intercollegiate Conference. We are Cal Figure Skating, a nationally-ranked student athletics team that represents the University of California, Berkeley in the National Intercollegiate Conference. Please consider making a gift to help us remain competitive! Since being founded in 2003, we have grown in both size and impact. Our team now has over 80 members, with around 25 traveling to competitions throughout the academic year. In addition to being full time students and athletes, many members of our team are active in other clubs across campus. We are a diverse group of students, ranging from English to engineering to business majors, but we are connected by shared principles of competitive spirit and sportsmanship. Cal Figure Skating is an entirely student-run organization with no coaches or managers. As such, we pay out-of-pocket for practice time, transportation, competition fees, and other associated costs out of love for the sport. Understandably, these expenses add up, and as our team continues to grow, so do our costs. So, we are enlisting the help of our community to allow our team to keep flourishing and competing nationally. Insufficient funding can easily be a limiting factor due to the cost of flights, car rentals, hotels, and registration fees required for each skater to participate in often out-of-state competitions. Thus, all funds raised will go toward competition fees to ensure that every student has the chance to participate as a member of Cal Figure Skating. Budget: Average per participant cost (prices are calculated for the full academic year) Expenses Cost per Skater Flights $800 Practice Ice $500 Practice Ice (Competition) $80 Entry Fees $330 Rental Cars (+gas) $130 Hotel $300 Food $100 Our average cost per student-athlete per competition season is about $2200. This per participant cost includes travel and lodging at competitions, competition entry fees, practice ice, and equipment. With our competitive team of about 23 student athletes, that makes the cost of keeping us competitive at the national level around about $50,000 per competitive season. By raising at least $5000, we will be able to defray the hotel costs for a competitive season. This year, we have competed and anticipate to compete in a total of three Pacific Coast Section qualifying competitions culminating in Nationals in the spring: January 2022: DU Open (Denver, CO) February 2022: Ram Classic (Fort Collins, CO) March 2022: City of Angels (Los Angeles, CA) April 2022: U.S. Intercollegiate Championships (Adrian, MI) Cal Figure Skating has qualified for the U.S. Intercollegiate Championships every year since 2011, and has placed in 2012 (Pewter), 2013 (Pewter), and 2015 (Pewter). Cal Figure Skating has won the title of Pacific Coast Sectional Champions in 2018, 2019, and 2020. Every dollar goes a long way, and we really appreciate any support you are able to give. If you are unable to support us financially at the moment, please consider sharing this campaign and spreading the word! For more information, please visit our website here, follow us on Instagram @calfigureskating, and feel free to email us at ucbfigureskating@gmail.com with any questions. Thank you, and GO BEARS!
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CalSol - The UC Berkeley Solar Vehicle Team FA ‘18
By CalSol
Donate to help CalSol design, build, and race fully solar-powered and road-legal cars!
Donate to help CalSol design, build, and race fully solar-powered and road-legal cars! CalSol We are a team of almost 100 passionate Berkeley undergraduate students who design, build, and race high-speed, street-legal solar vehicles. We have built 8 generations of racing vehicles, developing and enhancing our designs with each iteration. Each one is built nearly entirely by our students, from scratch; the knowledge and experience gained is unparalleled. Our last car, Zephyr, has had a long and successful career, placing first at our 2017 race and second at one of our 2018 races. In July, we drove it more than 1,700 miles from Omaha, Nebraska to Bend, Oregon using 100% solar power. Our team welcomes all interested students and is home to a variety of majors across the University. We provide unparalleled hands-on experience in engineering, project management, supply chain interactions, teamwork, problem-solving, and more. Can you make a gift to support CalSol today? Our members clean dust off the solar array to increase its efficiency. With our next generation vehicle, Tachyon, we are building something new, revolutionary, futuristic, and practical. This vehicle represents the future of energy efficiency and transportation, as well as a monument to the innovative powerhouse that is Berkeley Engineering. Our design still features a fully solar-powered electric vehicle, but distinct from any of our previous generations it will be a four-passenger vehicle, instead of a single-seater. Design work is mostly completed, and construction has already begun in earnest. We are designing, building, and racing a vehicle that is ultimately a stepping stone to future advances in transportation technology, making car transportation more energy-efficient and closer to carbon neutral. Our members have developed brand-new power electronics and design innovations in order to push our cars’ efficiency as far as possible. One day, we hope that technology from our cars and others like them will allow solar cars to not just be race cars, but also vehicles with practical, everyday use. Muneeb finishes changing a tire on Zephyr at the Formula Sun Grand Prix 2018. The most exciting time for us is always our races, and 2019 will be a big year. In the summer we expect to go to the Formula Sun Grand Prix, like we do every year. We’ll be racing Tachyon on its maiden race in Texas. But fresh off that race, we will put our vehicle in a shipping container and hop on a plane to Australia, where CalSol will race across the Outback against the best solar car teams in the world in the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge. We are hoping to use this crowdfunding campaign to help cover the expenses of this important event, such as air fare, shipping costs, and of course numerous other team expenses. Please pitch in to help make it all possible! Approximate breakdown of costs necessary to compete in the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge. You can follow our progress on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter @BerkeleyCalSol. Our website is calsol.berkeley.edu. Thank you for your support! (Psst! By the way, donations to CalSol are tax-deductible!)
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Biofuels Technology Initiative
By Austin Li
NEW STRETCH GOAL OF $3,500! BTC is a student group aiming to convert waste cooking oil from on-campus dining halls into usable biodiesel and make a greener Cal!
NEW STRETCH GOAL OF $3,500! BTC is a student group aiming to convert waste cooking oil from on-campus dining halls into usable biodiesel and make a greener Cal! THANK YOU TO ALL OF OUR GENEROUS DONORS!!! We surpassed our initial goal of $2,000 with 2 weeks to spare, so we have created a new stretch goal of $3,500! The extra funds will subsidize costs of extra chemicals, cooking oil transportation licensing, and personal protective equipment like goggles and lab coats! Please continue to support us and a greener UC Berkeley by sharing or donating today! Who We Are The Biofuels Technology Club at UC Berkeley started out as a class project in which six classmates designed a proposal to promote sustainability within the campus community. The proposal was entered into the “Big Ideas @ Berkeley” competitions in 2014 and 2015 and won second prize both times. After receiving funding from this competition, the club has grown to host over forty multidisciplinary students participating in research and scale-up aspects of the project. The club hopes to raise awareness about the benefits of recycling cooking oil into biodiesel. The club has continued to conduct extensive research on the transesterification process used to produce biodiesel, and is currently refining its own production process by reducing wasteful byproducts and necessary reagents. In addition, the scale-up team is currently constructing and testing a 50-gallon-per-week reactor pilot plant at the Richmond Field Station that will, once further scaled up in the long run, convert all waste cooking oil produced on campus into usable biofuel. As a club, it provides a unique hands-on learning opportunity for engineering students to design a process, build a refinery from scratch, and overcome all the logistical obstacles along the way. By recycling waste oil from dining halls, UC Berkeley’s waste stream is reduced, as well as campus dependence on non-renewable energy. It is becoming increasingly important to save on carbon emissions, and we need to do everything we can to serve as an example and teach students to be mindful of waste and what we can do to reduce it. Biofuel is a much more sustainable fuel choice than fossil fuels, reducing net CO2 by 78% and greenhouse gas emissions in general by 57-86% per volume burned. We project that our pilot plant will be operational by the end of the academic year, at which point ASTM testing will confirm the credibility of BTC’s biodiesel. We will also cut current disposal/recycling costs for the university once implemented. Ultimately, the goal is to utilize the biodiesel produced “in-house” as fuel for vehicles on campus, teach students along the way, and make a more sustainable and self-sufficient UC Berkeley! How You Can Help By making a donation today you can be a big part of our new and exciting initiative to reduce waste produced in our dining halls and further Berkeley’s commitment to sustainability! The funds will enable us to produce quality fuel and give us credibility when sharing (and eventually selling!) our fuel with future partners. Once our process is refined, we hope to share our story and successes with students across multiple college campuses, so that we can all work towards a sustainable future together. Thank you for your support! With specific questions please contact our Lead of Finance: Austin Li - agli@berkeley.edu Learn More General E-mail: biofuelstechnology@gmail.com Website: https://btc.berkeley.edu Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BerkeleyBTC/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/biofuelstechnology/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/biofuels-technology-club/
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PROJECT KARMAN: 1 Launch, 10 Months, 100 Kilometers to Space!
By Space Enterprise at Berkeley
Help Space Enterprise at Berkeley become the FIRST COLLEGE TEAM IN HISTORY TO LAUNCH A ROCKET INTO SPACE!
Help Space Enterprise at Berkeley become the FIRST COLLEGE TEAM IN HISTORY TO LAUNCH A ROCKET INTO SPACE! Space Enterprise at Berkeley "Help us be the first college group in history to launch a rocket into space by donating today!" - Space Enterprise at Berkeley NEW STRETCH GOAL: $30,000! Our organization's mission is to enable access to space by becoming the first college team to launch payloads past the 100-km (62 mile) Karman Line, the internationally recognized boundary of space. PROJECT KARMAN will allow for unparalleled, cost-effective access to space and the high atmosphere for both student groups and industrial partners. In homage to our Californian home and the spirit of joy and discovery that motivates us to do the difficult, exacting work of rocket science, we named our vehicle after the one word that describes our goals best- "Eureka". Eureka-1 is designed to reach farther and fly faster than any college rocket before it. Delivering nearly 3,000 lbs of thrust, Eureka's engine combines incredible performance with 100% renewable propellants- a first for space-capable rockets. While the technical know-how to send payloads to space has existed for over 60 years, the requisite technology has remained incredibly expensive, failure-prone, and dangerous to use. Recent advances in materials science coupled with proprietary cost-saving technologies have allowed Space Enterprise at Berkeley to entirely eliminate the turbo pump, the single most expensive and delicate element of modern rocket engines. This innovation has allowed us to reduce the typical $2.8 million price tag of a suborbital launch to less than $150,000. In addition, in-development recovery systems will allow for a fly-land-fly turnaround for Eureka-1. With full implementation of this system, Eureka could fly multiple times per week, with only a short refurbishment and refueling period between launches. This would reduce total launch cost to less than $10,000. While our systems are drastically less expensive than comparable technologies, they still carry a hefty price tag. Project Karman is aims to raise a quarter of a million dollars through a combination of crowdfunding, grants, and sponsorships. Even though our goal for fundraising is $25,000, this is only the first milestone of a longer journey towards $150,000- half of our total fundraising goal. That's why we hope to take this campaign global- inspiring as many people as possible to join us on this mission. With PROJECT KARMAN, we will also be spearheading a global initiative to spark international inspiration and enthusiasm for space. This global initiative will be adopting the core elements of competition and achieving historical feats from the mid-twentieth century Space Race that piqued youth interest in space. Using the international platform offered to us by the UN-backed World Space Week Association in October of 2017, we will not only be globally announcing PROJECT KARMAN, but also challenging university groups across the world to join us in the race to space. The first milestone igniting the excitement will be declared as passing the Karman Line. However, to sustain enthusiasm, we will present the grander feat to being successfully able to launch a recoverable payload into suborbital flight. We will propose that the feats be met by the 50th anniversary of the humanity’s first manned moon landing: July 20th, 2019. By developing an international scene of university student groups competing to make history reaching space, we hope to inspire the current younger generations of students on pursuing space. Noting the status quo of the aerospace/space industry, we also believe this global initiative will have significant effects on alleviating the industry struggles of attracting talent and replacing an aging workforce to drive innovative developments. Overall, PROJECT KARMAN and our global initiative provide UC Berkeley students with industry-relevant, practical, hands-on experience as the future pioneers in the ever-developing space industry. The success of this initiative would not only mean a historical feat for UC Berkeley, but also demonstrate the capabilities and reignited drive into space amongst the youth of this generation. As of now, we have a design model for EUREKA-1 that if we built tomorrow, it would fly. However, we're aiming to make this rocket not just something that reaches space, but something that truly pushes the frontiers of safety, efficiency, and reliability, achieving our goal in a way we can be proud of. That's why we're spending the next several months really refining EUREKA-1, minimizing our waste and maximizing our performance, before we enter our production phase up until June. By July, we'll be up in the sky! Space Enterprise at Berkeley doesn't follow the traditional mold of a college space organization. While most others tend to get an enclave of engineers and scientists on their team, we highly value the additional perspective that students of nontechnical majors can bring -- pre-law, biology, business, environmental policy, you name it! With our three branches of Design, Business, and Production, we are able to efficiently manage the massive list of tasks of funding, designing, and building EUREKA-1. Not only do the branch divisions optimize task completion by delegating responsibilities to the most capable members, but also allow for tight accountability and understanding of significance for both technical and non-technical members on the team. The mindset that every member directly contributes significant progress to the success of the mission is very apparent in SEB’s culture. Ask any member, sending a rocket into space involves so much more than rocket science. "If I have seen farther than others, it is because I stand on the shoulders of giants"- Isaac Newton Textbooks, simulations, and theoretical models can only take you so far. Space Enterprise at Berkeley is proud to partner with industry leaders, scientific pioneers, and world-renowned aerospace organizations to help make the dream of collegiate spaceflight a reality. Without the support and guidance provided by our affiliates, EUREKA-1 would have collapsed before it even hit the drawing board, and PROJECT KARMAN would never have seen the light of day. Our affiliates help make our mission possible through their generous support, both financial and technical. Space Enterprise at Berkeley would like to thank the following partners for their assistance in making EUREKA-1 a reality: Big or small, any help means so much to us! So to show you how much the support means to us, this is our way of saying THANK YOU!
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Democracy Camp 2019 | Fall 2018
By UC Berkeley
Democracy Camp is a spring break bootcamp for Cal undergraduate students interested in public service. Students get engaged, empowered and informed!
Democracy Camp is a spring break bootcamp for Cal undergraduate students interested in public service. Students get engaged, empowered and informed! Help Students Answer the Call to Public Service! Democracy Camp is a program for Cal students interested in enhancing our democracy through public service. This four day spring break “boot-camp” will help 16 undergraduate students get engaged, empowered, and informed faster about how to make an impact in their communities and beyond. Democracy Camp will help students chart their path to a meaningful public service career. In its inaugural year, Democracy Camp was a huge success! We hope to keep this program alive and continue to enrich student experiences here at Berkeley. Please make your gift today and help us spread the word! About Democracy Camp This program will train a new generation of leaders: young people who reflect our society and come from all walks of life. We believe that attracting people with varied perspectives and life experiences to public service will ensure more effective and representative government moving forward. Democracy Camp will give students first-hand exposure to different facets of a public service career: legislative paths, community organizations, local, state and federal government, and philanthropy. Participants will learn directly from presenters about the opportunities available in these fields. They will have networking opportunities and build a cohort amongst themselves to support their career goals. There will also be skill-building modules that focus on practical and tangible takeaways: interviewing, resume writing, and mentoring. Democracy Camp is sponsored by the Institute of Governmental Studies (IGS) and the Robert T. Matsui Center for Politics and Public Service at the University of California, Berkeley. IGS stands at the forefront of research, teaching, and service in California and American politics and policy. Interdisciplinary and non-partisan, we foster thoughtful discussions of issues across party lines that focus on solutions – not just problems. Our mission is anchored by a belief in the transformational power of public service. How You Can Help We are excited to continue this program, but we can’t do it alone! With your help, we hope to raise $5,000 to fund Democracy Camp. Democracy Camp will primarily serve first generation, non-traditional and transfer students. This program increases access and opportunity for all Cal students, especially those who can’t afford to participate in an unpaid summer internship. In addition to the experiential learning program and additional reading materials, all meals and snacks will be provided to students during the week. This will help defray costs for students who may otherwise be concerned about food insecurity during Spring Break. IGS staff are donating their time to create this opportunity for students and will facilitate this program. Additional funds raised above our goal will offset these costs. Please help us reach our goal of $5,000 by making a gift today! No gift is too small, and your support will ensure that we are able to provide the best educational experience possible for UC Berkeley’s motivated change-makers! To learn more visit: https://www.igs.berkeley.edu/student-learning/democracy-camp Thank you for your support! Connect With Us Twitter: @BerkeleyIGS Facebook: Berkeley IGS
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Alpha Chi Sigma - Chemistry Fraternity
By Sunaina Hajela
The UC Berkeley chapter of Alpha Chi Sigma was founded in 1913 on the basis of creating a community of chemists who share a passion for chemistry.
The UC Berkeley chapter of Alpha Chi Sigma was founded in 1913 on the basis of creating a community of chemists who share a passion for chemistry. Alpha Chi Sigma, the premier chemistry fraternity (we’re co-ed!) on campus, has one major goal: to share our passion for chemistry with the students around us. We represent a large population of the College of Chemistry, and have chemistry, chemical biology, and chemical engineering majors in our organization. Alpha Chi Sigma, or AXΣ, focuses on professional development and outreach programs to both advance our skills as researchers and workers while also giving back to the community by teaching at elementary schools, volunteering at chemistry demonstrations, and running shadowing programs. With funding, we have three initiatives we would like to accomplish. The first would allow us to travel with ample demonstration kits and materials to local schools to teach kids, while the second is a combination shadowing and mentorship program that helps train younger students for chemistry competitions. Our last project is new to our organization, and includes meeting with students, specifically at local community colleges, who want to transfer into UC Berkeley in chemistry-related fields and would be willing to shadow our members for a day. We need your help to make our programs successful! The first of our end-of-semester projects is to partner with a local high school and support their qualification for the National Chemistry Olympiad, a nationwide chemistry competition where students showcase their knowledge in chemistry, conduct their own research and take part in a chemistry related lab project. In early March, we will begin to build our network, help them study for their local qualifying exams, and continue this process until the national exams which take take place throughout April. Once qualified, we will continue to support the students through May and July and act as consultants and mentors as they prepare for the nationwide competition at the end of July. By donating to our cause, you will be directly helping students build better strategies and be more prepared for these exams. The second project we hope to fund with this campaign is a shadowing program for local community college students. In March and April, we hope to partner with local institutions such as Berkeley City College, Chabot College, and Merritt College and invite their students to spend a day with us on campus, and learn what a day in the lab is like here at UC Berkeley. We have found that many students, especially those underrepresented in chemistry, do not know that research is something they could easily do. As a diverse and inclusive fraternity, we hope to show students of all backgrounds that they have the abilities to pursue their passions, and that students see us as role models that inspire them to pursue their passion no matter their prior bias about the subject. Although our outreach events are ongoing and take place throughout the entire semester, we are applying for crowdfunding in April in order to build our big end of the semester projects as well as ongoing science outreach through Bay Area Scientists in Schools (BASIS). BASIS events happen bi-weekly in several locals schools in Oakland and the surrounding areas. Although the events only happen twice a month, we are constantly training new members, sourcing lesson materials, and contacting local educators to build connections between our organization and the community. Overall, we want to expand our outreach efforts in order to expose students of all ages to the exciting world of chemistry and related sciences. Our proposed projects have been designed to establish a continual connection between our fraternity and the local community. By acting as role models, support systems, and walking examples of diversity in STEM, we hope to empower all students, and show them that they too can become chemists, and we need your support today to make this program grow, so make a gift today! For any more questions, feel free to email axs.sigma.fundraising@gmail.com. Also follow us on Instagram (@alphachisigma_sigma) to get weekly updates on what our fraternity is doing!
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Project SMILE 2021
By Alyssa Feinberg
Project S.M.I.L.E seeks to address social injustice by instilling values of appreciation of diversity, leadership abilities, educational, and community.
Project S.M.I.L.E seeks to address social injustice by instilling values of appreciation of diversity, leadership abilities, educational, and community. Project S.M.I.L.E stands for Project Spreading Multiculturalism and Inspiring Leadership through Education. Through our program, Berkeley students have the opportunity to be mentors to students at two local middle schools, Longfellow and Willard Middle School. Our mentors are role models for the students and form strong relationships with them through weekly mentoring and special weekend events.... Our mission is to provide mentees and mentors with an opportunity to develop relationships built on respect, trust, and support. Through one-on-one match-ups with students from the two middle schools, Project S.M.I.L.E. seeks to promote and instill values such as the appreciation of diversity, leadership abilities, educational awareness, and a proactive sense of community. We hope to enhance the experience of both the mentees and mentors by creating a generation of motivated and inspirational leaders who are academically enlightened and socially adept. Help us support our community! ... ... During the school week, our mentors assist the students with homework help or any after school activities. In addition to assisting in after school activities, our mentors also lead themed workshops and enrichment activities to fulfill our mission. Such workshops include educating mentees about Black History Month or Women’s History Month to spread the ideals of inclusion and diversity. Some of the most exciting activities that our organization hosts are weekend field trips to promote bonding between our mentors and mentees. Each year, we go on a camping field trip together and engage in team-building activities! ... Project SMILE has been a mentoring organization at UC Berkeley for over 20 years and is still going strong with new mentors and mentees joining each year! In response to the pandemic, we are operating virtually and we are eagerly waiting for the day when we can continue our normal activities again. Since we are a non-profit, we are counting on you to help us continue our services. The funds we raise will be distributed according to the graphic below, and we would truly appreciate it if you could donate or spread the word to your networks! Help us give to our community! Make a gift today to support our work:
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Cal Equestrian Crowdfunding | Fall 2021
By Nicole Kim
Thank you all for helping us reach our goal! Please help us reach our new goal of $5000, which will go toward rider scholarships and team gear!
Thank you all for helping us reach our goal! Please help us reach our new goal of $5000, which will go toward rider scholarships and team gear! Cal Equestrian was born to directly challenge the notion that horseback riding is for the wealthy and privileged. Our competitions are structured such that all riders, whether they have competed in Grands Prix or never ridden a horse before, will have a chance to compete and win points as an individual and for the team. At IHSA competitions, team members compete on the hosting school’s horses. This means you don’t need to own a horse to compete, which significantly reduces the cost of riding. We try to keep our team dues as low as possible to make the equestrian sport affordable and accessible for our members. This unfortunately means that they barely cover the cost of the lessons and membership dues, let alone horse care, riding apparel, travel, and more. Thanks to the personal sacrifices and hard work of our team members and supporters, Cal Equestrian has been able to stay running and we have become increasingly competitive in recent years. In 2019, two of our riders won at the regional competition to qualify for zone finals (which include all qualified riders from Washington State, Oregon, California, Colorado, Montana, Arizona, Utah, Wyoming, Kansas, Nebraska, and British Columbia). Come 2020, three of our riders qualified for zone finals. Unfortunately due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we were unable to compete in person last year, but we hope that with your help, we will be able to have great success in the 2021-22 show season, and hopefully make it to nationals. As our riders work hard to improve, we hope to ensure that everyone can afford to practice and compete, but we cannot do it alone. Through your generous donations, you will support a radical change in equestrian competition, leveling the playing field and allowing riders of all backgrounds and experience levels to have their shot at the blue ribbon. Follow us on: Instagram: @cal_equestrian Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/UC-Berkeley-Equestrian-Team-549929355039871 or visit our website: https://equestrian.berkeley.edu/
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Patagonia Beetle Biodiversity
By Elizabeth Arias
Help us perform an urgent biodiversity survey to protect one of the world’s most important and endangered temperate regions of Patagonia in Chile.
Help us perform an urgent biodiversity survey to protect one of the world’s most important and endangered temperate regions of Patagonia in Chile. Project Summary We propose to perform an urgent biodiversity survey to support the protection of one of the world’s most important and endangered temperate rain forest regions, the Patagonia Valdivian Temperate rainforests of Chile. This area has been under threat due to construction and clear-cutting, and recently from the mega-dam proposal in the Baker and Pascua rivers. There has been a battle for decades against construction and agriculture in natural areas of Chile, which are destroying its ancient forests (Figures 1, 2). The strongest recent threat is the proposal to build a dam on the Baker and Pascua Rivers. Dam projects can destroy the forests, increase climate change, accelerate the extinction of endemic species like the Chilean deer of this region, and also will forcibly displace hundreds of indigenous and other citizens. The magnitude of the impact is incalculable, as it will drown a substantial area and create an electrical line cut through the forest from the main dam to the north of Chile. Insects and spiders provide excellent information on overall biodiversity and can be collected without lasting impact to natural systems. Our Berkeley team will undertake streamlined, rapid, cost-effective arthropod collection using a full array of collecting methods, preserving samples, and uploading collection data into the Essig Museum Database (Figures 3, 4). Then, specimens will be sent to collaborators world-wide for identification and molecular studies. Will you help us by making a gift today? Can you help us get this project off the ground? Unfortunately, no other funds are available for this effort. To improve the case for regional conservation, we need to collect new data, and analyze and integrate data from our previous Chilean study (Figure 5). The results will have long-term impacts on biology and on management practices in Chile and Argentina. Our collaborators have a proven track record in conducting biodiversity surveys in southern South America and elsewhere, and a demonstrated ability to produce and analyze the resulting data, to mentor trainees, and to interact constructively with conservation authorities. Your support is crucial to meeting the curatorial, research, educational and conservation goals of this project. We Need to Act Now Our plan for surveys before the forests are destroyed will create hard data to give the national agencies tools to conserve the forests and impetus to develop alternative energy sources, which the country has. The collected specimens will be initially sorted in Chile, and the remainder sorted at the Essig Museum to provide training to undergraduate students. The specimens will be then preserved at the Essig Museum of Entomology and at the Museo Nacional de Historia Natural in Santiago Chile. In addition to their conservation values, the preserved specimens and data will be invaluable to science by forming the basis to study different scenarios for Gondwanan breakup (i.e., the legacy of continental drift). We have a highly qualified team to do this research, including Berkeley scientists and collaborators from Chile, Argentina, Colombia, Australia, Belgium and England. Our previous surveys have resulted in over 50 publications, many of them describing new Chilean species. How You Can Help By supporting Diversity in Patagonia, you will help make this research possible. We need your help to raise a minimum of $2,750 which will be used to purchase the collecting supplies and to subsidize the travel that we need to do for our initial expedition (Figure 6). While we also need laboratory funds and student support for this project, this part plays a critical role for collecting initial specimens that could help preserve the beautiful land of Patagonia. Please make a gift today to explore Patagonia!
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Maji Yaje Kwanza
By Ashley Miller
NEW STRETCH GOAL $16,000! Enacting water infrastructure at Mihingoni Primary in Kaloleni, Kenya, to bring the first formal water source and serve 3,000 people.
NEW STRETCH GOAL $16,000! Enacting water infrastructure at Mihingoni Primary in Kaloleni, Kenya, to bring the first formal water source and serve 3,000 people. THANK YOU to each of our generous donors from across nine states, giving gifts from $10 to $100 to *$750 *to **$6,000** as of today - absolutely speechless. We've created a new stretch goal of $16,000 for the remainder of the campaign - as mentioned in the project description/video, $16,000-18,000 will be needed to bring complete resolution to the remaining infrastructure work. With this new incredible boost we are within arm's reach of that goal. Please continue to show support by giving and/or sharing between now and 11:59pm PST on 2/23! Overview: Maji Yaje Kwanza, meaning ‘water is the first of many things’ in Swahili, is a project focused on bringing water infrastructure to Kaloleni (an agricultural constituency within the coastal province of Kenya), with sub-county primary schools being the catalyst. The project evolved from Ashley Miller completing a UC Berkeley study abroad program and research project at Kenyatta University in 2013, becoming close with Kenyatta student Louisa Mwenda and her immediate/extended family. After the exchange program ended they took Ashley down from Nairobi to their family home in Kaloleni to visit Louisa’s grandmother; while discussing the severe water issues in the area, and how one of the family members was a teacher at a local primary school, the idea for the project originated. This crowdfunding campaign aims to bring resolution to the 2014 pilot project implementation and establish a borehole (a kind of underground well) to connect with all of the already-enacted school and community infrastructure, in order to ensure consistent water service provision (details below). This will be the first formal water source for the school and the area, and is expected to serve roughly 3,000 people - 800 students and staff at the school site and (based on estimates from the Chief’s office), an additional 2,000 people in the Mihingoni community. Please help us bring water to these children and families in need by making a gift today! The Issues: According to UNESCO, 17 million Kenyans lack access to safe drinking water. The coastal province experiences some of the greatest national inequality in this area: countless five-star resorts, yet less than a third of Mombasa’s one million residents are receiving municipal water service provision (Coast Water Services Board, 2012). Kaloleni (Giriama land) - about 45 minutes away from Mombasa - is a semi-arid agricultural constituency in the coastal province with 64 sub-counties (population approx. 150,000); despite nearly all inhabitants having their own farms, long dry seasons and lack of water infrastructure prevents fully successful harvests. Due to the lack of water infrastructure, the area relies heavily on rainwater and has two rainy seasons – the long rains between April and July, and the short rains between October and November. In Mihingoni, a Kaloleni sub-county and the location of this project, women and girls fetch water from rainwater harvesting points; as water becomes increasingly scarce during the dry seasons the community often has to rely on dirty dam water, and conflict will erupt out of desperation. Children – especially girls – frequently miss school to assist with fetching water year-round, all of which perpetuates both deep poverty in the rural communities and overpopulation/economic insecurity in the big cities. Our Solution: Summer 2014 Implementation: Between summer 2013 and summer 2014 Ashley applied for grants from/through UC Berkeley, securing roughly $21,000. in collaboration with the Kilifi-Mariakani Water & Sewage Company (KIMAWASCO), Mihingoni Primary school’s administration, and local community, and with input from the Coastal Water Service Board (CWSB), chief’s office, and the Office of the President, the monumental pilot project consisted of: building hand-washing sinks at the boys, girls, and teachers’ latrines establishing two drinking water taps (along with two 10,000-liter water tanks for provisions during water shortages) creating a cement basin for the soapy sink water to be recycled to clean the latrines bringing drip irrigation pipes for the school to establish their own garden constructing a water pipeline across 2.5 kilometers Prior to implementation, we held a town meeting at the school, inviting the students’ parents and other community members to hear how the project originated, the intended implementation approach, and to receive feedback on how to better serve their needs. Roughly 80 community members attended that meeting. The construction work was completed by a mixture of skilled and unskilled labor entirely from within the community, hiring between 150-200 people. Additionally, and just as importantly, the team established a water kiosk on the school grounds to sell water to the community at the rate of roughly six cents U.S. for a five-gallon container of water, which will also support the sustainable purchasing of hand-washing soap and latrine antiseptic. Since implementation: Since the pilot project’s implementation, a World Bank project in Kaloleni was scheduled to replace the water pumps that have been in use since before independence (1963), and construct large water storage tanks at an elevated point - these two developments were intended to significantly improve water pressure and provision for all of Kaloleni Division, and were the reason why we enacted a water pipeline to the school site. After many delays, these World Bank projects finally reached completion. However, the water pressure has not been strong enough to supply piped municipal water to the school, and regional droughts have proved that municipal water cannot be relied on. Because of this, we have determined that the only way to ensure consistent provision of water - for both the school and the community - is to enact a borehole at the school site to be connected to all of the infrastructure that has already been established. Next Steps: Summer 2017 we hired a geologist to complete a hydrogeological survey, resulting in a 36-page report advising on the aquifers in the region and how to take necessary action. We applied (and were approved) for all the necessary permits through the Kenyan government, and received four different borehole-drilling price quotes. How You Can Help: Our target goal is $10,000; however, the borehole drilling estimate is roughly $16,000. We also will need to purchase a water pump (preferably a solar pump, to ensure consistency even during electrical instability). The geologist advised us to wait on a pump purchase until the borehole is established and the first pumping test is completed - otherwise there is a good chance the wrong pump will be purchased. Therefore, we will likely need between $16,000 and $18,000 to ensure holistic project completion. Unless we crowdfund vastly above our needed goal, Ashley will be purchasing her own plane ticket to join the team in Kenya for the final implementation (likely in April). Any funds raised above and beyond the costs at Mihingoni Primary will go toward completing the necessary hydrogeological surveys, infrastructural price quotes, and permits for an additional school. The team has a comprehensive list of all sub-counties and primary schools within the region, with information on the number of students and staff names/titles. We have already made in-person visits to three of those schools and spoke with the staff, who were all incredibly eager to work with the project - similar to Mihingoni, there is no formal water source in any of these three communities, so they are in the same extreme need for water infrastructure. Successfully bringing completion to this pilot project is absolutely vital for not just the Mihingoni community, but for any additional schools we serve in the future. We humbly ask for your support in the final stretch of this project, and in allowing water to truly be the first of many things for Mihingoni.
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Cal Men's Lacrosse | 2018
By Nick Beattie
Can you help us reach our new stretch goal of $12,000?
Can you help us reach our new stretch goal of $12,000? Thank you for helping us reach our initial goal of $10,000! Can you help us get to $12,000? Hi Cal Lacrosse family, friends, and fans! Cal Men’s Lacrosse is entering its 55th season in 2019, and last year we won the WCLL for the first time since 2000 and secured a bid to the 2018 MCLA National Championships for our 3rd straight year where we upset the 4-seed in a first round thriller. This was after our great showing at the 2017 Championships where we made it all the way to the semifinals, losing to the eventual champions. With the addition of another strong recruiting class, the Bears aim to earn a 4th straight bid and bring a National Championship to Berkeley while continuing to achieve in the classroom. To succeed this year, we will need not only hard work on the field but also the support of the entire Cal Men’s Lacrosse community. We need your help. The Bears hoisting the WCLL division trophy. As a club sports team, we receive minimal assistance from the University - less than 1% of our annual operating costs. In order to pay for our coaching staff, equipment and uniforms, team travel, game fees, and services like stadium staff, we depend upon a combination of player dues and donations. In fact, half of our income comes from donations from alumni, family and friends! They are vital to our existence and vital to our success. Can you make a gift today to help us remain competitive? Your donation will help the club pay for coaches, game fees, and essential player equipment like jerseys and gear. Please make a gift today! Thank you for supporting Cal Men's Lacrosse. Go Bears! The Bears shaking hands after a win. Your donation at work: $3,000- Player Scholarship $2,000- 1 night in a hotel for Team $1,000- Team meal $500- Player pack $200- Helmet $100- Gloves $50- Hoodie $25- Game Day T-shirt Facebook - California Men’s Lacrosse Twitter - @CalBearsLax Instagram - @calmenslax The Bears celebrating a win.
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Cal Athletics: Fuel the Bears
By Spencer Bowen
Support Cal's continued commitment to student-athletes by funding hands-on nutrition education and healthy food items. Go Bears!
Support Cal's continued commitment to student-athletes by funding hands-on nutrition education and healthy food items. Go Bears! Your gift to “Fuel the Bears” will help Cal Athletics and our team of registered dietitians provide whole, real food nutrition items and supplements along with hands-on meal-preparation and cooking education. Your generous gifts will help Cal Sports Nutrition provide 875 student-athletes with access to the shakes, protein smoothies, energy and protein bars, fruits and vegetables, trail mix, yogurts, and hydration items necessary to fuel world-class Division I athletes. Every dollar counts. Your generosity will directly impact hundreds of student-athletes and help them develop nutrition habits that lead to elite performance now and life skills for years to come. Thank you and Go Bears!
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4,000 FOR THE FORUM: Increasing Debates and Panels on Campus
By Ayushi Gupta
Bringing multiple, diverse viewpoints to ONE forum at ONE time. Support the Berkeley Forum in hosting more debates and panels at Cal.
Bringing multiple, diverse viewpoints to ONE forum at ONE time. Support the Berkeley Forum in hosting more debates and panels at Cal. Who We Are The Berkeley Forum is a completely nonpartisan, student-run nonprofit that organizes debates, talks, and panels that are open and accessible to UC Berkeley students and our community. Since 2012, the Berkeley Forum has, hosted more than 65 events with over 100 speakers and 5,000 guests. Hosting 32 of those events in just the last year alone, our organization has and continues to grow tremendously. Some of our past guests have included: Former Presidential Candidate, Rand Paul; Co-Host of MythBusters, Jamie Hyneman; Founder of PayPal, Peter Thiel. Increasing Debates & Panels While we aim to carry out our mission and work in order to bring diverse viewpoints to the UC Berkeley campus to the fullest extent in an accessible manner, our resources are limited. As a completely student-run, nonprofit organization we have been unable to host debates and panels with the same regularity as speaker addresses. We believe that debates and panels are extremely important as they reaffirm the value of a liberal arts education. They bring in multiple, diverse viewpoints to one forum and consequently bring in students and audience members from various groups and societies. However, panels and debates also entail a greater number of speakers, incurring greater travel, venue, and accommodation costs. How Your Support Helps The Forum aims to use crowdfunding to host TWO debates/panels on the UC Berkeley campus this semester! Potential event topics include: The De-stigmatization of Mental Health Millennials to POTUS A Debate on Artificial Intelligence Asian-American Representation in the Media Through YOUR support: If we raise $2000, we will host 1 debate/panel. If we raise $4000, we will host 2 debates/panels Being a nonprofit, The Berkeley Forum depends primarily on donations and limited university grants for support - resources that cover only a fraction of the cost of just a single event. Many times, Forum members pay out of their own pockets for events. Associated with the insights, ideas, and voices of 3-5 speakers brought in by each debate/panel are the costs of such large-scale events. The Berkeley Forum is excited to expose our community to incredible ideas and diversity of thought, which is why your support is CRUCIAL. The Berkeley Forum holds a panel, "Hacking the Hackathon," in Partnership with Cal Hacks. Jamie Hyneman, Co-Host of the television series, Mythbusters, speaks at the Berkeley Forum about building a bridge between entertainment and science. The Berkeley Forum has been featured in some of today's biggest press and media sources. Jeannette Wing, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Research, speaks to Cal students about the importance of basic research and computational thinking. To find out more about us and our events, visit us at forum.berkeley.edu and like us on Facebook.
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Free Menstrual Products Initiative
By Ryan Huntley
The Free Menstrual Product Initiative will provide women in Berkeley Engineering with easy access to free menstrual products while on campus.
The Free Menstrual Product Initiative will provide women in Berkeley Engineering with easy access to free menstrual products while on campus. We have a new goal! Check out the "Updates" tab for more information. Our Project: The Free Menstrual Products Initiative is a joint effort by Engineering Student Council (ESC) and The Coalition for the Institutionalization of Free Menstrual Products (CIFMP). We believe that menstruating students in our engineering school, and at Berkeley in general, should have easy access to free menstrual products on campus. This project will lay the foundations for that goal, a major step towards creating a better learning environment for all students at Berkeley. Who We Are: Engineering Student Council (ESC) is the principal student leadership group for Berkeley Engineering. Our mission is to represent the engineering student body, support engineering societies in reaching their full potential, and promote a diverse community through successful collaboration between students, faculty, societies, and the College of Engineering. The Coalition for the Institutionalization of Free Menstrual Products (CIFMP) is an initiative that aims to maximize the wellness of menstruating students through supplying and distributing free menstrual products in various accessible locations at UC Berkeley. The Details: CIFMP has already provided a large supply of menstrual products; therefore, 100% of your donations will be used to purchase dispensers for the products (1 dispenser ≈ $300). The dispensers will be installed in women’s restrooms throughout the engineering campus, providing all engineers with easy access to menstrual products. Currently, we have approval to install dispensers in four buildings, but with additional funding and administrative approval, we hope to install dispensers in more than ten buildings. At that point, students in our community will have to look no further than the nearest restroom when they need emergency supplies. A sample dispenser currently installed on campus One Last Note: This project might seem small, but our ultimate goal is to have the administration step in and provide permanent resources. When you donate to our project, you are not just funding a short term solution, you are funding a new program that will better the lives of Berkeley students for years to come. We are confident that we can reach this lofty goal, but we need your help. If you share our enthusiasm for improving the lives of students at Berkeley, then please consider making a donation today! To stay updated, check out our websites and follow us on social media: ESC Website: https://esc.berkeley.edu/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ucb.esc Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/berkeleyesc/ CIFMP Website: https://cifmp.weebly.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pg/cifmpatcal/about/?ref=page_internal If you have any further questions, please contact Ryan Huntley (ryanhuntley23@berkeley.edu) or Elianna Peng (elianna@berkeley.edu)
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A Home for Human Rights at Berkeley!
By Human Rights Center
Help us create a new home on the Berkeley campus where students contribute to research and conduct investigations of human rights abuses around the world.
Help us create a new home on the Berkeley campus where students contribute to research and conduct investigations of human rights abuses around the world. Human Rights Center The Human Rights Center—recipient of the MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions—conducts world-class research and investigations into some of the most pressing human rights crises of our times. But here on the Berkeley campus, we’re also known for something else: empowering students. Through our Fellowship Program, Investigations Lab, classes, internships and GSR positions, we are enabling thousands of students to learn about and engage in hands-on work with human rights defenders globally. The next generation of human rights leaders is right here at Berkeley. Our Impact Our Fellowship Program has sent more than 300 students into the field to conduct research and hands-on work in some 75 countries, with more than 250 organizations. Students publish books, produce documentaries, and win prestigious awards for their projects. Our Human Rights Investigations Lab—the first of its kind—trains more than 100 students each year in cutting-edge methods for finding and corroborating online photos, videos, and social media posts that expose human rights abuses and potential war crimes. Our human rights courses teach hundreds of students each year how to design research questions, interview subjects, and record and analyze data. Our Need Due to the popularity of our classes and programs, students are literally sitting on desks, wedged into corners, or spilling out into the hallways at our current location in Simon Hall. In order to house our growing staff and students, the University has given us a historic building — the campus’s first “Human Rights House.” Built in 1909 and located across from Memorial Stadium, the house is beautiful and spacious but needs work! It needs fresh paint, new floors, tech upgrades, and furniture. At a time when human rights are under siege worldwide, please help us make this house a home for human rights at Berkeley. How You Can Help With your support we hope to raise $30,000 to move in by April 2018. A gift of $32 will buy a bucket of paint; $55 will buy a square foot of new flooring; $105 will buy a chair for the lab; $250 will buy a bookshelf; and $1,200 will buy a computer! Please consider making a gift today and sharing our project with friends and family! Gifts of any size will make a tremendous impact. Learn More Website: https://www.law.berkeley.edu/research/human-rights-center Medium: https://medium.com/humanrightscenter Twitter: https://twitter.com/hrcberkeley Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hrcberkeley Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hrcberkeley Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/383166 Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcWEzj2ARNJjkzl3tJZMwrg Mailing List: http://bit.ly/HRCMailingList
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Road to Rio
By UC Berkeley
Cal builds Olympians. Support the programs that produce some of the world's finest scholar-athletes.
Cal builds Olympians. Support the programs that produce some of the world's finest scholar-athletes. This project has ended, but you can still support amazing Berkeley initiatives by visiting give.berkeley.edu. Your continued support of our students, faculty and staff will ensure that Berkeley remains the #1 public university. Go Bears! Cal builds Olympians. Celebrate our University's past and future Olympians by giving to Cal's Road to Rio '16 Campaign. The Road to Rio crowdfund evenly supports the operational budgets of all our Olympic sports. A gift to the Road to Rio campaign will ensure that our intercollegiate athletic programs continue to provide the conditions for success that shape the world’s finest athletes. Investing in Cal means investing in individuals who embrace the challenge and responsibility of competing and excelling at the highest level. Your support will help continue Cal’s sterling Olympic legacy - in Rio de Janeiro and for years to come. Your gift to Road to Rio will enter a specially-designated fund. The total amount raised will be evenly distributed among our Olympic sports' annual funds at the conclusion of the campaign. Please make a gift today! Cal Athletics supports 30 Division I intercollegiate sports and over 850 student-athletes. In its history, Cal has claimed 89 team national titles and 283 individual championships. Cal has had at least one national champion every year since the 1973-74 season, a remarkable run of 42 consecutive years with a title. Cal's all-time Olympic medal count stands at 105 Gold, 47 Silver, and 33 Bronze. At the 2012 London Summer Games, Golden Bear athletes won 15 golds and 23 medals overall. If Cal was its own country, it would have finished fifth in gold medals (ahead of Germany, France, and Australia) and eleventh overall. To learn more about Cal Athletics and the Road to Rio campaign, visit CalBears.com or call the Cal Athletics Development office at (510) 642-2427. Go Bears!
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Berkeley Hyperloop - Building the Future of Transportation
By Berkeley Hyperloop
Berkeley Hyperloop is revolutionizing high-speed transportation, and hopes to take you from San Francisco to Los Angeles in 30 minutes!!
Berkeley Hyperloop is revolutionizing high-speed transportation, and hopes to take you from San Francisco to Los Angeles in 30 minutes!! Berkeley Hyperloop We are Berkeley Hyperloop (bLoop), a team of UC Berkeley engineering students selected by SpaceX to compete in the Hyperloop Pod Competition this Summer 2018. We hope to revolutionize transportation, develop cutting-edge technologies, and inspire Berkeley students to take on innovative challenges. Please join us in our efforts to raise $10,000, which will be used to build our levitating Hyperloop Pod! Imagine a world where you could go from San Francisco to Los Angeles in 30 minutes. That is the innovative vision behind Elon Musk's original Hyperloop transportation concept, and is also the inspiration behind the work of the Berkeley Hyperloop team as we seek to contribute to new transit technology by designing and building our pod. Both the highest possible velocity and passenger safety will be central to bLoop’s model of the Hyperloop pod, which will be tested at SpaceX’s mile-long test track in Hawthorne, CA. We will be competing against engineering teams from top universities, as well as independent teams, to collaboratively create an indelible impact on the future of transportation systems. Funding is essential to taking our renders off the drawing board and making them a reality. We aim to have our pod fully machined and assembled so as to fully prepare ourselves for the competition. Berkeley Hyperloop's high-profile project is not only transformational for the transportation industry, but also an opportunity to further showcase the spirit of entrepreneurship and scientific creativity here at UC Berkeley. Our project will draw the attention of the media and high-profile industry giants, and we want UC Berkeley to be at the forefront of an engineering competition as unprecedented and unique as this. Our Story In the summer of 2015, in a modest underground library, five UC Berkeley students passionate about technology decided to compete the SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition. Six months later, at the end of Texas A&M Design Weekend, they were one of the only twenty-two teams on their way to revolutionizing the face of global transportation. What started as a humble initiative gradually grew into a robust team of engineers, designers, and logisticians all driven by a single radical idea. Berkeley Hyperloop’s approach to designing the Hyperloop pod is a unique one – while Hyperloop is inherently an eco-conscious, affordable and unprecedented challenge to conventional transport, bLoop believes that safety comes above all with an idea as sweeping as Hyperloop. Hence, in Summer 2018, passenger safety will be central to bLoop’s model of the Hyperloop pod. Apart from external pride, bLoop is also about celebrating the culture of problem-solving and innovation that has been part of Berkeley's fundamental values since its inception. Our engineers and designers are directly applying the skills they learn in their classes to real-life problems while working on the pod, while our logisticians and marketers work their way around daily problems that arise in large corporations and technology firms. Our mission is to simultaneously establish UC Berkeley as the premier institution for innovation, creativity, and engineering efficiency, and sustain the distinct culture of scholarship at UC Berkeley. Corporate Sponsors Berkeley Hyperloop is sponsored by the UC Berkeley College of Engineering. (Letter of Support: https://goo.gl/AQQTN2) We have faculty sponsorship from Professor Tony Keaveny, Professor David Rich, and Professor Dennis Lieu. We also have corporate sponsorships from Autodesk, GM, Ford, Northrop Grumman, Modus Advanced, National Instruments, ANSYS, and Samsung. Using the software of our generous sponsor Autodesk, we've designed our pod structure from the ground up in Autodesk Fusion 360. In the same interface, we've analyzed stresses via FEA and been able to ensure that our pod is safe and has backup systems in the event of any failures. The support of Autodesk and our other industry partners have given us the tools to develop our ideas, and now it's up to all of us to get it built and launched! Perks and Backer Rewards IN THE NEWS Berkeley Hyperloop's first pod design was featured in Berkeley Engineer Magazine Spring 2017 ("Smart moves: California's next-gen infrastructure") and Spring 2016 ("Learning to levitate") (see photo below). UC Berkeley's Jacobs Institute for Design Innovation featured us on Medium: "Spotlight on: Berkeley Hyperloop" Our sponsor Autodesk featured us on their Redshift website: "SpaceX’s Hyperloop Pod Competitions Prove Student Engineers Have the Right Stuff" Our sponsor ANSYS featured our team on their blog: "Engineering a Hyperloop Pod with ANSYS" Our sponsor National Instruments featured us on their blog: "Inside Berkeley Hyperloop" Another early pod design was featured in the Cal Alumni Association's California Magazine Summer 2016 ("Whooshing into the Future: Aiming to Make Speed-of-Sound Commutes a Reality"). Berkeley Hyperloop was also featured on the UC Berkeley Mechanical Engineering Department's website when the team first won its spot to compete at SpaceX. We were also featured on the official University of California website last year: "Fantasy to reality: UC students designing futuristic Hyperloop" For more information about our pod, you can find our renders, blog updates, and technical information here: http://www.berkeley-hyperloop.com/ Explore the SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition here: http://www.spacex.com/hyperloop
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Send SETI Students to Present Their Research
By Steve Croft and Andrew Siemion
NEW STRETCH GOAL: $14,000 - Help SETI fund student travel to send our interns to scientific conferences.
NEW STRETCH GOAL: $14,000 - Help SETI fund student travel to send our interns to scientific conferences. Steve Croft and Andrew Siemion NEW STRETCH GOAL: $14,000 - you can help fund five more students to present their work! Are We Alone? UC Berkeley is a world leader in SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Berkeley SETI Research Center (BSRC), based in the UC Berkeley Astronomy Department, is the home of humanity's biggest search for cosmic company. We're the folks behind SETI@home, one of the largest distributed computing projects, processing data from Earth's biggest radio telescopes in search of signals from intelligent civilizations around other stars. BSRC also has a team of scientists and engineers working on the Breakthrough Listen initiative, a major expansion of our search capabilities in terms of time on the sky, the capabilities of our instruments, and the analysis techniques we're developing. We're trying to answer the question, "Are we alone in the Universe?" and we believe that our research offers the best chance we have at the present time to answer this question. Thanks to the generosity of donors, including participants in last year's crowdfunding campaign, we have been able to support some incredible interns working with our scientists and engineers. The seven students who worked with us this summer included students both from UC Berkeley and from universities as far away as the East Coast, a local community college student, and even a high schooler. We were blown away by their enthusiasm, their abilities, and their potential as future leaders in the field of SETI research. We provide our students with intensive training in SETI, radio astronomy, modern programming techniques, data analytics and visualization, machine learning, communication skills, and much more. Our students love working with us, and their enthusiasm for the project is infectious. This summer they presented their work to a number of visitors (including internationally-renowned scientists) to our lab, and in a scientific poster session to the students, researchers, and faculty of the Astronomy Department. It's amazing for students to realize that they have become experts in their areas of research, and to see genuine interest in their projects from senior people in the field. And it's a huge boost for their careers when they get the chance to network with people who may be their graduate advisors or employers in future. Our summer interns had such a great experience that they all applied to continue working with us during the academic year, and we're delighted to have the opportunity to continue to have them as part of our team. " For me, the best thing about the internship was the opportunity to meet so many new people. It wasn't just meeting people like the leaders in the SETI field, but working with such a diverse group of interns. I learned an incredible amount." -2017 Intern Our interns are writing software to search for signals of interest in our data, planning and carrying out observations on the world's largest telescopes, getting hands-on with digital hardware, building visualization software for other researchers and the public to explore our data and our observations, identifying sources of interference in our data, tracking satellites that impact our observations, and delving into modern data analytics techniques like machine learning, among many other cutting-edge projects. The interns are also all proud to be involved in the attempt to answer humanity's most profound question. "This has been like the most fun thing ever. Berkeley SETI is a privilege to work at. I think that the fact that you can do data analysis on huge datasets with the implications of finding aliens is the probably the coolest thing I'll ever do. I'd recommend it to anyone." -2016 Intern Our Goals Although the interns have had the opportunity to meet some inspirational leaders in SETI research during their time with us, we want to give them the chance to get wider exposure. Scientific conferences such as those of the American Astronomical Society (the nation's premier professional astronomy meeting, attracting thousands of scientists from across the country - and indeed the globe - to share their research), the National Radio Science Meeting, and topical meetings including SETI-specific conferences, machine learning meetings, and so on, provide the opportunity for students to network with potential employers, gain recognition for their work, and to soak up the excitement of the breadth and depth of research that's taking place in academia and industry today. Berkeley SETI Research Center Director Dr. Andrew Siemion credits the opportunity to attend conferences as an undergraduate as one of the formative experiences in encouraging him to pursue a career in SETI research. With your help, we can give the young people working with us the same chance to expand their horizons and to share their love of (and progress in) SETI science. We're hoping to raise $7,000, which would enable us to send 5 students to present their work as a research poster at a meeting like the American Astronomical Society meeting in Washington, DC in January. We're estimating $600 for airfare, $200 for meeting registration, and $600 for room (shared) and board, per student. We'd love to raise more than this, though, which would enable us to offer all of the students who worked with us this summer to attend a conference, as well as potentially putting money aside for students working with us next summer to have the opportunity to present their work in such a setting too. Our best chance at SETI success is attracting the best people into the field. You can help the leaders of tomorrow on the path to a bright future! Perks Do you want to have your deepest questions about SETI answered? Would you like to attend our December holiday party and meet the BSRC team? Or get a shout-out in our popular YouTube videos or on our social media channels? We're pleased to be able to share these awesome perks with our donors, but most of all we are extremely grateful to our donors for supporting our student interns and enabling them to share their research with the world! $30 Facebook Shout Out [unlimited] We'll give you a personal shout-out and thanks on the Berkeley SETI Facebook page. $75 Thank You Card [unlimited] We'll send you a thank-you card signed by our undergraduate interns. $175 Ask a Question (Written) [unlimited] Send us a question about SETI and get a personal response via email by a member of our team. $250 Party with the BSRC Team [50 available] You and a guest will receive an invitation to our holiday party, to be held on the evening of December 8, 2017, in the Breakthrough Listen Lab on the UC Berkeley campus. $500 Ask a Question (Video) [10 available] Our team members will answer your question about SETI in a video that we'll post to YouTube. $800 Sponsor a Video [5 available] We'll thank you as a supporter in the credits of one of our YouTube profile videos, and you'll get a shoutout from the scientist we interview. $1400 Sponsor a Student [5 available] Your generous donation will enable us to fully fund one student to attend a scientific meeting to present their research. You'll be thanked in the acknowledgements of the student's research poster, and we'll also be glad to send a signed copy of the poster to you on request.
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Cal Men's Lacrosse Team
By Cal Men's Lacrosse Team
Support Cal Men’s Lacrosse through this crowdfunding campaign!
Support Cal Men’s Lacrosse through this crowdfunding campaign! Cal Men's Lacrosse Team Hi, I’m Kitt Stoddard, current president of Cal Men’s Lacrosse. Last year, we went 17-1 and appeared in the national championships. We’re really excited about our team this year and are looking to make another deep run in the MCLA national tournament this spring. As you may know, our team is student-run, as it has been since its inception in 1964. Unfortunately, the funding we receive from the school constitutes less than 1% of our operating budget. As players, we pay annual dues, but we depend largely on donations. We have been so blessed to have such an amazing and generous network of people supporting us every year, but we need your help. In fact, half of our income comes from donations from alumni, family, and friends! They are vital to our existence and vital to our success. Can you make a gift today to help us remain competitive? Your donation will help the club pay for coaches, game fees, and essential player equipment like jerseys and gear. Please make a gift today. I want to thank the families and alumni who have given so much to the program. Your support allows us to play our home games in Memorial Stadium, travel to Northern and Southern California, and for the last four years, play in the National tournament. Thank you for making that possible! Go Bears! Follow us! Facebook - California Men’s Lacrosse Twitter - @CalBearsLax Instagram - @calmenslax
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Cal Gymnastics Club
By Jasmine Casey
Donate to the Cal Gymnastics Club and help send our team to nationals where we can represent UC Berkeley in the biggest competition of the year.
Donate to the Cal Gymnastics Club and help send our team to nationals where we can represent UC Berkeley in the biggest competition of the year. Who Are We? Cal Gymnastics Club is an organization run by volunteers passionate about gymnastics and making it accessible to everyone. Our mission is to offer gymnastics training for both recreational and competitive gymnasts. We are committed to being inclusive, as our team is composed of UC Berkeley students, staff, alumni, and community members and our experience levels range from beginners to formerly competitive gymnasts. Our Goal We are a competition-focused team that travels to meets all over the country. Our goal is to raise money to cover some of the expenses of traveling to competitions. Gymnastics is a very expensive sport, and as a club, we try to absorb some of the individual costs so we don’t put too much financial burden on our members. We raise most of our money by hosting fundraisers run by our members. Fundraising is essential to our mission because we want meets to be available to all of our members and we don’t want people to be excluded by the cost. This year, 25 members of our team will be traveling to Daytona Beach, Florida to compete in the National competition sponsored by the National Association of Intercollegiate Gymnastics Clubs (NAIGC). Nationals is the biggest college club gymnastics meet in the country and the highlight of our competitive season. We train hard all year long, including summers, to prepare for this very important event. Budget Breakdown Please help support the Cal Gymnastics Club and your donations will help send our team to nationals where we can represent UC Berkeley in the biggest competition of the year. Many of us attending NAIGC Nationals have never competed before, and it’s amazing to give so many people this opportunity. Last year at Nationals in Fort Worth, Texas, our men’s team won the Open Division Team Finals. We also participated in breaking two Guinness World Records for most simultaneous somersaults and most simultaneous handstands. Attending this competition is something very special to us, and our most important team activity by far. Thank you to all our donors for your support! We couldn’t do it without you and your gifts. Contact Us/Social Media Website: www.calgymnasticsclub.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CalGymnasticsClub/ Instagram: cal_gymnastics_club
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VIROLOGY BLOG'S TRIAL BY ERROR: Reporting on ME/CFS
By David Tuller
An investigation into the research behind the CBT/GET paradigm for treatment of the illness variously referred to as ME, CFS, ME/CFS and CFS/ME.
An investigation into the research behind the CBT/GET paradigm for treatment of the illness variously referred to as ME, CFS, ME/CFS and CFS/ME. David Tuller So it’s been almost a year since my last crowdfunding campaign for my ME/CFS and PACE-busting reporting project. At that time, I hadn’t necessarily planned to extend it beyond my one-year commitment. There have been significant positive developments in the last twelve months, and those seem likely to continue. However, it has become clear to me that at this point it is critical to maintain the momentum, so I have no intention of pulling the plug on my efforts. That’s why I am once again coming to you for support. I would really prefer not to have to do this. As many of you know, I worked on this project for more than two years as a self-funded public service. During that phase, I took four trips to Europe (three to the U.K. and one to the Netherlands). I only turned to crowdfunding last spring when funding for my previous position at Berkeley dried up because of the University of California's distressed financial state. My target this year is $75,000. That's a lot of money, so let me be clear: I will continue this project for another year whether or not I make that goal. The amount needed to cover my half-time salary and benefits at Berkeley is about $72,000, which is what I raised during last year's crowdfunding effort. (Last year, I underestimated the costs in setting my initial goal.) Of that $72,000, $47,000 is for salary and $25,000 for benefits, which in the U.S. is mainly the cost of health insurance. The remaining $3000 would go toward travel costs. This time, I am working with Berkeley’s own crowdfunding platform, which is made available a couple of times a year for campus projects. That means the funds will go directly to my home base at the university's School of Public Health, the Center for Global Public Health. If I overshoot my goal—and I hope I do, as I did last year—the additional funds will be used to increase my compensated time beyond 50% and/or to cover more travel costs. I would be delighted to be able to spend more than half my time on this project. Let’s review what’s happened since last summer. In late June or early July, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control abandoned its support for the flawed treatments recommendations promoted by the CBT/GET ideological brigades. In the U.K., the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence reversed its initial decision to reaffirm its flawed 2007 guidelines and announced that it would conduct a full overhaul of the recommendations. This is a hopeful sign, although pressure on NICE must be sustained to ensure that the agency fulfills its obligations. Most recently, on March 19th, a Dutch panel tasked with reviewing treatment guidelines reported in March that "the committee sees no reason" for GET to be recommended in the Netherlands. Pressure must be maintained there as well to make sure the government actually adopts the committee's recommendations. In other news, Carol Monaghan, a member of Parliament from Scotland, held a half-hour debate on PACE in which she called the trial "one of the biggest medical scandals of the 21st century." This debate and MP Monaghan's unequivocal statement both represent significant milestones; it is hard to imagine that happening two or three years ago. And Professor Esther Crawley of the University of Bristol has stepped down from her role as a member of executive board of the CFS/ME Research Collaborative—a very welcome development. But there is much more work to be done to ensure that the CBT/GET paradigm meets the oblivion it deserves. PACE has been effectively debunked, but its influence continues. Patients in the U.S., U.K. and elsewhere continue to find doctors who understand the illness and know how to help patients manage it. In the past year, I have also contributed to the peer-reviewed literature. I wrote a commentary for the groundbreaking issue of Journal of Health Psychology devoted to "PACE-gate." And I am beyond thrilled to be a co-author on the reanalysis of the PACE results that BMC Psychology published on March 22nd. That reanalysis documents once more that the reported PACE findings arose from rampant post-hoc changes to the methods outlined in their own protocol. The article triggered this fantastic headline in The Times: "Findings of £5m ME chronic fatigue study ‘worthless.’" (Just to be clear: I am one of many, many people who have played major roles in all these efforts. I could not do what I am doing without the invaluable contributions, insights and support of amazing patients and advocates, not to mention the scientists who are conducting the kind of research that will hopefully result in finding causes and effective treatments. We are all working toward the same goal.) This year hasn't always been easy. As many of you know, my efforts to address Professor Crawley's unethical methodological choices in high-profile and influential studies led her to make the false and unsupported claim that I was engaged in writing "libelous blogs"--a charge she highlighted during her inaugural lecture at the University of Bristol. Because of my work, Bristol took the extraordinary step last year of complaining to Berkeley in an effort to shut me up. That hasn't worked. I'm still here--and with your help I plan to continue what I set out to do. I haven’t accomplished everything I wanted to since last summer. I have yet to post at length about the deficiencies of the Cochrane reviews of CBT and GET. I have not yet written about the 1950s Royal Free Hospital outbreak in London, although I have interviewed two patients from that seminal event. I haven’t focused on the problems people in many countries confront in accessing disability and social welfare benefits because of their illness. I haven't spent much time examining some of the legitimate research taking place in the U.S., the U.K., Australia and elsewhere. I hope to start addressing all these issues later this spring and during my next year of reporting. I also plan to take a look at the "medically unexplained symptoms" (MUS) model that is taking hold in the psychiatric literature. Key members of the CBT/GET ideological brigades are among those pushing hardest for the adoption of this misguided and unscientific approach. The underlying assumption appears to be that fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome, and a host of other illnesses, including ME, can be grouped together as variations of what are called “functional” or “somatic” disorders—which means, essentially, that they are regarded as psychiatric issues, not organic diseases. The standard treatments? Rehabilitative therapies like CBT and GET. Another goal is to increase my efforts to write articles for other publications, whether mainstream outlets or those focused on health and science. I haven't pursued that strategy aggressively until now because of the difficulty of convincing editors of the seriousness of the disease and the importance of accurate and thorough reporting. But press coverage has improved significantly in the last year in both the U.K. and the U.S., suggesting that editors are generally more receptive to the issue. I plan to take advantage of that shift in attitudes so that more people outside the field learn about the anti-scientific "research" and the harmful treatments that have been inflicted on patients. I plan to travel again for the project over the next year. I spent a month in the U.K. late last year. I arrived in mid-March in Australia, where I will be until late April. In the next round, I again plan to spend time in Europe--certainly to the U.K. but hopefully also to countries where the CBT/GET paradigm remains strong, such as Germany. I would also like to return to Australia and include New Zealand next time, if it seems my presence could be helpful. And Canada is definitely on my list of countries I need to visit. One final note: Crowdfunding on any platform is not free. Berkeley takes a 5% share as the university's standard fee for processing gifts, plus 2.5% as a crowdfunding fee. Therefore, adding 7.5% to your donation will help to maximize the effectiveness of this campaign. (Last year, Crowdrise took 7.5% as the crowdfunding fee, and Berkeley took its 5% gift fee, so the fees this year will be significantly reduced.) Thanks so much for your support. I really, really appreciate it. We are making progress and are reaching the tipping point in the debate. At this moment in time, it is critical to press on at full strength. For those who want to review my work, here are some links: Virology Blog's 15,000-word expose of PACE: http://www.virology.ws/2015/10/21/trial-by-error-i/ All Virology Blog posts on ME/CFS: http://www.virology.ws/mecfs/ University of Bristol's complaint to Berkeley: http://www.virology.ws/2017/12/23/trial-by-error-bristols-complaint-to-berkeley/ My six-month crowdfunding review: http://www.virology.ws/2018/01/15/trial-by-error-my-six-month-review/ My New York Times opinion piece (with Julie Rehmeyer): https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/18/opinion/sunday/getting-it-wrong-on-chronic-fatigue-syndrome.html
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Cal Ballroom Spring 2018
By Cal Ballroom
Please help make ballroom more accessible by donating to the West Coast's largest collegiate ballroom team!
Please help make ballroom more accessible by donating to the West Coast's largest collegiate ballroom team! Cal Ballroom Cal Ballroom has been a pillar of the UC Berkeley dance community for years. We are UC Berkeley’s only competitive International Ballroom Dance Team, and we are proud to be the largest team on the West Coast. We offer Cal students high quality dance instruction through our professional coaches. Our members attend competitions throughout the state and nation, and have placed and won on national stages. Giving students the opportunity to compete at this level takes an enormous amount of resources, and our students aren't able to provide them on their own. Because we are one of the few student dance groups to offer professional coaching, our dues and lessons must cover our coaches' salaries, which can be a strain on college students. Please make a gift today to support Cal Ballroom! Our expenses are ongoing, but we hope to raise money in the spring to provide scholarship funds and subsidies for team members next year. This will make lessons with coaches more accessible, and allow members to travel more for competitions. We are putting on this campaign because we want to be allow as many people as possible to dance. Ballroom can be an expensive sport, but we try to make it accessible for our fellow students and our community. Donors would be able to become a part of this community. We are a large and incredibly close-knit group, so the gratitude of even one student helped is multiplied throughout the team. Our team loves dancing more than anything, so please help us continue to dance by making a gift! Thank you for your support! If you are interested in learning more about Cal Ballroom, please visit our team’s webpage at ballroom.berkeley.edu. You can also visit us on Facebook (@calballroom) and message us with any questions you may have. Please consider giving us a like while you’re there! Thank you!
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Cal Super Mileage Vehicle Team
By Kanak Kapoor
CalSMV races in the Shell Eco Marathon to spread awareness of alternative fuels and to foster the ingenuity of tomorrow’s engineers.
CalSMV races in the Shell Eco Marathon to spread awareness of alternative fuels and to foster the ingenuity of tomorrow’s engineers. Cal Super Mileage Vehicle races in the Shell Eco Marathon, which includes competitions across four continents to spread awareness of alternative fuels and to foster the ingenuity of tomorrow’s engineers. Since the beginning of CalSMV in 1991, we have focused our ambitions towards small, single-passenger prototype vehicles designed to prioritize fuel efficiency before all else. As the world and technology have changed, so has our Team. The revitalization of Super Mileage in 2013 brought along not just a new team of ambitious members from multitudes of practices, but a new ambition and new drive. For the future, we are pursuing a hyper-efficient vehicle driven by a pure battery-electric drivetrain on a carbon fiber unibody that will be capable of transporting two: you and a guest. Make a gift to support CalSMV today! Your contributions will help us reach our primary goal of $3000 for the materials, especially the battery and motor. And please don’t forget to share our page with your friends and network! CalSMV is thankful for the advice, support, and resources provided by our amazing donors. It is with your help that we can faithfully, and with intense focus, pursue our ambitions. We hope you’ll take advantage of the many opportunities to interact with our Team. We welcome you to visit our workshop in Richmond, California, where you can see firsthand the impact of your donations. Your support enables us to build and test our next generation of vehicles. Thank you from all of us at CalSMV! Feel free to contact us at calsmv@gmail.com. Learn more about us at smv.berkeley.edu and feel free to like our Facebook page.
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Student-Athlete Professional Field Trip Program
By Bobby Thompson
The Professional Field Trip Program will create opportunities for Student-Athletes to learn about career opportunities and grow professionally.
The Professional Field Trip Program will create opportunities for Student-Athletes to learn about career opportunities and grow professionally. "I am very grateful to have had this opportunity and hope to participate in a couple more (field trips) before I graduate. This experience and knowledge learned will help me better prepare myself for my career." - Kyle Coan - Cal Swimming and Diving Cal Student-Athlete Development is committed to enriching our student-athletes’ holistic growth by providing educational resources, focusing on what we have deemed as “The Three Cs:” Career Preparation, Character Development, and Community Engagement. Starting this year, Cal Student-Athlete Development will take advantage of UC Berkeley’s prime geographic location by rolling out a new Professional Field Trip Series. This program will create opportunities for student-athletes to visit local businesses, tour their facilities, learn about career opportunities and build relationships with executives and staff. Please make your gift today to help support our student-athletes professional development. Anonymous donors generously offered to match each donation to the Cal Student-Athlete Development program 1-to-1. For every $100 you give, they will give an additional $100. $10,000 today translates into an additional $10,000 for tomorrow's change. Your contributions will directly benefit Cal student-athletes by: Funding more field trip opportunities Making this program available to more student-athletes Providing charter mini buses for transportation Ensuring student-athletes receive a light meal on their trip By supporting this campaign, you will be contributing to the Cal Student-Athlete Development Fund. To learn more about Cal Athletics and Student-Athlete Development, visit CalBears.com or call the Cal Athletics Development office at (510) 642–2427. Thank you and Go Bears!
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UC Berkeley Pie Queens | Spring 2018 Fundraiser
By UC Berkeley
NEW STRETCH GOAL OF $4,500!!
The UCB Pie Queens is a women's ultimate frisbee program, focused on growth, empowering women, and making lifelong friendships.
NEW STRETCH GOAL OF $4,500!! The UCB Pie Queens is a women's ultimate frisbee program, focused on growth, empowering women, and making lifelong friendships. THANK YOU all so so so much for helping us reach our goal! For the last leg of our crowdfunding campaign, we are having a NEW STRETCH GOAL OF $4,500!! A long, long time ago, the UC Berkeley women's ultimate team decided to stop at Lois the Pie Queen in Oakland, CA for some food after a fantastic weekend of ultimate. They had never been to this slice of heaven before, so they were excited to find that Lois served some good ol' soul food. It just so happened that one particular item stood out above the rest... THE PIES! There was apple, sweet potato, lemon ice box, berry, cherry, pecan...the list goes on! These pies were the best. things. ever. and so, our team decided to name ourselves after Lois the Pie Queen and have been loyal customers ever since! The Pie Queens have strong roots and have been around since 1988. The Pie Queens program is focused on continual growth and currently has around 50 members! In the Fall, everyone is a Pie Queen! We play together, compete in tournaments, and have plenty of fun. In the spring, we split into an A and a B team: Queens and Tarts. The Queens are nationally competitive, and attend spring tournaments in San Diego, Santa Barbara, Palo Alto, and Seattle. In the 2017 season, the Queens had a 9th place finish at Nationals in Mason, OH. The Queens hope to return to Nationals in Milwaukee, WI this May! The Tarts are regionally competitive, and attend tournaments in LA, Santa Barbara, Santa Clara, and Irvine. Both teams practice 3 times per week at Witter Rugby Field and Maxwell Family Field. Although the teams practice and play separately in the spring, we still get to spend a lot of time together and both teams have dedicated coaches, strong veteran leadership, and TONS. OF. FUN. Players come and go, but once a Pie Queen, always a Pie Queen (#PQ4Lyfe) and every year we reunite at our alumni tournament where rookies and "retired" vets can meet and play together. This program has given Cal women an opportunity to try a new sport, be a part of a great community, and make life long friends. In order to continue the growth and longevity of the program, however, we need to fundraise so that the financial burden of being a member of the program does not deter any individuals from joining. We would use the donations to purchase new equipment, and help make the program more accessible/affordable by offsetting the cost of team dues. We would love to host more clinics to share the sport with younger kids, especially girls. We have teamed up previously with BAWSI (Bay Area Women’s Sports Incentive) to volunteer as coaches in sports events for the girls, but often we had low numbers because of transportation costs. Your donation will not only allow us to keep our program running and accessible but also maintain the quality of our program by having proper equipment as well as amazing and dedicated coaches that volunteer their time for us at practices and tournaments. Please help us reach our goal of $4,000! Thank you for helping us make our program happen! Meet the teams!! Our A Team, The Queens! What is your favorite type of pie? Our B Team, The Tarts!
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Man Made Wetland | Lake Temescal
By T.G. Roberts
NEW STRETCH GOAL $4,000!! Lake Temescal is plagued by algal blooms, help us to end them and improve the health of the lake!
NEW STRETCH GOAL $4,000!! Lake Temescal is plagued by algal blooms, help us to end them and improve the health of the lake! A huge THANK YOU to all of our donors for helping us reach our initial $3,300 goal in only 6 days! We are so grateful for your outpouring of support and generosity in donating to our project! We have created a new stretch goal of $4,000, which will allow us to buy more plants for the wetland and keep up with unforeseen costs that may come up during construction. Please continue to show your support by sharing or donating today! UC Berkeley teaches us that we have the power to change anything for the better as long as we work hard enough, which is good, because we have a huge goal. According to the state water board, algae was detected in 49 California lakes/waterways in 2017 alone. Normal algae blooms can be harmful, growing in thick mats on top of the water and depriving fish and plants of oxygen that they need to survive. If the algae gets bad enough, it in turn has been known to create dead-zones in lakes. Additionally, to make matters worse, lakes naturally contain cyanobacteria (also known as blue-green algae) which can become toxic and begin emitting a neurotoxin that is harmful to humans and is known to be fatal to dogs. For Lake Temescal, the algae is especially detrimental as it is a huge community center, where many families come each year to hike, swim, bike, picnic, fish, and enjoy being in nature. However, because of the cyanobacteria, Lake Temescal is closed multiple times a year, which takes away from this natural community center. Being Berkeley students, we wanted to change things for the better. Our goal is to build a Man-Made Wetland that will remove the excess nutrients in the water in two ways: from the plants that will grow on the wetland, and by a bacteria colony on the plant roots, called a "biofilm." These types of wetlands can also act as a great refuge for fish in the lake, helping bring back fish populations that the algae might have depleted. Our team consists of 10 students of all different years and majors, who are all concerned about the human impact on the environment and what we can do to remediate it. We are all part of the club on the Berkeley campus called Engineers for a Sustainable World, and you can learn more about all of the projects we are doing, here. The wetland we will launch into the lake will be made of all natural products, such as a base of coconut coir fiber and cork, held together by bamboo and vegetable fiber string. This means that our wetland will be 100% biodegradable, and remain held together by the plant mass/roots that will also be cleansing the water. This makes our island slightly different (and we argue, better) than the many that are already successfully cleansing lakes all over the country! Many other wetlands use plastic and treated wood in their wetlands, which can be a source of even more pollution. We have been working with the East Bay Regional Park District, and with their help we hope to begin building by the end of this semester, and be finished and ready to launch this wetland by the end of the summer! We want to start removing nutrients as fast as possible! We have a vision, but now we need your help to make it a reality. Please donate and share our project! *As a slight clarification to the video: The three dogs that died were actually killed over 2014-2015 and not in the past year. Furthermore, Lake Temescal does not have dead-zones, however, other lakes have been affected by these and our goal is to make sure that the algae on Temescal never gets bad enough to create one*
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Senior Class Council: Crowdfunding for Class of '22
By UC Berkeley
The Senior Class Council is organizing community events to build class unity and pride.
The Senior Class Council is organizing community events to build class unity and pride. We're raising funds for Senior Class Council! tl;dr - We plan events and graduation for the senior class (Cal '22), and we need your help! Let's make senior year amazing! With the full brunt of COVID-19, the class of 2022’s years at Cal have taught us the true resilience of a Golden Bear. The Senior Class Council--a part of The Californians--is dedicated to creating engaging, meaningful senior year experiences that will make every impending graduate a proud Cal Bear for life. It is our mission to build class unity, school pride, and ultimately incite passion for current seniors to remain active and engaged alumni after their undergraduate years have come to an end. These last few semesters have not gone according to plan. Thankfully, we have an in-person graduation planned (for now). We plan to host events for the Senior class, to make our last year more memorable. Last semester, we hosted the Senior Big Game pre-game at Kip's, and funded tickets for a ton of seniors to come in, raise a glass, and raise some school spirit. MORE EVENTS TO COME! We also choose commencement speaker for graduation! But we need YOUR help! Your financial contribution allows us to host both social and educational events that help prepare hard-working graduates enter the post-grad world and create fond memories of their Cal experience. Help us give our Seniors a semester to remember! Budget breakdown: $1,500 - Planning Senior events (painting the Big C, more bar crawls, etc.) $500 - Designing and purchasing Senior class merchandise
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Fund the Future of Nuclear Security Policy!
By Nuclear Policy Working Group
Want to fund the next generation of policy-makers? Want to help students develop innovative research? Donate to the Nuclear Policy Working Group today!
Want to fund the next generation of policy-makers? Want to help students develop innovative research? Donate to the Nuclear Policy Working Group today! Nuclear Policy Working Group Why Donate? “North Korea: Kim Jong Un watches ‘H-Bomb’ loaded on new missile” “Iran is Sticking to the Nuclear Deal, IAEA Says” “Donald Trump: ‘All options are on the table’” What do these headlines have in common? One, they’re all from the past couple of months. And, two, they all show just how important nuclear security policy is. Members of the NPWG meet to discuss nuclear security policy and eat food. While policy-makers continue to go back and forth making very little real progress, a fresh outlook can literally mean the difference between life and nuclear war. That’s why the work we’re doing at the Nuclear Policy Working Group (NPWG) is incredibly important. At the NPWG, we foster the next generation of policy-makers and invite students to research, discuss, and innovate. We bring in speakers to educate students, develop students’ research and presentation skills, and create real policy solutions that are then pitched to official agencies. I joined the NPWG last year and have already gotten amazing professional opportunities that have opened doors to a career where I can actually make a difference in nuclear policy. Last year, I presented at a Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration conference and lead a research team of incredibly bright people from across all majors. Before joining the NPWG, I would never have been able to dream as big, because it’s difficult to succeed in a field where what’s most important is who-knows-who. But at the NPWG, it’s different – it’s about who-knows-what. If a student is willing to put in the time to learn and to work, there will always be an opportunity for them. NPWG at a Department of Energy NNSA Conference in May 2017 (that's me!) Because of my awesome experiences, I decided to run this crowdfunding campaign and I want other students to have the opportunities I’ve had through this incredibly supportive group. I’m hoping that with your funding, we will be able to support more students, bring in more speakers, and fund meeting costs. We’ll be able to continue our innovative research and have actual results that impact policy-making in the future. By funding our group, you'll be: 1. Sending students to conferences on nuclear security policy around the country 2. Helping students explore learning opportunities related to our supported research project 3. Allowing us to bring in speakers that can serve as life-long mentors and connections for our students We’d appreciate any amount of donation, no matter how little or large. When a group of students get together to discuss ideas that shape the future of our world, the possibilities are endless. We hope to have your support. Thank you! Janani Mohan, Assistant Deputy Director, NPWG Who We Are We’re a multidisciplinary research team of undergraduate students, graduate students, postdocs, and faculty members. One of the best aspects of our group is that we allow everyone to take advantage of our research opportunities no matter how much or how little prior experience they have. We currently have a total of 17 members, but we’re hoping to grow our club with your support! Budget and Timeline Following the completion of the crowdfunding campaign, we’re planning on using your money in the following way. I can’t stress how important your funding is to our group. Typically, we tend to rely on the generosity of people who donate their time to speaking to our members and running our meetings, but with your support, we can not only give back to them, but also bring in new speakers, members, and more researching capabilities than ever before. We will implement our plan immediately after the crowdfunding campaign is over and we will finish implementing our plan by the end of the Spring semester at Cal. Thank you very much for your time and support! Publicity and Recommendations We’ve been featured in the Daily Cal, scientific journals, and newspapers. Here are what some of our members have to say about us: “Academic training doesn’t fully develop students to solve real-world problems. The NPWG enhances the traditional academic model through hands-on exploration of nuclear security policy challenges in an evolving threat landscape.” – Prof. Bethany Goldblum, Founder and Director of NPWG “I think the Nuclear Policy Working Group is great, not only because it offers people from the policy and technical fields to engage in collaboration, but also because it really reminds us of the importance we all have to contributing to nuclear security!” – Anna Korbatov, Member And here’s an article about us: https://fas.org/pir-pubs/building-a-foundation-for-the-future-of-nuclear-security/ Contact If you have any questions, please visit us at http://npwg.berkeley.edu or email me at janani.mohan@berkeley.edu. Follow us @ucb_npwg or friend us on Facebook!
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Sponsor Your Spirit
By Spencer Bowen
Send Cal Spirit on the road this basketball postseason - Go Bears!
Send Cal Spirit on the road this basketball postseason - Go Bears! This project has ended, but you can still support amazing Berkeley initiatives by visiting give.berkeley.edu. Your continued support of our students, faculty and staff will ensure that Berkeley remains the #1 public university. Go Bears! Cal Athletics sponsors and supports five Spirit Groups: Cal Cheerleading, Dance Team, Mic Men, Rally Committee, and Oski. Cal Spirit upholds the traditions that define the Cal game day experience for fans young and old. As ambassadors for the University, Cal Spirit members help spread Cal pride across the nation. However, athletic department support is not sufficient to send Cal Spirit on the road this basketball season. Your support will ensure that Cal Spirit remains a constant presence at sporting events both in Berkeley and beyond. Cal Spirit needs your help for road trips to Seattle and Las Vegas for the Pacific 12 Conference Basketball tournaments. Both events are unique opportunities to share the Cal story with all of our fellow Pac-12 schools while supporting two teams with high expectations for the 2015-16 season. Thanks to donors like you, Cal Spirit will continue to best represent our student-athletes, coaches, and Cal Family on the biggest stage. If you are able, please give to Cal Spirit. Thank you for your support. Go Bears! CAL CHEERLEADING Cal Cheerleading is the newest addition to Cal Spirit. You can see the cheerleaders at all football, men’s and women’s basketball, volleyball and even a few gymnastics meets and baseball games. Their primary focus is to support each program and lead the crowd before and during the game. They work with the Mic Men to lead stadium-wide cheers and increase crowd participation through the use of stunting, signs and poms. They also participate in various rallies, alumni, and community events. CAL DANCE TEAM The Cal Dance Team performs to traditional Cal fight songs as well as Cal Band pop and rock songs. During football season, they perform both on the platform in front of the student section as well as on the field pregame and at halftime. During basketball season, the team dances on the sidelines and on the court during time-outs and performs professional-style halftime shows. CAL MIC MEN The Mic Men are yell leaders charged with entertaining the student section, supporting the team, influencing the game, and representing the University while emceeing events and rallies. Whether on the mic at football or yelling on the court at basketball and every sport in between, the Mic Men help ensure that Cal pride is always present. OSKI Since 1941, this lovable bear has been a mainstay at all Cal events, from new student Convocation to Big Game. The name "Oski" is derived from the "Oski Wow Wow" cheer, popular in the 1950s. Oski is known for his trademark walk and stylish sweater. RALLY COMMITTEE The oldest student group on campus, UC Rally Committee is a service organization tasked with upholding Cal spirit and tradition. Best known for executing card stunts, firing the Victory Cannon, and planning the Bonfire Rally, Rally Comm has been a constant presence on campus since 1901. Questions? Concerns? Contact Spencer Bowen at (510) 643-2953 or spencerbowen@berkeley.edu. Go Bears!
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Berkeley Formula Racing
By UC Berkeley
We are a student run team that designs, fabricates, and builds a racecar to take part in Formula SAE, an international collegiate design competition.
We are a student run team that designs, fabricates, and builds a racecar to take part in Formula SAE, an international collegiate design competition. Who We Are We're so happy you took the time to visit our page! We are Berkeley Formula Racing, a student-run organization that designs, builds, and races a single-seat car each year. Our goal is to give our members an opportunity to use what they learn in the classroom in a real-world application. We're thrilled to be able to inspire students and showcase our engineering knowledge. We rely heavily on the donations of people like you to be able to build our car. Since the team’s founding in 2001, we have expanded from a small team to one of the best in the nation. We're proud to have about 70 active members this year from a variety of majors and different backgrounds. Our team is made up of 9 subsystems: Aerodynamics, Brakes & Driver Interface, Business, Chassis, Drivetrain, Engine, Electrical, Suspension, and Vehicle Dynamics. We work to ensure that everyone is welcome on our team, regardless of experience or background. During the Fall semester we enter into the Design Phase in which each subsystem undergoes multiple design reviews with sponsors and alumni to ensure that they are working efficiently toward the goals they set at the beginning of the year. Once design is complete, we begin our Manufacturing Phase. During these two months, student machinists make over 300 unique parts for our vehicle and student welders weld our steel space frame chassis. The rest of our members assist by preparing and assembling steel tubes for chassis welding and fabricating foam molds and carbon fiber sheets for the aerodynamic devices.Once we assemble all these components, we move into the Testing Phase where we work to debug the car, validate our designs, and tune the car for optimal performance. At the end of Testing we will be to able to go to Competition fully prepared in May of next year! STEM education is important to our members because we strive to create opportunities for innovation and education outside of the classroom, which not only help to improve our car for competition but also help improve the our knowledge in design and project management. This would not be possible without sufficient funding so we thank you for your time and consideration. As with everyone, COVID has significantly impacted our team. Several sponsors that we’ve relied on to make up our budget haven’t been able to sustain their support through COVID. That’s why your support is so important, now more than ever. We hope that this crowdfunding campaign will fund us to get the support and parts we need to continue through our design and manufacturing process for B23 this year. Where Your Donation Will Go We need $10,000 to be able to complete our car. To see exactly where your money will go, we’re breaking it down: $3500 - Wheel Shells $4000 - Chassis Manufacturing $1000 - Engine Exhaust System $1500 - Vehicle Dynamic Sensors e.g. IR Rotor Temperature We would not be able to succeed without the generosity of our community. We know that this is a hard time for everyone, and we are thankful for anything you are willing and able to donate. Please reach out to us with any questions or comments. Thank you again for your time and support! For any questions or concerns, feel free to reach out to us at calfsae@gmail.com. Check our website out at fsae.berkeley.edu, and follow us on Facebook (facebook.com/calracing) and Instagram (@calformulasae).
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UCBSO Central European Tour - Summer 2020
By UC Berkeley
The UC Berkeley Symphony Orchestra is going on tour to Central Europe! You can help our project by funding student scholarships through this campaign.
The UC Berkeley Symphony Orchestra is going on tour to Central Europe! You can help our project by funding student scholarships through this campaign. UCBSO is going on Tour! Orchestra members pose for a photo in Spain The UC Berkeley Symphony Orchestra is embarking on a tour to Budapest, Vienna, Prague, and Bratislava in the Summer of 2020! We are commissioning four new works by UC Berkeley composers to present in each city. We will not only demonstrate the latest developments in music technology and composition, but also showcase the artistic achievements of UC Berkeley students through our standard repertoire. The orchestra's past tours to Central Europe and Spain were met with enthusiastic audiences and international acclaim. It's sure to be an unforgettable experience. The Orchestra: UCBSO performs for a full house in Valencia, 2017 With its 90-year history, the UCBSO is the longest standing orchestra in the UC system. It is comprised of 120 UC Berkeley undergraduate and graduate students, staff, and members of the community. Our purpose is to provide unique and innovative programming to the campus and the Bay Area, performed with astonishing intensity by students in all disciplines, including science, technology, and medicine. Now, the Orchestra will share this purpose with global audiences as well. The work of the UCBSO exemplifies the outstanding depth of musical achievement from the students of an already internationally renowned university. The diversity of our members is what makes this group a special and vital part of our community. The ensemble provides the community with excellent performances of difficult repertoire despite most of the musicians focusing on academic fields outside of music. The orchestra is full of accomplished undergraduate and graduate students working in all fields. Even so, every member attends bi-weekly rehearsals prepared to work diligently on our repertoire, driven by a shared sense of community and love for music. While our members are improving the world with their personal research, our orchestra is improving our community by making it a more inclusive and united space through music. Why We're Asking for Your Help: Concertmaster Billy Fang takes a bow Many of our students do not have the financial means to cover the cost of this tour. We are fundraising to offset the financial burdens of participation for our student musicians. Donor contributions can ensure that none of our students miss this tour due to a lack of resources, and they will all learn and grow from this unique opportunity. With your contribution, you are directly supporting a student’s participation in next summer’s tour. Learn more at https://orchestra.berkeley.edu/summer2020tour/
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Engineers Without Borders
By Engineers Without Borders
STRETCH GOAL OF $14,000 TO FURTHER FUND OUR SANITATION AND WATER PROJECTS!
STRETCH GOAL OF $14,000 TO FURTHER FUND OUR SANITATION AND WATER PROJECTS! Engineers Without Borders STRETCH GOAL OF $14,000 TO FURTHER FUND OUR PROJECTS! Our Mission Engineers Without Borders - University of California, Berkeley (EWB-UCB) envisions a future where basic human needs are met across the world on a daily basis. We engage and empower developing communities through projects which implement sustainable solutions on matters of water storage, sanitation, agriculture, and infrastructure. EWB-UCB is a chapter of the national organization Engineers Without Borders - USA, and is composed of UC Berkeley undergraduate students and professional engineering mentors. For each project, a team of students and mentors is assembled to work alongside a developing community abroad and find sustainable solutions to a given problem. Projects require many travel trips to the partner community for field research, community outreach, and implementation of our designs. These projects can last anywhere from five to ten years. Currently, we have three ongoing projects in Panama and Nicaragua. Please support our projects by making a gift today! Nicaragua Sanitation Project: The project works to address sanitation inadequacies within the rural community of Cuyali, Nicaragua. The current number of working latrines is insufficient for the 305 members of the community and is the cause of numerous health-related issues. They were originally provided by the government over 10 years ago, but are no longer safe for use, and there are several reports of community members getting sick or latrines physically collapsing on them. The project’s main goal is to build approximately 60 more latrines for the community of Cuyali so that each families will have their own working latrine, thus lowering the risk of contracting sanitation-related illnesses in the community. Once the latrines are complete, the individual families will be responsible for maintenance and repairs of the latrines throughout their twenty year life span, and will be trained by the travel team and the Nicaragua-based NGO, Unión Nacional de Agricultores y Ganaderos (UNAG) Madriz, on how to do so. We need your support to maximize the amount of latrines built! Nicaragua Water Project: El Llanito is a community of around 1200 people in mountainous rural Nicaragua. The community collects water from a central well, and some community members have to walk as much as two hours a day to collect water. Community members have been working to gain more consistent access to water since 2000. In order to increase local access to potable water, UC Berkeley students are working with an interdisciplinary team of experts from across the US to design and plan a water distribution system. This project is done in collaboration with the San Francisco professional chapter of Engineers Without Borders and with Alcance Nicaragua, an NGO based in the community. Our team has spent the last year conceptualizing the design options to ensure that our solutions meet the needs of the community and beginning final designs for implementation. This semester, our team will be concentrating our full efforts on finalizing designs (tank site, trenching, etc.) and completing the required documentation for implementation, with the goal of beginning construction this summer. Our goal is to make clean water accessible to all in the community of El Llanito and end the need of hours of commute just to get water. Please make a donation today to help us reach our goal! Panama Project: The Panama Project has focused to provide clean, reliable drinking water to the community in Kuna Nega, Panama through the construction of a water distribution system and community led participation. So far, over the past three years, the Panama team has visited the community of Kuna Nega seven times, completing three assessment trips and four implementation trips. Our most recent trip took place this January of 2019, where the team worked with the local water municipality and the community water committee to ensure the continued delivery and fair use of the water supply. We also completed the construction of the water tanks by adding roofs atop each tank to minimize heat transfer. In order to completely finish this project, we need your help to fund an evaluation and monitoring trip to ensure the long term sustainability of the project. This portion of the project is extremely important to ensure the water system is able to function and be maintained without the help of EWB-UCB or supporting NGOs. Impact of Your Donations $250 - Builds a tap stand $500 - Builds a latrine $1000 - Builds a water tank $2500 - Sends a member on a travel trip $5000 - Builds a tank site Keep Up With What We Are Doing Website: UC Berkeley, Engineers Without Borders Facebook: Engineers Without Borders - UC Berkeley Instagram: @ewb.ucb Thank you for your support! When our generous supporters, skilled members and motivated community members join forces, we change lives.
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Cal Women's Club Lacrosse Fall 2018
By UC Berkeley
NEW STRETCH GOAL: $7,000
We are a student created and student run team with a passion for the game. Donate today to help us strengthen the program!
NEW STRETCH GOAL: $7,000 We are a student created and student run team with a passion for the game. Donate today to help us strengthen the program! NEW STRETCH GOAL $7,000 The Cal Women's Club Lacrosse team offers our players the chance to play the sport we love at a competitive level against other California club lacrosse teams. We are a student created and student run team with a passion for the game. We would like to raise money for the club in order to allow us to attend tournaments, travel for games, pay our incredible coaching staff, team building and bonding activities, and help us build and grow the team further. Our team was founded in 2008 as a Division II club lacrosse team. After just our second year, we won the WWLL Division II Championship and WDIA Division II Championship in California. We have since moved up to the Division I level, where we compete against other California club programs, including Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, University of Southern California, University of California, Santa Barbara, San Diego State University, St. Mary’s University, and more. Our team for the fall is currently 30 members, of different grade levels and fields of study accross campus. We are an incredibly academic and athletic group of women, and lacrosse has helped us play the game we love, and make friends for life, while continuing to learn teamwork and leadership skills. Together, we hope to allow more women to have the opportunity to play an incredible sport, develop leadership and teamwork skills, and overall create a community at strong and tight knit Cal. Below is our budget breakdown for you to see where our donations are going towards our team: Budget Breakdown: $2,000 travel and transportation $1,000 coaching and administrative costs $2,000 miscelaneous team funds Please help us today by making a donation to the program! We would love any and all help you are able to provide and we thank you for supporting the team! Go Bears! For questions or concerns, contact: calclublacrosse@gmail.com Check out our website: http://www.calclublacrosse.org/ Follow us on Facebook and Instagram!
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Cal Lightweights Crowdfunding (Fall 2021)
By Gabriella Silva-Backus
The Cal Lightweight Rowing Crew is crowdfunding to raise money for our head coach and equipment upkeep. Help us move boats!
The Cal Lightweight Rowing Crew is crowdfunding to raise money for our head coach and equipment upkeep. Help us move boats! Meet the Team California Lightweight Rowing is a club team formed in the 1970s to give athletes of all sizes a chance at the sport. Today, we are the only team in the western United States dedicated to both men’s and women’s lightweight rowing. As a club team, we raise most of our funds ourselves, with dedicated support from our families and alumni, while trying to make the sport as affordable as possible for our student-athletes. We refuse to turn away aspiring athletes if money is the only thing stopping them from rowing on our team. Despite this, members oftentimes end up paying out of pocket for major championships such as San Diego Crew Classic, WIRAs (Western Intercollegiate Rowing Championships), and ACRAs (Club Nationals) while bearing the weight of being a full-time student. The Cal Lightweight Rowing team has a deep history of taking on challenges and fostering camaraderie. We want to keep giving our athletes the unforgettable experience of becoming a part of a team without worrying about monetary burdens; we push our athletes to accomplish great things, whether on the water, in the classroom, or out in the world. Our Goals To assist in accomplishing/reaching our goals this year, we are fundraising to cover the cost of boat repairs, spare parts, and laying the groundwork for building a sustainable and winning program. All other donations will be used to finance the team’s transition back onto the water, as we have been off the water since March 2020. Our first scrimmage this semester is the Menlo Scrimmage on October 30th -- one day before Crowdfunding ends. Donate now, and share our fundraising for the Cal Lights with your colleagues, fellow alumni, or other parent bears. Go Bears! Stay Updated Website: lightweightcrew.berkeley.edu Facebook: California Lightweight Rowing Instagram: @cal_lightweights For any questions, please contact: callightweightrowing@gmail.com
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Berkeley Engineers and Mentors (BEAM) (Fall 2020)
By UC Berkeley
BEAM is a student-run volunteer group teaching weekly science lessons at local grade schools & inspiring students of all backgrounds to pursue careers in STEM!
BEAM is a student-run volunteer group teaching weekly science lessons at local grade schools & inspiring students of all backgrounds to pursue careers in STEM! Berkeley Engineers and Mentors (BEAM) fuses science education with mentorship by leading weekly hands-on science and engineering lessons at local elementary and middle schools. UC Berkeley undergraduate students provide accessible science education to our local communities in hopes of inspiring students of all socioeconomic backgrounds to pursue careers in STEM. We give a path for underrepresented students in public schools a chance to be introduced to STEM subjects through interactive and fun projects. Through our organization, we teach at 17 public elementary and middle schools in the local Berkeley and Oakland area—teaching over 300 students a week. BEAM’s budget covers a number of different expenses. The majority of our budget will be used for lesson materials. Each semester we have 10+ lessons at several different schools. Each lesson requires us to plan and purchase materials such that every student has the chance to experiment and build. Another large portion of the budget is allocated to transportation. BEAM covers all transportation costs to get our mentors to their respective elementary and middle schools sites. Expenses for risk management are used for fingerprinting and background checks for our Berkeley mentors who go to site. Finally, advertising/recruitment expenses support our initiatives to get more UC Berkeley students to join our team. As we continue to grow our organization, we are looking for financial support to buy more supplies for our lessons and to help fund transportation costs to and from the schools we teach. From taste-receptor altering Miraculin to popsicle sticks for our classic Marshmallow Catapult lesson, BEAM’s interactive curriculum relies heavily on the use of various school supplies—encouraging students to explore scientific concepts and engineering principles with their own hands. In addition, we are looking to grow the BEAM program within the East Bay, having expanded into two new schools this semester alone. As we venture further to provide accessible STEM education, BEAM is seeking more sustainable and effective transportation solutions to reach young students for our weekly lessons. We ask for your support through donations or through sharing our project page as we continue to pursue our mission of equitable STEM education for elementary and middle school students throughout the Berkeley and Oakland area. 100% of ALL proceeds go to BEAM’s mission through funds for expenses including transportation and club materials. To stay up-to-date on BEAM happenings or to hear more stories about our mentors, follow our Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/beam.teach/) or visit our website (https://beam.berkeley.edu/).
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CalSol - The UC Berkeley Solar Vehicle Team FA ‘19
By Emma Shearin
Help our students to build our tenth-generation fully solar-powered vehicle!
Help our students to build our tenth-generation fully solar-powered vehicle! We are a team of almost 100 passionate Berkeley undergraduate students who design, build, and race high-speed, street-legal solar vehicles. We have built 9 generations of racing vehicles, developing and enhancing our designs with each iteration. Our last car, Zephyr, has had a long and successful career. In July 2018, we drove it more than 1700 miles from Omaha, NE to Bend, OR using 100% solar power. Our newest vehicle, Tachyon, is something new, futuristic, and practical. Our design features a fully solar-powered multi-passenger vehicle, instead of a single-seater. We’ve raced Tachyon at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, coming second for the second year in a row. Tachyon is currently in Australia for the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge, the world’s most prestigious international solar car race. Our participation in this challenging race was made possible by our 2018 crowdfunding donors-- thank you!! Our team welcomes all interested students and is home to a variety of majors across the University. We provide unparalleled hands-on experience in engineering, project management, supply chain interactions, teamwork, problem-solving, and more. We are crowdfunding to support the construction of our tenth generation vehicle, currently code-named “Gen X”. Our first major hurdle is purchasing molds to shape our carbon-fiber monocoque (structural) exterior shell. This c. $60,000 expense will take two years off the timeline that was necessary to create Tachyon and increase our ability to give members hands-on design and manufacturing experience, as well as increase the final quality of the outside surface of the shell, improving aerodynamic performance. The two-year build cycle and massive reduction in manual labor and sanding that purchased molds will allow gives CalSol the ability to give members two full car production cycles in their tenure at UC Berkeley in which they can focus on engineering design and complex, industry-standard manufacturing work rather than on the sanding and spraying of carcinogenic chemicals used in student-made molds. Can you make a tax-deductible donation today to support CalSol and make it all possible? Over a two-year build cycle for our next car we expect expenses of about: Our students gain design and project management experience that prepares them for careers in industry and for graduate school, leading the way in sustainable and automotive technologies. Your donation will contribute to materials and manufacturing for Gen X, contributing to the development of cutting-edge solar and renewable energy technology and the education of brilliant engineers. You can follow our progress on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter @BerkeleyCalSol. Our website is http://calsol.berkeley.edu. Thank you for your support!
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STAR: New Generation Berkeley Rocket Technologies | Fall 2021
By Yuxin (Hubert) Liu
STAR is pushing its tech edges to a new level with Mach-2 Solid Motor, Liquid Engine, and integrated flight computer system!
STAR is pushing its tech edges to a new level with Mach-2 Solid Motor, Liquid Engine, and integrated flight computer system! STAR is pushing its tech edges to a new level with Mach-2 Solid Motor, Liquid Engine, and integrated flight computer system! During the summer of 2021, we launched our most recent rocket--Bear Force One--over 10,000 ft above the Mojave Desert for the Intercollegiate Rocketry and Engineering Competition. The launch’s success has proven our ability and boosted the team’s confidence, which enables us to research for more cutting-edge technologies and take on more ambitious projects. We are planning to crowdfund for three of them. Mach 2 Solid Motor During this academic year, STAR's solids team plans on launching a rocket powered by an experimental solid motor that will exceed 20,000 feet and Mach-2 (two times the speed of sound in air, which is more than 5 times the speed of a Formula-1 Car). We will start with making our own motor designs using commercial parts and transition to making greater portions of the motor and rocket ourselves as we gain experience. This project emphasizes in-house designing and manufacturing. Timeline Research and development of our new motor design have begun. We hope that we will have a workable motor prototype capable of achieving the goals previously mentioned by the beginning of the spring semester and flown by the end of the year. From here, we will move towards new experimental motor designs for future competition rockets and other advanced projects. Project Quick Peek ▲ Custom Solid Motor's Flame (Concept) Common Avionics Stack (Integrated Flight Computer) The integrated flight computer will be a major breakthrough for us--rocket control will be much easier and efficient once this project is completed. Through creating CAS, our members will receive training on working with both hardware and software, which is very important in engineering. Currently, our crew from propulsion and avionics are working on testing the prototype. Timeline We have finished building the core components for the integrated flight computer system, but the testing has not started yet. However, as Berkeley is starting in-person instruction, the avionics and propulsion team plans to test the module. Project Quick Peek 3D CAD Model of CAS▲ Liquid Engine Group Liquid engine group is on its final stretch--they are planning on building for a full system hydro test at the beginning of October, with hot-fire around early January. If successful, we will be able to launch at a very high altitude, which is where liquid engines tend to perform better at, with ease and use engine throttling to control our rocket. This technology will greatly expand our potential research areas and prepare propulsion members for designing our first flyable liquid engine (the LE2 project)! Timeline Project Quick Peek ▲ Designed Thrust Chamber All of the projects above are challenging, but we are fully confident, and ready to turn our goals into reality! Budget We love the work we do at STAR, and are always happy to talk about it! To contact us, you can: Email: UCBerkeleySTAR@gmail.com Website: https://stars.berkeley.edu/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ucberkeleystar/ Finally, shoutout to the following teammates for helping set up the crowdfunding page: Ishan Dogra, Sharon Onofre-Lozano, Jeremy Huang, Andrew Wu, Tyler Adkison, Aled Cuda, Trevor Zinky
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UC Berkeley Symphony Orchestra Central European Tour, Summer 2022
By Yannie Li
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Meditation for UC Berkeley Students (Consciousness Collective)
By UC Berkeley
We aim to nurture well-being for our campus, society, and planet, and cultivate a cooperative spirit of social engagement for the good of all.
We aim to nurture well-being for our campus, society, and planet, and cultivate a cooperative spirit of social engagement for the good of all. “If the world is to be healed through human efforts, I am convinced it will be by ordinary people — people whose love for this life is even greater than their fear.” ― Joanna Macy Our Project: The seed of our project began in 2019 with the creation of the undergraduate DeCal class, “Meditation and Mindfulness: Traditional and Neuroscientific Perspectives.” Each semester for over two years, the course has provided a space for hundreds of Berkeley students to learn and practice meditation, discuss relevant current research on consciousness, collaborate on projects for social and ecological benefit, and cultivate resilient well-being. We have offered the course in-person before the pandemic, virtually during the pandemic, and have returned to in-person gathering this Fall. We gather twice each week during the school year. (Outdoor sit with the Meditation and Mindfulness DeCal Fall 2021) Our community also offers many free events to the Berkeley community. We run sustainable gardening workshops, weekly “Recess” events on campus for students to meditate and get to know each other through conversation and play, as well as virtual classes for folks calling in from around the world. (“Recess” at Memorial Glade) Old and new members of the community have come together to launch Consciousness Collective at Berkeley, an officially recognized organization for students to prioritize mental health, well-being, as well as environmental and social responsibility. Our Impact: Your gift will plant seeds of change that we will nurture into a blossoming community, oriented around social change, well-being extending to all, and cooperative environmental care. Our multifaceted approach is rooted in meditation, contemplative exploration, and ecological practice, leading to personal and societal transformation. (sharing meditation with visiting students from a local Muslim high school)(permaculture workshop for children back in 2020) The effectiveness of our class has been clearly demonstrated from our data collection. In one semester, 74% of participants reported feelings of peace and tranquility that were equal in degree or greater than anything they had previously experienced. 70% of students responded that in terms of overall life value, the meditation course was equal or greater than any previous experience in their lives (Rappaport 2020). Further, our data from the past year show that students in our class experience far greater benefits and massively reduced negative effects in comparison to UCB students outside of our class (especially those without a personal meditation practice). Students routinely report remission of anxiety, depression, and insomnia, and describe profound increases in compassion and altruism. (Rappaport 2020, https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0961m6g7) With the addition of our new projects, the creation of this club, weekly donation-based or free yoga offerings on campus, and meditation retreats for students, we are certain that these benefits will expand. Your Donation: Your donation will provide funding for free community meditation and yoga classes, sustainable garden building and food distribution, scholarships for student meditation retreats, meditation cushions and other supplies for students, and more. Given our community’s diversity, your donation will take an active step towards equitable access to these activities and practices. Budgeting Your Donations: $10: materials for one student’s gardening workshop $40: meditation cushion $80: meditation retreat for one student $2000: 25 students can go to a retreat $500: free yoga to all students for the semester $1100: establish a local sustainable garden and aid in food distribution Funding Tiers (what you can help us accomplish!) If we reach our initial goal of $3k, we will be able to: sponsor 20 students in need of funding for meditation cushions and gardening supplies provide free weekly yoga on campus all semester build one sustainable garden at a Berkeley student co-op, to provide healthy food for generations to come; we will also offer teaching workshops and support for the garden's long-term success If we reach $6k, we can do all of the above activities, plus: offer 25 scholarships for a weekend-long meditation retreat for students with financial need build a second sustainable garden in the student co-op housing system And with $10k, we could do all of the activities above, plus: sponsor an additional 40 students with meditation cushions and gardening supplies build a third sustainable food forest, either in a student co-op or a local underserved middle school offer free yoga on UC Berkeley's campus for the entire school year Affiliations: Consciousness Collective at Berkeley, and the meditation course that we offer to UCB students, are both sponsored by the local 501(c)(3) nonprofit Kila Collective. For more information about Kila Collective’s mission and origins, please visit kilacollective.org. Stay Connected with Us! Instagram: @consciousnesscollectiveucb Facebook: CoCo.Berkeley Together, for the good of all!
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Housing the Bears | Basic Needs Center x Cal Student Philanthropy
By Alex Rodríguez '19
Join us as we help make housing accessible to ALL Cal Bears! This campaign aims to support rental + housing deposit assistance for students.
Join us as we help make housing accessible to ALL Cal Bears! This campaign aims to support rental + housing deposit assistance for students. UPDATE: NEW STRETCH GOAL OF $6,000! Thank you all SO much for your support for Housing the Bears and the Basic Needs Center!!! We're so happy to meet our goal of $5,000. Let's keep up the momentum and reach $6,000 to house even more Bears! <3 School's hard enough - all Cal Bears should not have to worry about making rent. Who are we? We're Cal Student Philanthropy (CSP), a student org dedicated to Keeping Cal Golden by sharing resources and fundraising. As our undergraduate student body grows, so does the cost of living and tuition, leaving many a Bear in need of a community that helps, especially when financial aid falls short. Berkeley's Basic Needs Center (BNC) is a resource center for Cal students that need support with stable housing, food insecurity, and much more. CSP is doing this campaign to make sure the Basic Needs Center can help even more of our peers! Cal Student Philanthropy is full of amazing people from different majors and backgrounds, all with the common goal of wanting to make our Cal community a better place. We've met virtually and in-person this year! What are Basic Needs? BNC defines them as essential resources ranging from health, mental health, community, and well-being. The BNC provides dozens of resources (which you should check out!) to minimize other problems, including: Nutritional Food Options (their Food Pantry is amazing!) Financial Help Healthcare and Mental Health Resources Emergency Housing And more! Why are we doing this? With a diverse population of over 30,000 undergraduate students, too many students face housing insecurity. The first Fall 2021 Pulse Survey revealed a dramatic increase in the number of students reporting being housing insecure: 22.8% of undergraduate students and 17.1% of graduate students reported that they had “lacked a safe, regular, and adequate nighttime place to stay and sleep” since the beginning of the Fall 2021 semester. The situation continues to worsen, as seen in new Pulse Survey data from November 2021, which revealed those numbers increased to 26.5% of undergraduate students and 21.1% of graduate students facing housing insecurity since the beginning of October. Thousands of members of our community are juggling unstable housing, academic life, and dozens of other problems. Thankfully, the Basic Needs Center is here to help, providing options that cover students' basic needs, with a major role in emergency housing for student safety. The BNC aims to aid over 5000 Cal students this year as everyone navigates a new time period, and we want to make sure they're able to do so! We want all Cal Bears to have worry-free housing. How can I help (even as a student)? You can make a gift to this campaign and/or spread the word about it on social media! Whatever you can do, we appreciate it - every dollar and every share helps us in our mission! Where will my gift go? BNC aids students by creating programs tailored to different needs. Your donations would fund one program in particular: The Holistic Fund - This program provides emergency financial support provided to eligible students that covers funding for dependents, technology issues, rental and food assistance, and other costs of living. Students are facing so many obstacles, and this fund helps our peers in-need make rent and afford their security deposits when they land a new place. Aid awards vary from $500 to $1500, which is a lot! But, every dollar is so incredibly valuable to helping our Cal students reach their full potential. We hope you'll consider supporting Housing the Bears! For more information, check out the Basic Needs Center website and Instagram. And be sure to follow Cal Student Philanthropy on Instagram - we have lots of fun content planned throughout the campaign, and we'd love your engagement. <3 Questions? Email us at studentgiving@berkeley.edu! The Basic Needs Center
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Berkeley Women in Business
By Berkeley Women in Business
BWIB empowers the business leaders of tomorrow through leadership development, discourse on gender equity, and hosts an annual Women in the Workforce Conference
BWIB empowers the business leaders of tomorrow through leadership development, discourse on gender equity, and hosts an annual Women in the Workforce Conference Berkeley Women in Business About Berkeley Women in Business (BWIB): Berkeley Women in Business [BWIB] was founded in 2005 and now is a well established organization on campus that hosts around 50 active members. Berkeley Women in Business empowers women in the workforce through professional development and discourse on gender equity. We strive to develop our members into well-rounded individuals with the skills necessary to succeed in their careers. Yearlong, we host events that assists undergraduates to develop their professional skills as well as learn about women in the workforce. We also host retreats, socials, and mentorship opportunities throughout each semester. Our members develop a sense of belonging and trust within our community that allows for, not only professional development, but personal growth. Our organization is open to all students, all majors, and all genders who are in support of women in the workplace. BWIB Community: The BWIB community hosts different professional development events every week. In addition, here at BWIB we have a tight knit community who support each other. We host retreats, banquets, and other events that bring us together. Women in the Workforce Conference: BWIB annually hosts the Women in the Workforce conference for young individuals to meet and listen to powerful women leaders in the business industry through workshops and keynote speakers. Through networking and discourse, individuals will learn about women's empowerment in the workplace and engage in conversations with respected industry leaders who are truly changing the world and breaking the status quo. Although improving, the discrimination and inequality women face in the workforce is undeniable. Men hold 62% of manager positions compared to the 38% women hold. 35% of women face some type of sexual harassment in the business field. 29% women feel that their gender is an obstacle to advancement. To break these facts and stereotypes, the Women in the Workforce educates and brings insight to young individuals from respected women in the industry and their stories. The conference had around 100 members attend. Past keynote speakers include of Gioia McCarthy, SF Market President and Northwest Division executive at the Bank of America as well as Jenny Dearborn, founder and CEO of Actionable Analytics Group and former Chief Learning Officer at SAP. Workshops were led by individuals such as Marjolein Cuellar, the managing director at Boston Consulting Group, and Alta Sparling, director of campaigns at Sephora. In order to reach out to as many Berkeley individuals (both female and male) to attend this conference, we launch this crowdfunding campaign. BWIB hopes to continue making a change in gender equity in the workforce and we believe the way to do so is to inspire and influence as many people as possible. By donating to our project, we will be able to scale this conference and make a bigger impact in the community and hopefully reach out to more people across colleges all over the USA. Budget: The budget for our yearly conference is approximately $3000. Please see our allocation below. Learn More about Us: Website: http://www.berkeleywomeninbusiness.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BerkeleyWIB/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/berkeleywib/
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Renklikoy; Empower Women, Build A Healthy Society
By Sevda Gundogan
A transformational program where housing, jobs, vocational trainings and psychological help are provided to survivors of domestic violence in Turkey
A transformational program where housing, jobs, vocational trainings and psychological help are provided to survivors of domestic violence in Turkey This project has ended, but you can still support amazing Berkeley initiatives by visiting give.berkeley.edu. Your continued support of our students, faculty and staff will ensure that Berkeley remains the #1 public university. Go Bears! Renklikoy is a transformational program based on a Sustainable Livelihoods Approach (SLA) where housing, jobs, vocational trainings and psychological help are provided to survivors of domestic violence in Turkey. Renklikoy will grow and sell healthy, locale-appropriate food to sustain itself while acting as a steward of the lush land rural Turkey provides. We have a simple mission: Provide refuge and support for women who have suffered unimaginably, and start to build a more equitable and healthy society. BACKGROUND INFORMATION Recent data shows that approximately every other woman in Turkey experiences domestic violence in her lifetime. In 2014, only 2% of 20,000 women who applied to shelters were provided housing. Existing shelters only provide housing for one to six months, and in most cases women have to go back to their abusers due to lack of economic independence or fear for their lives. Over two-thirds of femicide victims are murdered after ending the relationship. Every day, the rights of millions of Turkish women are being violated by financial, sexual, and/or psychological abuse arranged marriages femicides Renklikoy gives both permanent housing and jobs within its 3-step transformation program. Enlisting: work with shelters to recruit women ready to start independent lives. Prioritize enlisting only by the emergency of the applicant's status Empowering: employ and teach women best agribusiness practices along with personal development & psychological support Transition: transition back into the society as stronger and healthier individuals www.renklikoy.com Renklikoy facebook THEIR STORY Our work is in homage to many women. To Kader who was forced into an arranged marriage at the age of 12 and committed suicide 2 years after her marriage, to Ayse who was stabbed to death by her husband as a failure of police protection, to Hasret who was raped by her cousins and murdered by her uncle, to 13 women who were murdered in the government women shelters by their husbands in 2014... Domestic violence has become devastatingly commonplace in Turkey. We will work to change that. We will transform the lives of domestic violence survivors and build a healthier community. We will build Renklikoy where women can live in their own houses without the fear of being beaten or murdered. They will be able to earn their own money while taking care of their children. Renklikoy women will learn how to farm, produce healthy food and spend time with other women in a secure environment. In their spare time, they will get psychological support and literacy classes and entrepreneurship training. They will keep learning and developing. In the long term, our goal is to transition as much of the leadership as possible to graduates of the program. We named our venture, Renklikoy which stands for "colorful village" in Turkish because we believe Renklikoy will bring all the beautiful colors back to survivors' lives. We are excited to start a new journey with every new woman joining our community. We would love you to join us... FIRST DONATIONS We already started building our village thanks to our first 2 donors who gave us royalty rights of using their land and the container house for five years. Container house While selecting the location of Renklikoy, we considered two things: fertility of the land and the distance from the previous location of women. Fertile land will allow us to produce a diversity of crops for generations to come, and distance gives more security for the women and their children. Below you can see generally where the project is located , but we will keep the exact location confidential for the safety of program participants. Place of the land Land BUDGET Below is the split of how we will spend the donations. With your donations we will furnish the container house that will host a woman and her child, buy agricultural inputs to start the production and pay the salary and health insurance of the first Renklikoy woman for one year. TIMELINE
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Berkeley Hyperloop - SF to LA in 30 Minutes
By Helen Kou
Berkeley Hyperloop is revolutionizing high-speed transportation, and hopes to take you from San Francisco to Los Angeles in 30 minutes!
Berkeley Hyperloop is revolutionizing high-speed transportation, and hopes to take you from San Francisco to Los Angeles in 30 minutes! UPDATE: 12 HOURS LEFT!!! Huge shoutout to our generous donors who have helped take us all the way to our goal of $10,000!!! Thanks to your support, we are now able to build and control our pod's key components! That being said, we'd love all the support we can get in the final 12 hours of our campaign! Meeting a stretch goal of $12k will fully fund our production team, and make sure they have the equipment and safety gear they need for a great build. Please join us by donating and sharing this project with your family and friends today! -The Berkeley Hyperloop Team Our Goal: We are a team of driven Berkeley students selected by SpaceX to compete in the Hyperloop Pod Competition this January. We hope to revolutionize transportation, develop cutting-edge technologies, and inspire Berkeley students to take on impossible-seeming challenges. Please join us in our efforts to raise $10,000, which will be used to build our fully-functional Hyperloop Pod! Our Story: In the summer of 2015, in a modest underground library, five Berkeley students passionate about technology decided to compete the SpaceX Hyperloop Competition. Six months later, at the end of Texas A&M;’s Design Weekend, they were one of the only twenty-two teams on their way to revolutionizing the face of global transportation. What started as a humble initiative gradually grew into a robust team of engineers, designers, and logisticians all driven by a single radical idea. Berkeley Hyperloop’s approach to designing the Hyperloop pod is a unique one – while Hyperloop is inherently an eco-conscious, affordable and unprecedented challenge to conventional transport, bLoop believes that safety comes above all with an idea as sweeping as Hyperloop. Hence, in January 2017, passenger safety will be central to bLoop’s model of the Hyperloop pod, which will be tested at SpaceX’s mile-long test track in Hawthorne, CA. We will be competing against top engineering teams from universities such as MIT and Carnegie Mellon as well as independent teams to collaboratively create an indelible impact on the future of transportation systems. Funding is essential to taking our renders off the drawing board and making them a reality. We aim to have our pod machined and assembled a month in advance of SpaceX's test track, so as to fully prepare ourselves for the competition. bLoop's high-profile project is not only transformational for the transportation industry, but also an opportunity to further showcase the spirit of entrepreneurship and scientific creativity here at Berkeley. Our project will draw the attention of media and high-profile industry giants, and we want UC Berkeley to be at the forefront of an engineering competition as unprecedented and unique as this. Apart from external pride, bLoop is also about perpetuating the culture of problem-solving and innovation that has been part of Berkeley's fundamental values since its inception. Our engineers and designers are directly applying the skills they learn in their classes to real-life problems while working on the pod, while our logisticians and marketeers work their way around daily problems that arise in large corporations and technology firms. Our mission is to simultaneously establish Berkeley as the premier institution for innovation, creativity, and engineering efficiency, and sustain the distinct culture of scholarship at Berkeley. Notable Sponsors: Berkeley Hyperloop is sponsored by the Berkeley College of Engineering. (Letter of Support: https://goo.gl/AQQTN2) We have faculty sponsorship from Professor Tony Keaveny, David Rich, and Dennis Lieu. We also have public corporate sponsorships from Autodesk, Samsung, Northrop Grumman, Modus Advanced, NI, and Ansys. Using the software of our generous sponsor Autodesk, we've designed our pod structure from the ground up in Autodesk Fusion 360. In the same interface, we've analyzed stresses via FEA and been able to ensure that our pod is safe and has backup systems in the event of any failures. The support of Autodesk and our other industry partners have given us the tools to develop our ideas, and now it's up to all of us to get it built and launched! Perks and Rewards: For more information about our pod, you can find our renders, blog updates, and technical information here: http://www.berkeley-hyperloop.com/ Explore the SpaceX Hyperloop Competition here: http://www.spacex.com/hyperloop
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Support Cal's First Productive Rooftop Garden!
By Nicki Alexander
STRETCH GOAL of $6,000!! Help us make the first agriculturally productive rooftop garden on Cal's campus a reality!
STRETCH GOAL of $6,000!! Help us make the first agriculturally productive rooftop garden on Cal's campus a reality! A huge THANK YOU to our generous donors for helping us reach our initial goal of $5,000 with 11 days to spare! We are incredibly grateful for all of your support! We have created a new stretch goal of $6,000, which will enable us to cover the costs of constructing a vertical garden on the roof. Please continue to show your support by sharing our campaign with friends and family! Why Rooftop Gardens? In the Bay Area, like other urban environments worldwide, real estate development is skyrocketing, and many remaining park, natural, and agricultural spaces are in danger of being overtaken by concrete. Even on the UC Berkeley campus, the long term sustainability of campus gardens, namely the Oxford Tract and SOGA, are threatened by the encroaching development, which would take away student access to corresponding educational experiences. Rooftop gardens can provide many of the benefits of a traditional garden, and more. Example Rooftop Garden on the Garden Village housing complex in Berkeley! Managed by Topleaf Farms. Rooftop gardens provide a space for urban agriculture practices, making local, healthy food more accessible to both food-insecure students (1 in 4 UCB students do not have access to nutritious food), and to the broader community. By definition, a garden on an existing roof is less likely than a traditional one to be overtaken by buildings as rent payments continue to increase, and the University continues to expand. They can therefore be a long-term solution to providing more students and community members with access to healthy food and educational opportunities. Can you help us make a Cal rooftop garden a reality by making a gift today? Aerial view of the Garden Village garden Rooftop Gardens on Campus Unfortunately, the two green roofs on campus are not ideal: one has no student access and is covered by only grass, and the other is primarily concrete. Therefore, there are no rooftop gardens on campus that can be used as a resource for students. This campaign will create Cal's first productive rooftop garden on top of La Loma Parking Structure to pilot green roof development on campus, and hopefully throughout the UC system. By running a successful pilot study on La Loma, the University will be more inclined to include rooftop gardens in future development, which will be positive for the students, the community, campus sustainability (energy savings, storm water management, habitat provision, and more), and overall campus aesthetic. A panorama of La Loma rooftop Once we are able to purchase all the necessary equipment, our student team (and the broader university community) will begin growing produce to provide healthy food to students and community members in need. It will also be used as a space for meditation and yoga through Recreational Sports, improving mental health of students, faculty, and other affiliates of Cal. With your support, we hope to begin installation of our rooftop garden later this spring – please make a gift today! Thank you for your generosity in helping to fund this project! Team member Marielle explores the La Loma Financing La Loma Rooftop Garden
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Plastics Recycling Research Facility
By The Zero Waste Research Center
Help create the first university research facility focused on identifying solutions for recycling plastic waste led and arranged by students!
Help create the first university research facility focused on identifying solutions for recycling plastic waste led and arranged by students! The Zero Waste Research Center The Zero Waste Research Center (ZWRC) at UC Berkeley, in conjunction with Cal Zero Waste and the College of Engineering are working to create the University of California’s first Plastic Recycling Research Facility. At this facility, the University’s plastic and recycling waste will be transported to a facility in Richmond, California, at the UC Berkeley Global Campus, where through proper collection, sorting, and redistribution, a circular system for waste will be created. This project will allow for the University of California, Berkeley to expand recycling and reuse programs, reduce its carbon footprint, and create research and education opportunities for its students. The project is being operated by student employees with the support of professional staff from Cal Zero Waste. In addition to institutional oversight by the Student Environmental Resource Center, student employees would ideally be funded by this grant to operate the UC Berkeley Plastics Recovery Research Facility, as well as tackle upstream solutions to waste catalogued. Student are sorting plastic into its constituent polymer types and grades, and then be shredding and grinding the plastic material. Students will be the driving force of this project, and the funding of student positions to process waste, take data, and identify upstream solutions will result in students leading the way toward Zero Waste by 2020. Empowering students to achieve campus sustainability goals allows for a collaborative approach to our campus goals, giving students research projects from a wide range of topics, from engineering to social sustainability. We have already began successfully recycling plastic waste to create PLA filament to 3D print, which has provided other campus departments access to cheaper, sustainable filament. We are hoping to expand this project through campus partnerships, to create t-shirts made from 100% recycled plastics, that will be sold during the 2019 Pac 12 Zero Waste Contest in February. Our partnership will also include sponsorships from Pepsi to work with Repreve to print t-shirts that will be sold by the Cal Student store. This will provide a growing market for recycled plastics, and divert even more waste from Berkeley’s campus, getting us closer to our Zero Waste by 2020 goal. We are fundraising to buy a grinder to complete the mechanical recycling process and establish circular economies on the UC Berkeley campus. The grinder is a crucial component in completing our intended goal of creating a circular economy through the recycling of plastics. The cost of the grinder is $25,000, but we have secured a majority of the other funding from various grants and partnerships. This grinder will be used to make circular economy products such as t-shirts, mugs, and other items that can be made from recycled plastics. The grinder is not just a machine, but rather a necessary piece of processing equipment that will allow us to effectively create a circular economy that is near completion. Thank you for helping us get one step closer to becoming a Zero Waste campus. We are incredibly grateful for your support in promoting our research into sustainable methods of recycling plastic waste. We could not have done this without your support! For more information contact Rebecca Harcourt: (909) 247-250, harcourt.rebecca@berkeley.edu
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The Berkeley Science Review: Coming to a corner near you!
By Katie Deets
NEW STRETCH GOAL OF $3500! Help the Berkeley Science Review connect the greater Berkeley community with cutting-edge research from scientific labs here at Cal.
NEW STRETCH GOAL OF $3500! Help the Berkeley Science Review connect the greater Berkeley community with cutting-edge research from scientific labs here at Cal. We want to extend an enormous THANK YOU to all of our donors and supporters for helping us reach our $2500 goal! The BSR team is blown away by the amount of support from everyone. Because we reached our goal so quickly, we have created a new stretch goal of $3500 before the campaign ends on February 23rd. The extra $1000 will cover about half of the cost of printing extra magazines for our next issue in Fall 2018. Please continue to support science communication by sharing or donating today. Thank you!! UC Berkeley has a reputation for producing cutting edge scientific research. But if you’re not up for scouring through various departmental websites and dense primary literature, it’s difficult to learn about the science being done here at Cal. Enter the Berkeley Science Review (BSR). We are a science magazine run by graduate students whose aim is to report the research being done at Berkeley in a way that’s readily accessible to the public by minimizing jargon and simplifying abstract ideas. In this way, we’ve published easy-to-read articles ranging a wide array of topics—from quantum physics to fly genetics to public health. We need your help to ensure that the BSR is able to reach the broadest audience possible–please make a gift today! Behind the scenes, the BSR provides an invaluable experience to the writers, editors, and designers who work on the magazine—they gain experience in science communication skills, which are critical for building connections among scientists and the world at large. Our team of editors learn to keep a pulse on the latest findings in science. Our writers hone their craft as they pen exciting discoveries onto paper. Our designers’ creativity is challenged as they create a stunning magazine layout every issue. Our team’s efforts culminate into a professional quality magazine every semester. In fact, for our recent article, “BSR and beyond”, we tracked down BSR alumni and learned that they attribute much of their professional success to the skills they acquired during their time with the BSR. Even though our goal is to communicate science with the public, our current distribution strategy only allows us to reach a small population—mostly current UC Berkeley affiliates in the sciences. In order to maximize the visibility of the BSR and increase our readership, we have a two part plan: 1) Increase the number of magazines printed each issue, and 2) expand our distribution area. We are asking for funds to print more magazines and purchase distribution boxes to be placed in key, high traffic areas throughout the Berkeley community. These funds will both help our staff receive exposure for their writing and designs, and help the greater Berkeley community connect with the fantastic science research taking place at UC Berkeley. Please donate today–we are counting on your support! Thank you for your consideration, and we hope that you will share this page to help us spread the word. Some of the Berkeley Science Review staff with one of our current on-campus distribution boxes outside of Stanley Hall
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Pump It Up
By Naama Raz-Yaseef
Help us ease the workload to bring food security and increase income to women caring for community gardens in Zimbabwe.
Help us ease the workload to bring food security and increase income to women caring for community gardens in Zimbabwe. This project has ended, but you can still support amazing Berkeley initiatives by visiting give.berkeley.edu. Your continued support of our students, faculty and staff will ensure that Berkeley remains the #1 public university. Go Bears! WHAT WE WANT TO FIX Having food on our table is not something we need to worry about, but this isn’t always the case for many parts of the world. In rural Zimbabwe, people rely on the food they grow. Communities live without running water or electricity. During the rainy season, staple food is grown in the fields - corn, wheat, and potatoes. But fresh vegetables are needed year-round to meet dietary needs. Traditionally, women are in charge of growing vegetables in communal gardens. The women grow tomatoes, spinach, carrots, onions, and other vegetables, which are a source of livelihood for their family. When harvest is good, they are able to sell the surplus, adding a desired income for their families. Gardens are located near rivers, which are used as a source for irrigation. When the dry season begins and the water level in the river falls, the women create small dams near the gardens. To irrigate, the women fill 5 gallon buckets, and carry it up a 30-feet steep slope to the river bank. Each woman makes this trek many times each week, and while their strength and optimism throughout this arduous task is seriously awe-inspiring, we know there are simple, effective solutions that will make this task much simpler. THE SOLUTION We want to introduce irrigation pumps to the women’s gardens. Water pumps are cheap, simple and efficient, making them an ideal method to bring water up from the river to the gardens. To operate, an irrigation pump will be connected to a power source and to a hose. In cases where the garden is more than 30 feet away from the river bank, a water container will also be installed. These irrigation systems are designed to be affordable (approximately $500), mobile (to be shared by several gardens), simple (easy to install), durable (low maintenance), strong (operate in difficult conditions such as steep elevation and silty water), and sustainable (solar-powered). In this pilot, we want to be able to demonstrate the efficiency of this solution. Since we aren’t members of the community, there is only so much we can do from a technical standpoint from the other side of the world. Our plan is to purchase and install several different pumps, batteries and solar panels, and test their suitability to the technical as well as the cultural needs. WATER AVAILABILITY AND CLIMATE CHANGE This year, because of the strong El Nino, Zimbabwe did not receive much rain, and there is barely any flowing water in the river. In such conditions, the women dig pits in the sandy river bed and put small concrete rings into the pits. These structures fill up with water, just like it does when you dig a hole at the beach. The women then take small cups and fill each bucket from water that accumulates in the pit. In such a situation, our small pumps can be really helpful - they can be submersed into these small pits and pump up the water in seconds. In recent years, climate change has had an adverse affect on agriculture in Zimbabwe, and future forecasts are not optimistic. Crop yields suffer and the community often goes hungry. Small technical solutions such as the irrigation pump systems have good chances of maintaining livelihood on the farms. In drought conditions, even a few irrigation cycles per season, created by the pumps ability to access the smallest amounts of water, allows the garden and the community to continue to grow. OUTREACH AND IMPACT Donations will go directly towards equipment costs and travel, but the indirect effects of donations will stretch much farther. Focusing on women’s gardens allows us to empower women, and highlight their talents, skills, and energies. Installing and testing the irrigation systems will be a collaborative process. Once the most appropriate system will be selected, the women will be able to train the community on how to use them. When possible, system components will be purchased locally. This will allow to replicate the system in other community gardens. We will also teach useful methods to help gardeners improve water use efficiency, and preparedness to climate change. The women we teach will then be able to sell their skills and knowledge. The irrigation pumps will not only increase the economical input from the gardens, but possibly create a new position as irrigation experts. By empowering women, the quality of life for the whole communities will be improved. Please make a gift today to help us make this project a reality. Your support will make such a difference in the lives of these women and their surrounding communities. NEXT STEPS This year, if we pass our funding goal, we will also purchase drip irrigation systems for the community gardens. Next year, we will use our insights from this pilot project to design the optimal irrigation system and make it scalable across other women’s community gardens in other parts of Africa. OUR STORY Naama As an Environmental Scientist, I always search for new paths that widen my experience. I strive to draw as many connections as possible between pure academics, practical experience, and people’s lives. Last year I traveled to Zimbabwe as a volunteer consultant with a small NGO, the Mounde Trust (http://www.muonde.org/), to work on water harvesting projects. Because I’m a backyard gardener, I asked my host to take me to visit a place I heard about - the women's’ garden. I was stricken by the beauty of the place, the communal support and shared work. But I was simply amazed by all the hard work of carrying water buckets, when there are such simple solutions! I promised to come back with pumps, and I will! For me, gardening is a hobby; for the women of Zimbabwe it means survival. Karina I first heard about Naama and this project through my hydrology professor at UC Berkeley. As an aspiring environmental engineer, and as someone who cares deeply about water issues, I realized that Pump it Up was a project that I absolutely wanted to be a part of. I believe that water, as a fundamental human need, is a fundamental human right, so improving access to water around the world is incredibly important to me. This project does exactly that for a community that needs it. PROJECT BUDGET To learn more and contact us, please email us at rynaama@gmail.com and karina.yap622@gmail.com.
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Trial By Error: Reporting on ME/CFS and Related Controversies
By David Tuller
An investigation into the research behind the CBT/GET paradigm for treatment of the illness variously referred to as ME, CFS, ME/CFS and CFS/ME.
An investigation into the research behind the CBT/GET paradigm for treatment of the illness variously referred to as ME, CFS, ME/CFS and CFS/ME. David Tuller So it’s been a year since the last crowdfunding campaign for Trial By Error--my investigative reporting and public health project. While Trial By Error began 3+ years ago as an in-depth look at the PACE trial, it has expanded to include other research from the GET/CBT ideological brigades and some of the controversies around the illness or cluster of illnesses known variously as ME, CFS, ME/CFS, and CFS/ME. In the last three years, I have seen patients’ suffering and their courage. I am in awe of their analytical skills and scientific smarts. This project has been and continues to be such a moving and rewarding experience for me. I had no idea it would last this long, but my work seems to be helping to push events forward. That’s why I am seeking another round of support through Berkeley’s crowdfunding platform. The funds I raise through April 30th will go toward covering my position for the fiscal year from July 1, 2019 to June 30, 2020. As many know, I initially worked on this project for more than two years on my own, without funding from anyone. But after a grant supporting my half-time position at Berkeley ended two years ago, I decided to crowdfund so I could continue working on Trial By Error. The money goes directly to the university, not to me. Pursuing this project is now my primary responsibility as a senior fellow in public health and journalism at Berkeley’s Center for Global Public Health. Through my crowdfunding campaign last April, Berkeley received $87,500 to cover my position for the fiscal year from July 1, 2018 to June 30, 2019. Here’s an accounting (in rounded numbers). My half-time salary is $50,000. Another $20,000 goes toward employment benefits--which in the U.S. is mostly health insurance. Berkeley takes 7.5 % in crowdfunding and gift fees--in this case $6500. A small amount was used to cover a shortfall in my first year’s crowdfunding. I will also get $5,000 in reimbursement for some of my project-related travel expenses. Anything left over will be bumped forward into the next fiscal year. For this year’s crowdfunding, my goal is $95,000. I spend significantly more than half my work-time on Trial By Error. Raising $95,000 would allow Berkeley to increase my position from 50% to 60% time for the 2019-2020 fiscal year. I will definitely continue this project for another year even if I don’t make that target, although in that case I might decide to crowdfund again sometime next fall. If you’re reading this, you’re likely already familiar with my work. But by way of background, my initial 15,000-word investigation of the PACE trial was published in October, 2015, on Virology Blog--a science site hosted by Professor Vincent Racaniello, a microbiologist at Columbia University. Since then, the Trial By Error series has focused international attention on the study’s methodological and ethical lapses and on the similar failings of related research. I have now written 150+ posts on Virology Blog as well as articles for The New York Times and other publications. My investigation has been covered in Science, The Guardian, Slate, The Wall Street Journal, STAT, BMJ, and elsewhere. I have been subject to attacks. Most recently, in March, Reuters published a biased "investigation" that slammed patients for their purportedly belligerent behavior and me for my willingness to engage in forthright criticism of bad research. In the past few years, I have been accused of libel, defamation, causing reputational damage with inaccurate and misinformed reporting, engaging in behavior warranting police intervention, unleashing social media abuse, and so on. The vice-chancellor at Bristol University has complained multiple times to Berkeley about me. These people obviously would like me to stop what I'm doing. But I've kept going, with Berkeley's continued support. Based on my investigation, I have organized a series of open letters to The Lancet, Psychological Medicine, and other journals, all posted on Virology Blog. With their high-profile signatories, the letters have received widespread attention. Last August’s open letter to The Lancet, which referenced the PACE trial’s “unacceptable methodological lapses,” was signed by more than 100 scientists, physicians and other experts, 10 members of Parliament, and many dozens of patient and advocacy organizations. The Times (UK) and BMJ both ran articles about it. In the last year, I have also kept up with the Cochrane situation. I met last summer with Cochrane editors and pressed them to address the problems with the 2014 review of exercise therapies. In addition to posting several analyses of developments, last October I organized a letter of support for Cochrane’s decision to temporarily withdraw that review. The letter was signed by more than 40 experts. (Unfortunately, Cochrane ultimately did not implement that decision.) I have sustained my criticism of research conducted by Professor Esther Crawley of Bristol University. After reviewing my expressions of concern, the National Health Service's ethics oversight arm requested that Bristol University conduct an independent investigation of some of these studies. That investigation is ongoing. How independent it will ultimately be and whether it will examine the issues honestly remains to be seen, but the fact of the investigation is itself a modest victory, given the incredible resistance to scientific accountability that has marked this saga. In U.S. news, I took on Danish psychiatrist Per Fink’s appearance at Columbia University last fall--an invitation to speak that appalled not just patients but also leading scientists in the ME/CFS research field. I also wrote about the Mayo Clinic's stubborn refusal to acknowledge changes in the international and national approach to the illness. I recently broke the news about Kaiser Permanente’s decision to change how it handles ME/CFS. I hope this year to follow up with other major US medical institutions and track their progress. And I plan to keep trying to hold the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to account; as I have noted repeatedly, the agency refuses to acknowledge that it dropped the PACE/GET/CBT paradigm because the science cannot be defended. Maintaining pressure on the CDC and other US agencies on issues related to this illness is essential. I have also started looking into the "medically unexplained symptoms" (MUS) model being promoted by the biopsychosocial cabal. This construct is linked to the troubling effort in the UK to shunt ME/CFS patients and others with so-called MUS into mental health care through the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies program. I will deepen my investigation into these issues in the upcoming year. I also hope to examine the struggles over the ICD (International Classification of Diseases) codes used for the illness and the diagnostic controversies that continue to roil the field. In addition to keeping up with events in the UK and US, I hope to be able to track developments in the Netherlands, Australia, Scandinavia, Germany, and elsewhere. I have traveled a lot since last summer and plan to again over the next year. I spent most of September and October in England, with side trips to the Netherlands and Northern Ireland. In November I took a five-day trip to Norway, and early this year I visited England again, with a stay in Finland as well. I gave public talks and/or recorded video interviews in Amsterdam, Newry in Northern Ireland, and Sheffield in England, as well as in Oslo, Helsinki and Boston. Collectively, these clips have been viewed online many thousands of times. In London and Oslo, I met with members of parliament, health officials and others to lobby them on the various issues. I am currently planning a trip to New Zealand for late summer/early fall. I will also spend more time in Europe--again to cover issues in the UK but hopefully also to visit other countries grappling with related concerns, like Germany. And if I don’t manage to get to Canada before this fiscal year ends on June 30, I will definitely make up for it after that. I know I won't get to every subject I'd like to. I’m sure things I haven’t anticipated will come up, as they always do. One way I hope to deal with all this is by posting updates or short comments on an upcoming Trial By Error/News page. That way I can keep up with events but not clog up the main Virology Blog site with items that have more specialized appeal. (I'm still trying to figure this out.) ********** One final note: Berkeley takes a 5% share as the university's standard fee for gifts, plus 2.5% as a crowdfunding/credit card fee. Therefore, adding 7.5% to your donation will ensure that the full amount you intend is going toward the project itself. The donation is tax-deductible (for US taxpayers at least). Thanks so much for your support. I really, really appreciate it. This whole situation is just unbelievable. I’d like to be able to see it through. ********** For those who want to review my work, here are some links: Virology Blog's 15,000-word expose of PACE: http://www.virology.ws/2015/10/21/trial-by-error-i/ All Virology Blog posts on ME/CFS: http://www.virology.ws/mecfs/ My New York Times opinion piece (with Julie Rehmeyer): https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/18/opinion/sunday/getting-it-wrong-on-chronic-fatigue-syndrome.html
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ANova Hacks 2020
By ANova Hacks
Support ANova Hacks to help bridge the opportunity gap through a beginner high school hackathon.
Support ANova Hacks to help bridge the opportunity gap through a beginner high school hackathon. ANova Hacks Our team hopes to raise $4000 for our annual hackathon. We will use the money to provide the best experience for our students from under-resourced backgrounds. Would you be interested in supporting our cause? A hackathon is rooted in the simple, but complex world of "creation". During hackathons, teams come together to bring one of their own ideas into tangible reality using technology. Regardless of their interest in computer science, students are exposed to the wonders of technology and its impact on our world. Together, we can inspire the next generation of innovators to hack to new heights. Every year, ANova puts on a hackathon for students in underserved communities. This year, ANova Hacks will be an overnight, free of charge hackathon designed to change the way our students think about computer science. We want to give them the skills and experience necessary to achieve their career aspirations, and spread their ideas to the world through technology. We imagine a diverse tech environment where age, gender and background do not limit one’s ability to pursue computer science, and the mission of ANova Hacks is to make that a reality. As students at a top school for Computer Science, ANova recognizes the importance of diversity. The majority of our students come from urban areas where most students are not exposed to computer science or higher education. We hope to not only transform the spark of an idea into a prototype, but also to ignite a passion for computer science in our participants. By presenting a firsthand look at virtual reality, gaming, information security, artificial intelligence and more, we provide students with an exciting look into the forefront of technological innovation. ANova Hacks merges the fundamental computer science techniques taught at our weekly site visits with workshops geared towards the construction of a project. Workshops and panels about financial aid, college life and the application process inspire students to pursue higher education in one of their passions. We offer students knowledge and advice from successful, experienced industry leaders as well as mentorship from passionate UC Berkeley students. Most of all, ANova Hacks is about forming friendships with these students so that they have the resources they need to achieve their goals. Oftentimes, the hackers who attend hackathons have built projects before and have been exposed to the infinite possibilities out there. Computer Science has consistently been more prevalent in communities with consistent access to computers and the tech industry. However, a significant amount of potential computer scientists don’t have these opportunities, and that’s where ANova Hacks fits in: a hackathon catered especially toward students from under-resourced schools to instill the belief into our students that every one of them can change the world through a college education and through the power of technology. We hope to empower our students through this hackathon so that they can transcend the limits of their circumstance and ignite a passion towards becoming an engineer in the future. We hope that you can be a part of this journey and help us make this possible for our students! Our hackathon aims to empower our students to not only pursue a college degree, but also use technology for social good. Through ANova Hacks, we aim to give them the skills and experience necessary to spread their ideas to the world. We imagine a diverse tech industry where age, gender and background do not limit one’s ability to pursue computer science, and ANova Hacks aims to make that a reality. To introduce our students to various kinds of technologies they may be able to use throughout the hackathon, we will bring in industry experts and host a variety of workshops. Last year, we led workshops ranging from sessions on financial aid and higher education to lessons on web design and hardware. Our experienced ANova members also led workshops on web design and development, hardware, and introductory Python. At ANova Hacks 2020, we hope to bring even more interesting and enlightening workshops to our students, such as sessions on computer security. Thus, in addition to having 24-hour mentorship for projects, each student will have access to educational workshops throughout the hackathon led by passionate UC Berkeley students and industry engineers. To make this valuable experience accessible to our students, we host this hackathon free of charge. We aim to ultimately raise $10,000 for our hackathon so that we can run as many workshops as we can in a spacious venue with awesome prizes for our hackers. These $4,000 from Crowdfunding are only the first step in our journey to providing students with a safe, encouraging environment to work, learn, and have fun. Our goal for this crowdfunding campaign is to raise enough money to fund our venue for our Hackathon and be able to provide an amazing experience to our students free of charge. If we raise over $4000, we'll spend that money towards providing students with BART tickets to attend the hackathon! Your support will help make this possible. Please donate today! In addition, in the past 2 years, several students were unable to attend ANova Hacks 2018 and 2019 due to conflicts with transportation to and from the venue. In order to encourage more students to attend our event, we would like to offer a transportation reimbursement option or pre-paid BART tickets, which would support students who would otherwise be unable to afford a trip to the hackathon. With extra funding, we’d like to encourage more students to attend our event by covering their transportation fees. We hope that you’ll be a part of our movement to inspire as many students as possible with Computer Science, mentorship, and a supportive, hands-on learning environment! To truly expose our students to what industry is like, ANova has partnered with industry leaders like Google, Facebook, and HackerEarth in previous years to provide swag and panelists for our hackathon. Our sponsors have made previous hackathons possible with their invaluable experience in helping out with workshops and panels to give our students the full experience. We would like to thank them below for making previous ANova Hacks amazing: Facebook Google Microsoft Dropbox Databricks Workday IBM HackerEarth Trader Joe's ANova is a registered student organization in UC Berkeley dedicated to improving computer science education in under resourced communities across the Bay Area. We partner with middle and high school teachers and administrators to develop curriculum catered individually for each classroom. Our outreach and mentorship efforts strive to introduce students of all backgrounds to Computer Science. We currently reach out to over 100 students at ten different middle/high school programs. To be considered for our program, each one of these schools must provide above 40% free and reduced lunch. Every site has its own curriculum catered to its own specific needs. As part of our mission, we also host ANova Hacks annually, an event dedicated to showing the wonders of computer science to our students. Help ANova fund a 24-hour hackathon for under-resourced students and spread the love for Computer Science! Please make a gift today! Thank you for your support! To find out more about us, visit us at berkeleyanova.org or facebook.com/BerkeleyANova.
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Berkeley Scientific Journal: Engaging Scientific Community FA ’21
By UC Berkeley
The BSJ will use these funds to publish and distribute semesterly journal issues to the wider Berkeley community.
The BSJ will use these funds to publish and distribute semesterly journal issues to the wider Berkeley community. The Berkeley Scientific Journal is a semesterly publication and the premier undergraduate science journal at Cal. Our members get to write about their scientific interests, and at the end of the semester, their articles are published in print and on our website. Our members also interview professors, edit undergraduate research papers, and layout the journal with inDesign. Since its inception in 1996, the purpose of the journal has expanded to give the Berkeley Scientific Community a better understanding of how events here at Berkeley impact global concerns. The focus of the journal is broad, spanning scientific disciplines ranging from ecology to engineering, from astronomy to biochemistry. Our intended audience includes, but is not limited to, UC Berkeley Students, faculty, and the surrounding community. A new issue of BSJ is published twice a year on eScholarship, Isuu, and our website. End of Semester Journal Launch Party Through our Interviews, Features, and Research & Blog teams, students have the chance to work on all flavors of science writing, including quick study stories on recently published journal research, interviews with faculty members working closely on the coronavirus pandemic, and articles exploring how science interfaces with the world around us. Every year, BSJ attends the Bay Area Science Festival hosted in San Francisco. There, we host a hands-on activity at our booth to engage our visitors, hopefully encouraging them to read BSJ and subscribe to our email list. Through our activities, we aim to communicate that science can be observed and appreciated by anyone. BSJ at the Bay Area Science Festival This year, our editorial team strives to increase BSJ readership as much as possible both inside and outside the Berkeley community and secure enough funding to continue printing the journal, attend off-campus journalism events, and host more social events for our members. Each BSJ issue represents the dedication and talent of our students who produce high-quality, interesting work. BSJ continues to provide students with a space to learn, gain experience in science journalism, and meet many individuals. Their connections with students of similar interests and with professors or guest speakers will provide them with an extensive network that will serve them professionally and beyond. We expect that a budget of around $3,000 will be enough to provide our members with an enriching experience for the whole academic year. Please help us reach our goal. We appreciate your continuous support! Projected Budget About our BSJ Members What year are we? What are we studying? Where are we from? What science publications are we consuming? Learn more about us through our social media! Website: bsj.berkeley.edu Instagram: @bsj.berkeley Facebook: Berkeley Scientific Feel free to contact us at bsj.berkeley@gmail.com
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PASG: Helping Patients Navigate Their Healthcare
By UC Berkeley
Our team of UC Berkeley undergrads work as patient navigators, scribes, and health coaches to help UCSF patients in need of healthcare support.
Our team of UC Berkeley undergrads work as patient navigators, scribes, and health coaches to help UCSF patients in need of healthcare support. The U.S. Healthcare System, especially at a major hospital, is challenging to navigate. The Patient Advocacy Student Group at UC Berkeley is here to help. Our program recruits and trains UC Berkeley undergraduates to be healthcare navigators, scribes, and health coaches for UCSF Medical Center and its patients, especially populations that face additional barriers to an accessible healthcare experience. Our program is important because we not only provide cost-free support to patients in-need through a variety of departments and programs, but also cultivate future healthcare professionals and develop their competencies in health navigation, patient care, and digital healthcare management systems. UC Berkeley undergrads are badged as UCSF interns and integrated into the healthcare system as affiliate employees. This is one of the only universities in the U.S. that affords this opportunity to their undergraduates. Students really take advantage of this amazing experience and enjoy interacting with patients. Here are some testimonials: “This apprenticeship has been the highlight of my time at Berkeley. It has given me a chance to help patients in difficult medical situations, and as a pre-health undergraduate, this is important to me.” “It is a great opportunity to get clinical experience and work with like-minded people who care about creating a change in health care.” “We have a great deal of autonomy when working with patients, and it is also a rewarding experience because the patients really do appreciate the service that we give them.” Additionally, our budget breakdown is as follows: Supplies: $300 Clearance: $1300 Other Supplies/Events: $400 Contact Info: Christine Wan - christineqw@berkeley.edu Isha Pema - ipema@berkeley.edu Sana Desai - sana.desai@berkeley.edu Saffy Sumra - saffy24@berkeley.edu
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Food Collective, Decade 2
By UC Berkeley
Berkeley Student Food Collective: the student-run grocery store supporting food justice and food security turns 10 — help us thrive in our second decade open!
Berkeley Student Food Collective: the student-run grocery store supporting food justice and food security turns 10 — help us thrive in our second decade open! Ten years ago a few dozen students came together to take back their food system from corporate interests; they ended up creating the nation's most radical grocery store. We are the Berkeley Student Food Collective: a student group working to provide more accessible, more sustainable, and healthier food to the Berkeley community — while learning how to run a democratic business in the process. We've run our nonprofit, volunteer-run collective across from Lower Sproul entirely by student volunteers for ten years; we want your help making our next decade even better. We're requesting your support for our Decade 2 fundraising campaign to grow our student-developed work fighting food insecurity, supporting local farmers and vendors, and creating more experiential education opportunities. But your support goes beyond our individual programs and operation. It goes toward keeping an ever-larger part of the food system out of corporate hands and in the democratic commons. It goes toward ensuring that the community served by our grocery store remains in control of it. It helps us secure a food system for people — not profit. Budget This campaign is dedicated to growing capacity for our core programs. Your contribution will go directly toward: increasing the availability of local produce from farmers otherwise marginalized from the food system and organic growers at up to 50% off for EBT users; funding visionary student-designed programming educating peers about systemic issues in the food system; funding dignified food jobs for students; developing and funding new strategic initiatives; and core operating costs of running our nonprofit organization & storefront. We can't wait to build the next ten years with you. Contacts: Melina Webb Board Chair Chair@foodcollective.org Jeff Noven Executive Director Director@foodcollective.org
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UCB Symphony Orchestra Tour to Spain - Summer 2017
By Andrea Mich
Help send music by Berkeley composers to Spain with the UC Berkeley Symphony Orchestra, in the summer of 2017, where we will play four concerts in four cities!
Help send music by Berkeley composers to Spain with the UC Berkeley Symphony Orchestra, in the summer of 2017, where we will play four concerts in four cities! The UC Berkeley Symphony Orchestra (UCBSO) will soon embark on its second international tour to Spain! This tour will invite unique opportunities for rich cross-cultural exchange. While abroad, the orchestra members will be ambassadors for our campus, showcasing the unique musical talents of our university’s performers and composers in four distinguished halls. They will also have the opportunity to experience the deep and vivid culture of four major Spanish cities, enriching their time at UC Berkeley. We need the participation of as many of our members as possible in order for this tour to be a success. Unfortunately, a great portion our students do not have the financial means necessary to cover the cost of this tour. We are thrilled to have an increased number of new talented students in the orchestra this spring semester. Therefore, in order to accommodate this growth, we need your help! Your contribution can ensure that none of our students miss this tour due to a lack of resources, and all of them may learn and grow from this unique opportunity! With its 90-year history, the UCBSO is the longest standing orchestra in the UC system. The diversity of our members makes this group a special and vital part of our community. Our ensemble maintains a high standard of musicianship and performance, and yet, the majority of our musicians are not music majors. In every corner of the orchestra, there are undergraduate and graduate students at the top of their fields, involved in cutting-edge developments that are changing the world. However, the 100+ members of our orchestra never fail to meet twice a week to rehearse our difficult repertoire, driven and united together by our combined passion for music. While our members are improving the world with their personal research, our orchestra is improving our community by making it a more inclusive and united space through music. Help us all get to Spain, and make a contribution today! Thank you!
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The Berkeley Forum: Dollars for Discourse
By UC Berkeley
The Berkeley Forum, a non-partisan student group that hosts debates, talks, and panels, needs your support to further expand in and engage new communities.
The Berkeley Forum, a non-partisan student group that hosts debates, talks, and panels, needs your support to further expand in and engage new communities. Who We Are The Berkeley Forum is a non-partisan, student-run organization at the University of California, Berkeley. Established in 2012, the Forum hosts debates, panels, and talks by leading experts from a wide variety of fields. The Forum is an integral piece of the Berkeley campus we call home. It is an unmatched opportunity for students, faculty, and community members to come together (always for free!) and engage with the most pressing ideas of our time. Our platform not only allows experts to share their knowledge with an interested, intelligent audience, but also allows the audience to interact with and challenge the ideas being posed to them. The Forum’s history is filled with many such events from a variety of distinguished speakers. Over the past few semesters, we have hosted Chief Justice of California Tani-Cantil Sakauye, Mythbusters Co-Host Jamie Hyneman, US Senator Rand Paul, Radiolab Co-Host Robert Krulwwich, ACLU President Susan Herman, Head of the Pixar Research Group Tony DeRose, and Pulitzer Prize winner David Fahrenthold. How Your Support Helps Unfortunately, we receive limited funds from the university which only covers a fraction of the costs of our events. Many times, Forum members pay out of their own pockets for events. Thus, we are hoping to receive support from the broader campus community to continue to put on events for the broader campus community. Our current semester includes a record 16 debates, panels, and talks. As our organization seeks to consistently reach new audiences and promote more viewpoints, our limitations as a completely student-run nonprofit have created barriers that inhibit these goals. With your support, we hope to overcome this through the following 3 initiatives: (1) $1500 to increase the number of debates and panels. As opposed to our talks, which only feature one speaker, our debates and panels often feature 2-4 speakers which can multiply costs of an event significantly. For instance, flying one speaker out from the East Coast can cost $500, but flying two speakers costs $1000. As a result, we limit the number of debates and panels we can put on. $1500 of this crowdfunding campaign will thus be used for organizing more debates and panels and thus diversify our platform even more. (2) $1500 to attract more high-profile speakers. High-profile speakers often cost the Forum more money because of higher venue costs (bigger venues cost more money), higher transport and accommodation costs (many high-profile speakers are not based in the Bay Area), and higher security fees due to recent events. We hope to allocate $1000 towards accommodating such speakers and exposing the Berkeley community to more well-known speakers. Hosting just one high-profile speaker includes costs such as transport ($400 flight), accommodation ($100 hotel/night), security ($300), marketing ($100), and venue ($600), totaling $1500. (3) $1000 to host more events at off-campus venues. This year, we will not be able to use many of the venues we used to get for free (especially in the Haas School of Business) because of changes in administrative rules. As a result, we will end up having to spend more money on venue rentals. To compensate for this, we would like to allocate $1000 towards increased venue costs as well as towards hosting more events in venues that are off-campus to make them more accessible. The Berkeley Forum is excited to expose our community to incredible ideas and diversity of thought, which is why your support is CRUCIAL. Follow us on Social Media! https://www.facebook.com/berkeleyforum/ https://www.instagram.com/berkeleyforum/ https://twitter.com/berkeleyforum
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Berkeley Scientific Journal FA’18
By UC Berkeley
BSJ is the premier undergraduate research journal and a DeCal (student-run course). Donations will go to printing the Fall 2018 issue and increasing readership.
BSJ is the premier undergraduate research journal and a DeCal (student-run course). Donations will go to printing the Fall 2018 issue and increasing readership. The Berkeley Scientific Journal (BSJ) is the premier undergraduate research journal of the University of California, Berkeley. BSJ was initially founded as an official forum for Berkeley undergraduates to publish their independent research. But since its inception in 1996, the journal has expanded to give the Berkeley community a better understanding of how research at Berkeley affects the world and vice versa. In the process, we strive to promote scientific literacy, empower young scientists, and help bridge the gap between the scientific and non-scientific communities. Our undergraduate staff publishes features articles on current issues in science, interviews with faculty members, and faculty-reviewed independent research done by undergraduates at UC Berkeley. A new issue of BSJ is published every semester on Issuu, eScholarship, and our website. BSJ operates as both a DeCal (student-facilitated course) and a student organization. The purpose of the DeCal is to give members an opportunity to improve their scientific communication skills, learn more about the history and social impact of science journalism, and explore career opportunities in the space through guest lectures. DeCal students choose to work in one of the four journal departments (Features, Interviews, Research/Blog, and Layout) led by department editors (student facilitators). The focus of the journal is broad. BSJ members in recent semesters have included students from various disciplines such as computer science, biology, physics, economics, and many more. This year, the dream of our editorial team is to 1) increase BSJ readership as much as possible both inside and outside the Berkeley community and 2) secure enough funding to publish the Fall 2018 issue in print for the first time. Each BSJ issue represents the dedication and talent of our students who produce high quality, interesting work. Can you make a gift today to help make this a reality? We believe that BSJ has the potential to become a popular science journal that can enrich and entertain readers, providing them with a window into fresh student perspectives and bold, unconventional ideas. To this end, we plan to attend the Bay Area Science Festival, which is one of the largest science festivals in the US with over 70,000 visitors each year. There, we will host a hands-on activity at our booth to amuse visitors, hopefully encouraging them to read BSJ and subscribe to our email list. Additionally, in the spring, we would love to host up to two campus-wide science outreach events. For the first event, we plan to invite a journalist from the National Geographic to speak about his/her career and travels. Towards the end of the year, we would also like to host a research slam competition in collaboration with other campus organizations such as ULAB and the Office of Undergraduate Research. At the slam, undergraduates would present their research in a three-minute dynamic oral presentation judged by campus faculty. Finally, we seek to print the Fall 2018 BSJ issue and distribute it around campus through the PMC Publication Distribution Program. Please help us fulfill our dream - we appreciate your consideration to donate immensely! Thank you! Check out our social media: Facebook: @BerkeleyScientific BSJ website: http://bsj.berkeley.edu Twitter: BSJBerkeley Instagram: bsj.berkeley Feel free to contact us at bsj.berkeley@gmail.com.
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Primer: Molecular Biology for Students
By A Primer on Molecular Biology
Primer prepares students for undergraduate research in molecular biology. With your help, our class can have more access to research experience!
Primer prepares students for undergraduate research in molecular biology. With your help, our class can have more access to research experience! A Primer on Molecular Biology Thanks to the support and backing of our generous donors, we’ve reached past our goal of $2500!! Further donations will help Primer better streamline our research experience day with more pipettes for students and increase our ability to purchase laboratory consumables. If you share our passion for the field of molecular biology and increasing student access to doing science in a research setting, then please consider making a gift today and sharing our story. Thank you so much, and Go Bears!! A Primer on Molecular Biology is a student-run course whose goal is to enable undergraduates to succeed in research by providing insight into the basic techniques utilized in any molecular biology lab. Primer is open to all students at Cal, and is targeted toward those who intend to do biology research during their time here. Please help us create the best research experience for other students by making a gift today! Our Story Undergraduate research can prove to be a valuable and rewarding journey that inspires future career decisions and leads to lifelong relationships. However, the transition from lower-division coursework to research in the biomedical sciences requires a steep learning curve. The knowledge needed to succeed in a research environment is often not explicitly taught in any lower division course, and synthesizing it on one’s own can be daunting - leaving many undergraduates with little idea of how their research really works. What differentiates the Primer course from lower-division laboratory courses is our commitment to democratizing education: the instructors of Primer are undergraduate researchers themselves, and are thus in a prime position to enable the students of the course to do their best in a research environment. They do this by imparting general lessons from their own experience at Cal, as well as their specific expertise with molecular biology techniques. Through a combination of lectures, homework, guest speaker panels, and workshops, our students learn about the theory and science behind the most common techniques undergraduates encounter in research labs. The goal of Primer is to facilitate students’ transition into the research laboratory, providing them with the foundation to make the most out of their research experiences. Every semester, the Primer team hosts a full-day hands-on lab experience for its students, as well as demonstrations throughout the semester. This experience is the most essential part of the course for students because it guides them through a real research experiment and supplies them the tools to carry it out. Students who attempt these labs consistently report that they feel better prepared than their peers upon entering a lab. From our personal experiences in the laboratory, we strongly believe that the best way for our students to apply the research techniques they have learned throughout the course is through practicing those same techniques using the same equipment and procedures that they will encounter once they join a lab. Funding this DeCal goes a long way to ensuring this lab experience can be conducted every semester, giving students of the course the ability to hit the ground running and take control of their research projects faster than most undergraduates. Our Goal Please make a gift today and help us spread the word! Supporting this crowdfunding project puts students of the course in the best position to succeed in a research lab, and thus increases the effectiveness of research done at the university. Your contributions will fund demonstrations and hands-on workshops in class, allowing students to practice important skills using the same equipment they will encounter in a research lab. The combination of theory and practice will supply a vital foundation to students in the field of molecular biology that empowers them to succeed in the research environment. By funding this “by students, for students” experience, you can spark a student’s passion for research and help them advance a field that is revolutionizing our world today. You can find us on our Facebook page: A Primer on Molecular Biology Thank you so much for your support!
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Outlets for Change: Renewable Microgrid for Rural Uganda
By Austin Cappon
CAL-RAE needs your help to implement its unique solar microgrid system--opening doors for local businesses, health clinics, and students in a Ugandan village.
CAL-RAE needs your help to implement its unique solar microgrid system--opening doors for local businesses, health clinics, and students in a Ugandan village. This project has ended, but you can still support amazing Berkeley initiatives by visiting give.berkeley.edu. Your continued support of our students, faculty and staff will ensure that Berkeley remains the #1 public university. Go Bears! Introduction This spring California - Renewable and Adaptive Energy (CAL-RAE) will pilot their solar microgrid design, bringing low-carbon, round-the-clock power to 15-20 entrepreneurs and families on Kitobo, a fishing island in Lake Victoria. Your contribution will help CAL-RAE double the capacity of the system this summer and provide the momentum needed to extend this sustainable design to thousands of people in Uganda and beyond. Globally more than a billion people have no access to electricity and find it difficult to study for school, safely store certain medications, and power machines for business. Many make their living from the land or sea, their livelihood dependent on a healthy climate. They need electricity to expand opportunity, and it must be clean. In Uganda about 93% of the rural population has no access to the electric grid. These communities are not, however, sitting in the dark, resigned to their fate. Local entrepreneurs and households invent creative solutions to make do with a few hours of electricity every day from inefficient, dirty, and noisy diesel generators. Many have no power at all. The lack of reliability and high costs of these systems constrain business, health care, and education--all of which can improve quality of life in a sustainable way. CAL-RAE breaks this cycle through innovative technical and financial models for affordable solar power systems in off-grid communities. CAL-RAE Story CAL-RAE is a UC Berkeley-based interdisciplinary group that researches and implements off-grid energy access in the developing world. The group won a United Nations SEED Initiative Award in 2013 for their design of an off grid system for rural Vietnam. CAL-RAE is affiliated with Berkeley's Energy and Resources Group (ERG) as well as BERC. Its members come from not only engineering, but also the natural and social sciences, encouraging socially sustainable perspectives and durable systems. The common bond is a committment to renewable electricity access as a tool for promoting community welfare. CAL-RAE believes that only ecologically and economically viable solutions will create lasting change, and focuses its efforts on removing barriers through technology transfer and alternative business models. Microgrid Kitobo Island, on Lake Victoria, Uganda has no electricity grid. Currently, a patchwork of diesel generators supply sporadic, dirty, and expensive power. Businesses rely on this to light their store fronts, refrigerate their products, and run equipment for the local fishing industry. Homes are lit by kerosene lanterns that cause toxic indoor air pollution and pose burn risks, especially among woman and children. The local pharmacist describes how his business will benefit from refrigeration. Residences and businesses are eager for modern energy; during CAL-RAE’s site visit, its researchers heard many stories from entrepreneurs about business plans that would only be possible with affordable, full-time electricity. Inspired by lessons learned in both the field and laboratory, CAL-RAE has designed a lightweight, modular solar microgrid, designed to supply renewable, efficient, and reliable power to Kitobo. Customer electricity payments will cover system maintenance and provide justification for the private or public investment necessary for a broader impact. The initial group of connections will include about a dozen homes and businesses that have explicitly demonstrated a need for reliable power. Construction of the infrastructure has begun. CAL-RAE has assembled nine of its custom-design "solar trees" and pre-wired all of the solar power electronics, at their California workshop (shown below). The full prototype system, Kitobo 1, is now en route to Uganda. CAL-RAE team member Jonathan Lee assembles a “solar tree” rack for panels. The first shipment of solar trees begins its journey from Northern California to East Africa. Beyond providing electric services to the community, CAL-RAE will train local technicians to maintain the system, providing the necessary education and creating a demand for skilled jobs in the region. A local shopkeeper included in the first expansion of the microgrid. Crowdfunding Renewable-based microgrids are affordable to operate, as they use available natural resources. Because the entire system is purchased up front, and many communities are unable to secure credit for a loan, some systems never get off the ground. CAL-RAE has secured funding to electrify a first group of customers. With your help, we will expand the reach of the system this summer, bringing more people the power they need, and creating the momentum necessary for a sustainable economic model. CAL-RAE is reaching out to its communities to fund additional connections at Kitobo and unlock income generating opportunities across the island. A local child and the fishing fleet. Fisherman are eager to use locally produced ice to preserve their catch. Goal: CAL-RAE intends to raise $15,000, which will provide electrification to the entire “city center.” With $25,000, the grid can be further expanded to reach more households. Timeline Budget System power electronics: $6,000 Solar Trees (panel and racking): $4,000 Distribution lines: $2,500 Metering hardware: $2,500
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Cal Lightweight Rowing (Spring 2019)
By Brittney Nguyen
As one of the last lightweight rowing programs left on the West Coast, we need your help in staying club-level national champions!
As one of the last lightweight rowing programs left on the West Coast, we need your help in staying club-level national champions! From our crew to yours, please consider making a gift towards Cal Lights! Varsity Men heading off to gold medal in the men's light 4+ event. Meet the Team California Lightweight Rowing (formerly California Lightweight Crew) is a club team formed in the 1970s to give athletes of all sizes a chance at the sport. Today, we are the only team in the western United States dedicated to both men's and women's lightweight rowing. As a club team, we raise most of our funds ourselves, with dedicated support from our families and alumni, while trying to make the sport as affordable as possible for our student athletes. Despite this, members often times end up paying out of pocket for major championships such as San Diego Crew Classic, WIRAs (Western Championships), and ACRAs (Club Nationals) while bearing the weight of being a full time student. Our novices at Head of the American, Oct 2018. As of December 2018, we have officially moved out of our boathouse at Jack London Aquatic Center. We had to invest a significant amount of our savings to aid in the transition between locations. As we're gearing up to get back onto the water, we will be fixing up much of our very outdated and well-worn equipment and hope to use funds from this campaign to do so. Despite the challenges we encountered this past fall, we hope to make an appearance at the following regattas with your help! UC Challenge Cup (Irvine, CA) — March 2, 2019 WIRA Championships (Sacramento, CA) — April 28–29, 2019 Dad Vail Regatta (Philadelphia, PA) — May 10–11, 2019 ACRA National Championships (Gainesville, GA) — May 24–26, 2019 Where is Your Money Going? Stay Updated! Website: lightweightcrew.berkeley.edu Facebook: California Lightweight Rowing Instagram: @cal_lightweights For any questions, please contact callightweightrowing@gmail.com.
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Expanding Your Horizons at Berkeley 2021
By Erin Aisenberg
Help sponsor 5-8th grade girls' participation in a day-long EYH conference to inspire and to foster the next generation of STEM womxn.
Help sponsor 5-8th grade girls' participation in a day-long EYH conference to inspire and to foster the next generation of STEM womxn. Who Are We Expanding Your Horizons at Berkeley is a group of graduate students, post-docs and undergraduate womxn* from a broad range of STEM departments (chemistry, molecular and cellular biology, neuroscience, biophysics, etc), experiences and ethnic backgrounds at UC Berkeley. We want to share our passion for STEM subjects with younger womxn and girls, to encourage them to pursue STEM subjects in their future studies and careers. In the United States, cultural gender stereotypes dictate that women are less capable of excelling in STEM fields than men. This stereotype manifests in both an achievement gap for girls at the K-12 level in STEM subjects, as well as in the underrepresentation of women in STEM professions. Research has shown that particularly middle school represents a critical period in which young women first begin to question whether STEM subjects are “for them” and lose interest in STEM fields. EYH at Berkeley aims to encourage middle school girls to explore and participate in STEM activities by giving them access to education and mentorship from womxn in STEM fields, reducing the attrition of young women from science and mathematics fields. Founded in 2012, EYH at Berkeley hosts an annual conference where over 400 middle school girls from the East Bay Area community have the opportunity to visit the UC Berkeley campus and explore STEM subjects through hands-on workshops led by female mentors that are experts in their fields. The EYH conference offers an exciting keynote speaker, a full day of hands-on workshops, and opportunities for the girls to closely interact with undergraduate and graduate student mentors working in STEM related fields. The 2021 conference featured 14 unique and engaging workshops that were prepared and supervised throughout the day by 46 volunteers from a wide range of STEM departments of the UC Berkeley campus including: Microscopic & X-Ray Vision These aren’t just science fiction super powers! Join us as we take a tour of the body in ways you’ve never seen it before: super up close and way deep inside. Together, we’ll learn the basics of how to read medical and dental x-rays, how different organs look under a microscope, the science of how they both work, and a little bit about the jobs of doctors and dentists. Science of Slime We all love to play with slime, but how do you make it? In this workshop you will become an engineer at a toy company! We will conduct a series of stretchiness and bounciness experiments to make the perfect slime. Surviving the Wild It’s a dangerous world out there! Learn how animals adapt to their environment by changing their bodies and behavior over time. Get a lesson in natural selection, and then test it out for yourself with an animal of your own creation! Can you survive the wild? This year, we are still determining the format of our conference. Last year, we were one of the few EYH chapters around the country that was able to successfully hold our conference virtually, while maintaining the interactive learning and mentorship experiences that students get in person. 2021 Conference Although the conference was moved to a remote setting last year, we still had the opportunity to reach 236 young science enthusiasts from the East Bay Area and even a few international students. The participants had the opportunity to immerse themselves in a full day of hands-on exploration, ranging from introductions to plant biology and analytical instrumentation using folding microscopes to coding their own music pieces. The day was topped off by our keynote speaker, Raven Baxter. Raven Baxter is a molecular biologist who has excelled in her work towards education and science communication. She was recognized by Fortune magazine’s “40 under 40” for her work as founder of STEMbassy, an organization focused on STEM education advocacy. During her keynote speech, Raven explored her career choices, the challenges she faced in her journey, the failures and successes that have shaped her identity as a scientist and led her to find her own space within the scientific community. In order to overcome the engagement challenges of the remote format of last year’s conference, participants were sent materials kits including all the materials necessary for the workshops, information flyers regarding STEM education, a conference T-shirt including our generous sponsors. Importantly, our organization is committed to making the conference accessible and fair to those from underrepresented and disadvantaged backgrounds. Last year, thanks to the generosity of our sponsors, we were able to offer the conference free of charge to all participants for the first time. How Your Support Helps Despite the hundreds of volunteers that will donate their time to the EYH conference, it still costs over $25,000 to provide a day of interactive learning for over four hundred girls (this amounts to less than $60 per participant!). We are committed to ensuring the conference remains accessible for all young women and therefore ask for only $15 per student in registration fees. Furthermore, we are committed to honoring every single scholarship request. Your donation to the EYH conference at Berkeley will have a significant impact on our ability to inspire the next generation of female scientists, engineers, and mathematicians. With your support, we hope to be able to offer 400 conference scholarships to young girls across the Bay Area, ensuring that our STEM education program is accessible regardless of socioeconomic status. 2016 – 466 registered 2017 – 461 registered 2018 – 390 registered 2019 – 428 registered 2020 – 450 registered 2021 – 236 registered We are seeking $6,000 to sponsor 400 girls to participate in the conference. The cost for each girl to attend the conference is $15 which includes an EYH at Berkeley T-shirt, all the necessary materials sent to them for workshops they are interested in, and mentorship from UC Berkeley graduate students, post-docs, and undergraduates in STEM. Last year, while our conference was virtual, we were able to use our funds to send each registered participant an at-home workshop kit that included all of the materials to participate in hands-on workshops. Additionally, all parents will have the opportunity to participate in a parents’ workshop to learn how to support and prepare their child for a college education and explore ways to foster their interest in STEM fields. Your support for the EYH conference at Berkeley will have a significant impact on our ability to inspire the next generation of female scientists, engineers, and mathematicians. Please consider donating and sharing our page with your friends and family! Thank you! Keep in touch with Expanding Your Horizons at Berkeley by following our social media pages below! Website: https://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~eyh/index.html Instagram: @eyhatberkeley https://www.instagram.com/eyhatberkeley/ Facebook: Expanding Your Horizons at Berkeley Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/EYHatBerkeley/ Twitter: @EYHatBerkeley https://twitter.com/eyhatberkeley?lang=en Questions? Email us at eyhberkeleyinfo@gmail.com or contact Erin Aisenberg, co-chair of the Finance team, directly at erinaisenberg@berkeley.edu. Want to learn more about the network of Expanding Your Horizons conferences powered by Techbridge girls? Visit their website! * As a community, we understand that there is no single story when it comes to being womxn and we recognize the systemic oppression of marginalized genders. Our use of the “x” in womxn demonstrates our intentional effort to recognize that there are also feminine-identifying, non-binary, and genderqueer people who experience the effects of sexism and genderism. We welcome all young womxn, including those who identify as transgender, non-binary, or genderqueer
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Project RISHI
By Project RISHI at UC Berkeley
Project RISHI at UC Berkeley strives to promote the sustainable development and growth of Bharog Baneri, India.
Project RISHI at UC Berkeley strives to promote the sustainable development and growth of Bharog Baneri, India. Project RISHI at UC Berkeley Project RISHI (Rural India Social & Health Improvement) is a student run non-profit organization whose mission is to promote the sustainable development and growth of rural Indian communities. Currently, our chapter works in a village called Bharog Baneri in Himachal Pradesh, India on initiatives that include: rainwater harvesting, education, health camps, and women's empowerment. We are currently expanding our existing projects to make a bigger impact on our 2019 India Trip, and we would love to get support to implement the following: Rainwater Harvesting The funds for rainwater harvesting will go towards our rainwater catchment systems materials. This includes pipes, tanks, power tools, and informational guides. This is our most expensive project because we need to purchase the materials for each house. Education Education is working to provide information and resources for post secondary education opportunities. This will include hosting a panel with working professionals to discuss different career avenues and distributing pamphlets for a tangible resource that students can refer to. Remaining funds from this event will go to teacher learning materials that are given to primary schools. Women’s Empowerment The funds allotted for our Women’s Empowerment project group will be directed towards the organization of a women’s health camp that will be held in Bharog Baneri. This camp will involve inviting health care professionals and doctors to speak to local women to better inform them about health issues that may be affecting them. Health: The funds allotted for our Health project group will be directed towards the organization of local cancer screenings and implementing a telemedicine system in Bharog Baneri. The telemedicine system involves ensuring the technological capacity of the village’s local centers (such as the computer lab at the school) on top of funding remaining telemedicine infrastructure, such as necessary software. Our crowdfunding budget breakdown is as follows: Project RISHI Berkeley is excited to bring our passion for rural sustainable development to upcoming projects in Bharog Baneri this summer. At RISHI, making a difference is rooted in learning about other communities and listening to them rather than imposing our own vision. With your help, we as a community can work towards empowering others and confront the challenges that Bharog Baneri faces. If you have any questions, please reach out to our Director of Fundraising at srividhyashanker@berkeley.edu or send us a message on our social media platforms: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ucbprojectrishi/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ucbprojectrishi/
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ANova Hacks 2018
By ANova
ANova is a student organization dedicated to spreading computer science education across the Bay Area. Help us fund a 2-day hackathon for our students!
ANova is a student organization dedicated to spreading computer science education across the Bay Area. Help us fund a 2-day hackathon for our students! ANova Our team hopes to raise $5000 for our annual hackathon. We will use the money to provide our under-resourced students with the best experience possible. Would you be interested in supporting our cause? A hackathon is rooted in the simple, but complex world of "creation". During hackathons, teams come together to bring one of their own ideas into tangible reality using technology. Regardless of their interest in computer science, students are exposed to the wonders of technology and its impact on our world. Together, we can inspire the next generation of innovators to hack to new heights. Computer Science has consistently been more prevalent in communities with consistent access to computers and the tech industry. However, a significant amount of potential computer scientists don’t have these opportunities and that’s where ANova Hacks fits in: A Hackathon specially for students in under-resourced communities to instill the belief into our students that each one of them can change the world through a 4 year college degree and through the power of technology. We hope to empower our students through this hackathon so that they can transcend the limits of their circumstance and ignite a passion towards becoming an engineer in the future. We hope that you can be a part of this journey and help us make this possible for our students! Our hackathon aims to empower our students to not only pursue a 4 year degree and but also aspire towards using technology for social good. We aim to give them the skills and experience necessary to spread their ideas to the world through technology as well as recognize their career aspirations. We imagine a diverse tech industry where age, gender and background do not limit one’s ability to pursue computer science, and the mission of ANova Hacks is to make that a reality. Here are some of our demographics for our previous hackathon! We’ll have to different types of workshops: pursuing higher education and tech workshops. There will be workshops and panels about financial aid, college life and the application process inspire students to pursue higher education. On the other hand, we have exciting workshops that teach them how to build websites, apps, games, and more! Finally, we’ll be presenting a firsthand look at virtual reality, gaming, information security, artificial intelligence and more to provide students with an exciting look into the forefront of technological innovation. Throughout this whole process, each student will have access to mentorship from passionate UC Berkeley students. Above all, ANova Hacks is about forming friendships with these students and empowering them so that they have the resources they need to achieve their goals. We ultimately hope raise $12,000 for our hackathon so that we can run as many workshops as we’d like in a spacious venue with awesome prizes for our hackers. These $5,000 is only the first step in our journey to reaching $12,000. We hope that you’ll be a part of our movement to bring Computer Science to as many people as possible! Our goal for this crowdfunding campaign is to raise enough money to fund our venue and food for our Hackathon and be able to provide an amazing experience to our students free of charge. If we raise over $5000, we'll spend that money towards providing lunch, dinner, and prizes for our hackathon! ANova is registered student organization in UC Berkeley dedicated to improving computer science education in under resourced communities across the Bay Area. We partner with middle and high school teachers and administrators to develop curriculum catered individually for each classroom. Our outreach and mentorship efforts strive to introduce students of all backgrounds to computer science. We currently reach out to over 100 students at 9 different middle/high school programs. To be considered for our program, each one of these schools must provide above 40% free and reduced lunch. Every site has its own curriculum catered to its own specific needs. As part of our mission, we also host ANova Hacks annually, an event dedicated to showing the wonders of computer science to our students. To truly expose our students to what industry is like, ANova has partnered with industry leaders in promoting computer science education like Google, Github, and Make School to provide swag and panelists for our Hackathon. Our sponsors have made previous Hackathons possible with their invaluable experience in helping out with workshops and panels to give our students the full experience. We would like to thank them below for making ANova Hacks amazing! Your support will help make this possible. Please donate today! Thank you for your support! To find out more about us, visit us at berkeleyanova.org or facebook.com/BerkeleyANova.
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Magnifying & Documenting Healthcare in Ethiopia
By UC Berkeley
Magnifying & Documenting Healthcare in Ethiopia is a project initiated by three UC Berkeley students who are passionate about improving healthcare in Ethiopia.
Magnifying & Documenting Healthcare in Ethiopia is a project initiated by three UC Berkeley students who are passionate about improving healthcare in Ethiopia. As a team of young millennials of Ethiopian and Eritrean descent, we find the question of our identity a mix between our American values and our East African traditions. We are first generation college students, minorities, and come from working class families. It is through our identities as Ethiopian-American and Eritrean-American that we found a community of students that carry the same traditions and culture in our Horn of Africa Student Association (HASA). HASA is a student organization advocating for unity and peace amongst UC Berkeley East Africans and will sponsor our goal to document the healthcare system in Ethiopia. Three students from HASA will go to Ethiopia and carry out this mission. Will you help us by making a gift today? As first generation Americans and college students we have the privilege and access to stable health care and education. Unfortunately, that is not the case for many of our countrymen in Ethiopia as their healthcare system lacks in sustainability and accessibility. This issue of healthcare and poverty is not singular to Ethiopia, instead it is something that is occurring all over the continent of Africa but it has been overshadowed by politics and poverty. By bringing light to this issue, we can start taking steps toward alleviating the burden of what it means to be “sick” in a third-world country. We will then turn these narratives, that are so hardly heard, into a video documentary that will be showcased on all of our platforms, including a possible screening at UC Berkeley. We hope to use this opportunity to shine light on an issue that has been overlooked for decades, and possibly be the spark that ignites change. Following the release of our documentary, we will be doing a second round of fundraising to raise money for hospital supplies being sent out to the specific hospitals and rehab centers we featured in our film. It is our way of starting the chain of change, and using our power, privilege, and knowledge as college students. Donating to our project will give a chance to Ethiopian and Eritrean first-generation students to go and make a difference in their homeland, but even more than that, it gives the chance to heal and save the lives of Ethiopians that have struggled far too long. The $4000 will help us cover the cost of traveling to Ethiopia, our stay, and documenting our trip. Overall, this project allows us to create change in the country that quite literally shaped us into the students and people that we are today. It is not a question of why donors should donate to our cause, but why donors should donate to save the lives of people, and honestly if someone holds the ability to save someone’s life, why not? This mission is no longer just about us, but instead for the millions of people that don’t have the means to tell their stories and receive the recognition and spotlight they rightfully deserve. Please make a gift today to help us bring this project into reality. Thank you for your support. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns please contact us through email at ethiopiahealthcare2018@gmail.com .
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Berkeley Moot Court
By Sarah Zhang
New stretch goal set to $3000! Support the Berkeley Moot Court Team in future competitions & help us create scholarships for Mooters!
New stretch goal set to $3000! Support the Berkeley Moot Court Team in future competitions & help us create scholarships for Mooters! NEW STRETCH GOAL OF $3000! None of us could've imagined that we'd reach our initial goal within the first week of launching our campaign! Thank you so, so much to all our donors and supporters for your enormous contribution thus far, and for believing in the future of Berkeley Moot Court. With the rest of February left to crowdfund, we've extended our initial goal by an additional $1000, which would help us further prepare our growing team for future competition seasons. With this money, we plan on adding to our scholarship fund to ensure that all Cal mooters, regardless of financial circumstances, will have equal access and opportunity to compete in regional and national competitions. Additionally, looking ahead to recruiting more talent on campus, a portion of these funds will also help us pay for promotional materials, and purchasing a domain name for our website. The team greatly appreciates all the support we've received so far and are excited to continue our moot court journey as Golden Bears! Thank you! Undergraduate Moot Court Association at Berkeley (UMCAB) is a newly formed organization of over a dozen competition team members and rapidly growing feeder team at UC Berkeley dedicated to fostering valuable legal advocacy skills. UMCAB team members compete in the AMCA’s (American Moot Court Association) regional and national tournaments against over 450 universities across the nation in an experiential exercise that simulates an appellate court proceeding wherein students advocate a position. We are currently raising funds to help pay for our regional and national competition fees, as well as support us in our mission to ensure the longevity of this organization for future generations of Golden Bears! History The organization was founded in the Spring of 2021, by 4 UC Berkeley pre-law students. Even through the obstacles of a remote semester, the team managed to recruit 8 competition team members through zoom auditions and interviews. In its first year of existence, the club sent 6 teams to AMCA regional tournaments, and 2 of these teams were crowned the champions of their respective tournaments. In all, 3 out of the 6 teams qualified for Nationals in January, and 7 out of 12 individual members won awards for finishing in the top 10 best speakers at their respective regional competitions. Mooting: What is it and why do we do it? Moot court continues to be an important element in American legal education today. Students are tasked with arguing appellate cases in a mock-Supreme Court setting -- both orally before a panel of justices and via written briefs -- debating issues ranging from the freedom of speech, to the 5th Amendment rights to privacy and bodily autonomy, to Congress’s legislative power under the Commerce Clause. In pairs of two, each co-counsel is tasked with arguing on behalf of one of two issues presented in the form of a fictitious case drafted by the AMCA. Our members learn: how to read and how to brief precedent Supreme Court cases: Students read a reported case, identify and summarize the relevant facts of a case, find the rule of law within a decision, understand how a court applies the rule, and finally use precedent effectively in their arguments. research techniques, specifically as applied in the legal field: Students research and write a brief on the legal issue involved in the appellate simulation, selecting helpful texts and other resource materials, and navigating through legal research services, such as WESTLAW and LEXIS. professional public-speaking techniques: Through use of self-evaluation and team feedback during practice and final oral argument sessions, students focus on and improve aspects of various communication and presentation techniques such as vocal variation, articulation, body language, etc. 2021-22 Moot Court Case Problem In 2021, as the United States was still recovering from the drastic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on national health and the economy, major media outlets reported outbreaks of polio in major cities of at least five countries. Planes and ships from these cities regularly travel to the United States and travelers are predicted to enter, or have already entered the country. In response to the threat of a national polio pandemic, Congress enacted the Polio Vaccination Act (PVA), which orders all persons engaged in interstate commerce to be “fully vaccinated” or be subject to a fine. Mr. William DeNolf, who lives a remote, and self-sustaining lifestyle has never been vaccinated for polio and refuses to get the vaccination on the grounds that to do so would violate his personal rights. Mr. DeNolf argues that Congress exceeded its authority under the Commerce Clause and violated his 5th amendment rights, when passing the PVA. Issue 1: The first issue in this year’s case poses the question: does Congress have the power under the Commerce Clause to enforce a nationwide polio vaccine mandate? As a facial challenge, petitioner is claiming that the United States Congress does not have the power to implement a nationwide polio vaccine mandate predicated upon ensuring the smooth flow of interstate commerce. Issue 1 competitors had to peruse through cases such as NFIB v. Sebelius, which ruled out Congressional authority to compel commercial activity, Heart of Atlanta Motel v. US, which forced hotels, restaurants, and other private businesses with public accommodations to open up their businesses to Black patrons, and Gonzales v. Raich which upheld the enforcement of the Controlled Substances Act as it pertains to restricting the cultivation of medical marijuana, as well as numerous other cases that were instrumental in construing Congressional Commerce Clause powers. Issue 2: The second issue in this year’s case focused on 5th Amendment Due Process rights, particularly as they relate to bodily autonomy and privacy. In the case problem, Mr. DeNolf claimed that a government vaccine mandate violated his 5th Amendment rights to liberty and privacy. Issue 2 competitors were tasked with reading the court’s decisions in cases such as Griswold v. Connecticut, which granted the right to the use of contraceptives, Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which granted and affirmed a woman’s right to an abortion, Obergefell v. Hodges, which established the right to gay marriage nationwide, and many other real and extremely consequential decisions by the court that relate to 5th and 14th Amendment Due Process rights. Your donation will help pay for six teams’ registration fees for regional tournaments and nationals in our mission to get Cal nationally ranked in our first competition season! Moot court continues to be an important element in American legal education, and we hope that you can support us in our mission to provide academic support, professional development resources, and career opportunities to our members. For more information, check out our website (https://tinyurl.com/berkeleymootcourt), and follow us on instagram (https://www.instagram.com/berkeleymootcourt/) and linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/company/berkeleymootcourt/) If you have any questions about donation matching, long-term sponsorship, please reach out to our Finance Chair at sarah.r.zhang@berkeley.edu. Thank you!
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Māk - STEM Education
By Ankita Joshi
Māk empowers urban youth to become 3D designers. We are raising money to build a public makerspace in Oakland and provide scholarships to our students.
Māk empowers urban youth to become 3D designers. We are raising money to build a public makerspace in Oakland and provide scholarships to our students. Who We Are Māk (pronounced “make”) is a social enterprise whose mission is to empower urban youth to become 3D designers. Our mission is to provide our youth with the STEM and design skills they need to solve important problems facing their own communities. We connect high school students to college engineering and architecture students through a 3-month long 3D design training program. These students, who have experience working with renowned professors and industry professionals, will serve as mentors and teach these students professional-level 3D design skills. After the 3-month training program, the students will work on a 3-month design internship with Māk. During this internship, students will work on real-world projects outsourced by design companies and firms. We are currently partnering with Oakland Technical High School's Fashion, Arts, and Design Academy to bring our 3D design program to all the Advanced Arts students. Our Story Three of us co-founded Māk in 2015: Ankita Joshi (Mechanical Engineering), Michelle Nie (Business), and Aubrey Larson (Public Health). We all met while taking a Social Entrepreneurship class at the Haas School of Business, and we bonded over our shared dream of using STEM education to economically empower youth. We saw 3D printing as a huge opportunity in the job market, and we realized that no youth training program focused solely on such an important skill. Thus, Māk was born to bring 3D printing training to urban high schools! Steps to Success In April 2016, we won 1st Place in the 2016 Big Ideas at Berkeley competition in the Financial Inclusion category. After long, coffee-fueled nights of revising our proposal, we finally won the seed money to start our initiative. We also represented Māk at the Clinton Global Initiative University 2016 conference held at UC Berkeley. We met other students and mentors who were essential to our program's development. And we also got to be in the same room as Bill Clinton, Chelsea Clinton, Salman Khan, Cady Coleman, and John Lewis! Read more in the Berkeley News. #MakItHappen We are raising $5,000 to help build a makerspace inside a public space in Oakland and to help provide scholarships to our students for completing the program. We aim to build a public makerspace, complete with multiple 3D printers, a laser cutter, raw materials, and safety equipment. Our inspiration was Do Space in Omaha, NE. The makerspace is essential to the success of our program because our students will be able to test their own creations and see the tangible results of their design work. It will inspire them even more to become engineers and designers in the future. We will also open up the makerspace to other Oakland Unified School District students and community members who fill out an application. Last but not least, we will provide scholarships to our students at the end of the program to contribute to their higher education and other forms of future learning (we hope they will choose UC Berkeley)! Please help us #MakItHappen and consider making a gift, sharing our campaign with your friends, and following us on Facebook and Instagram! Video Credit: Cal Delta Kappa Alpha
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Women's Club Lacrosse Fall 2021
By Rachel Fong
We pursue competitive exposure to the sport of lacrosse while encouraging leadership, sportsmanship, teamwork, and respect in our players!
We pursue competitive exposure to the sport of lacrosse while encouraging leadership, sportsmanship, teamwork, and respect in our players! The Cal Women's Club Lacrosse team offers our players the chance to play the sport we love at a competitive level against other California club lacrosse teams. We are a student created and student run team with a passion for the game. We would like to raise money for the club in order to allow us to attend tournaments, travel for games, pay our incredible coaching staff, team building and bonding activities, and help us build and grow the team further. Our team was founded in 2008 as a Division II club lacrosse team. After just our second year, we won the WWLL Division II Championship and WDIA Division II Championship in California. We have since moved up to the Division I level, where we compete against other California club programs, including Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, University of Southern California, University of California, Santa Barbara, San Diego State University, St. Mary’s University, and more. Our team for the fall consists of different grade levels and fields of study across campus. We are an incredibly academic and athletic group of women, and lacrosse has helped us play the game we love, and make friends for life, while continuing to learn teamwork and leadership skills. Together, we hope to allow more women to have the opportunity to play an incredible sport, develop leadership and teamwork skills, and overall create a community at strong and tight knit Cal. Please consider making a donation today & sharing this page! By supporting our team, you will be supporting a positive community in which women can develop lifelong skills and friendships, while pursuing their academic interests and having fun playing lacrosse, regardless of financial situation. Here’s what your donation can help us cover this season! For questions or concerns, contact: calclublacrosse@gmail.com Check out our website: http://www.calclublacrosse.org/ Follow us on Facebook and Instagram!
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Berkeley Law Alternative Service Trips
By BLAST
Support Berkeley Law students traveling for spring break to provide critical pro bono legal services across the country.
Support Berkeley Law students traveling for spring break to provide critical pro bono legal services across the country. BLAST OUR MISSION Berkeley Law Alternative Service Trips (formerly Boalt on Break) is a student-led alternative service break organization that gives students the opportunity to provide pro bono legal services in communities outside of the Bay Area. Our students travel to regions across the country, where they work alongside established legal services agencies. BLAST students are striving to do their part to make legal services more accessible to low-income and marginalized communities, and to help push for critical systemic reform. OUR STORY In our first year as an organization, we sent eight students on one trip to eastern Kentucky. Read more about BLAST's inaugural trip here. During BLAST's inaugural trip, Megan, Amanda, Sara, and Caitlan provided crucial pro bono legal services to local community members. During BLAST's inaugural trip, Alex, Benjamin, Jarrod, and Hannah drafted and filed an amicus brief for the Supreme Court of the United States on behalf of the National Black Lung Association. This year, we are thrilled to be sending 48 students on five trips across the United States! But we can't do it without your support. WHERE ARE WE BLASTING OFF TO? 1. California Central Valley Partnering Organization: Central California Legal Services Berkeley Law students certainly need not travel far to work to improve access to legal representation in rural communities. The Central Valley, an agricultural hub that provides more than half of the produce grown in the U.S., is a vibrant, diverse, and economically depressed region. Its residents often live in close proximity to hazardous waste facilities, are forced to cope with water scarcity, and frequently live in food deserts, unable to access or afford much of the produce over which they have labored. The Central Valley is a complex region and defies all stereotypes one might know of California. Students will work to address the justice gap that disproportionately affects rural areas, working with low-income clients in a community not far from their own. 2. Eastern Kentucky Partnering Organizations: Appalachian Research and Education Defense Fund (AppalReD) and Appalachian Citizens' Law Center Lack of adequate legal representation is one of the many ill effects pervasive poverty has wrought on rural Appalachia. Participants in BLAST: Kentucky will travel to the region and engage in both direct legal services and legal research with two eastern Kentucky organizations dedicated to serving vulnerable populations. Areas of focus include black lung benefits claims, pro se divorce proceedings, health and welfare services, and environmental impact. 3. Mississippi Partnering Organization: The Office of State Public Defender BLAST: Mississippi students will contribute to the ongoing fight for criminal justice reform. In the state of Mississippi, students are given unique access to juvenile county court proceedings. Our students will capitalize on this access, traveling across the state to collect data regarding access to and quality of representation, as well as assessing for due process concerns, in juvenile proceedings. Upon return to Berkeley, students will analyze their findings and draft a critical report on the status of indigent juvenile defense, which is particularly important given the otherwise closed nature of juvenile court proceedings. This report will be used by local agencies in their ongoing policy reform efforts. 4. Los Angeles Partnering Organizations: Inner City Law Center and Bet Tzedek The homeless population of Los Angeles could fill a stadium and then some. Legal services agencies in Los Angeles are on the front lines of the fight to prevent homelessness, end homelessness, and mitigate the effects of homelessness on individual's lives. Eight students will spend the week participating in that fight, allowing their partnering organizations to reach more clients in need. Students will provide public benefits assistance to individuals currently assisting homelessness, as well as eviction defense and housing retention services to those at risk of homelessness. 5. South Texas Partnering Organizations: South Texas Pro Bono Asylum Project (ProBAR) and CARA Family Detention Pro Bono Project Under the harsh policies of the current administration, providing direct legal services to detained immigrants is needed more than ever. Only 14% of those detained have access to counsel. Students on the South Texas trip will work to change that. We will split into two teams, working at detention centers near the U.S.-Mexico border. One team will assist at the South Texas Family Residential Center (STFRC) in Dilley, Texas, which is the largest immigrant family detention center in the country, while another team will assist at the Port Isabel Detention Center in Los Fresnos, Texas. This work has never been more important, as immigrants continue to live under the threat of ICE's expansion of power. YOUR SUPPORT BLAST will draw from a number of funding sources in order to keep the trip virtually free for all student participants. This will allow us to recruit a diverse group of students from various socioeconomic backgrounds, many of whom plan to pursue careers in public interest legal work, earning a fraction of what their legal peers in the private sector will earn, despite massive amounts of student loan debt. 100% of your donations will go toward travel expenses, lodging, and meals. For more information, visit our website.
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Inclusive MCB
By Lisa Eshun-Wilson
Help us make Berkeley’s Biological Sciences more welcoming and supportive of graduate students from all backgrounds.
Help us make Berkeley’s Biological Sciences more welcoming and supportive of graduate students from all backgrounds. Over the last 10 years, Berkeley’s Department of Molecular and Cell Biology (MCB) has often been recognized as the top graduate program of its kind. In the latest USNews rankings, Berkeley is tied as #1 with MIT and Stanford in the biological sciences. The department attracts exceptional talent and is known for producing leaders in industry and academia. However, like many universities across the country, Berkeley has struggled to make its graduate programs more attractive to top talent from diverse backgrounds. The problem is not a “pipeline issue” as some might claim. Many programs across the country have shown remarkable success at recruiting and retaining underrepresented minority (URM) students who then achieve high honors in their bachelor degrees in the biological sciences. And recruitment alone won’t solve the problem -- Berkeley needs to cultivate that talent and persuade that top talent that remaining in academia is a promising career choice for them. Since 2009, out of a total of ~400 PhD students, MCB has only successfully recruited 6 African-American women. Of those 6 students, fewer than half have pursued postdocs, and even fewer have pursued careers in academia. These persistently low numbers reinforce a need to improve our recruitment efforts and create a social climate where everyone in the program feels welcomed, supported and motivated to pursue a career in academia. To improve the experiences of our incoming students from underrepresented backgrounds and their allies, we created iMCB+. Founded by Lisa Eshun-Wilson, Michelle Reid, Professor Susan Marqusee and Professor David Weisblat, iMCB+ is a three-pillar initiative to advocate for underrepresented first-year graduate students entering the Department of Molecular Cell Biology at UC Berkeley. The three pillars include 1) a seminar series, 2) faculty mentors, and 3) student luncheons throughout the semester. The program fosters open and honest discussions around student pressures -- both personal (finances, family, and peers) and institutional (implicit bias, stereotype threat, etc.). We strive to create a sense of belonging and understanding among our students and faculty. We would also like to extend a special thank to Professor Diana Bautista and Professor Iswar Hariharan for their brilliant insight and continuous support. The first of its kind, iMCB+ serves to create a space where we can discuss issues and provide concrete solutions to help students recognize and cope with feelings of uncertainty, isolation, and fear. In the Fall of 2018, we had a trial run of the program, but we’d like to ensure that this program not only persists in MCB, but can serve as a model for STEM graduate programs across campus and beyond. Your donation will help us do this by allowing us to perform an assessment of the trial run, and look for ways to improve and grow the program as we move forward. iMCB was founded by students, is run by students, and is for students! We appreciate any gift amount -- all gifts benefit our students. Check out our perks to see what you can receive as tokens of our appreciation! We would love to show our appreciation for our current sponsors: Michael Botchan, Dean of Biological Sciences at UC Berkeley Audrey Knowlton, Biological Sciences Graduate Diversity Director David Drubin and Don Rio, Co-Chairs of the Department of Molecular Cell Biology James Hurley, Director of the UC Berkeley Biophysics Program Kaoru Saijo, HHMI Assistant Professor of Immunology and Pathogenesis Read more about us below: Berkeley Science Review: http://berkeleysciencereview.com/inclusive-mcb/ Our website: https://mcb.berkeley.edu/diversity/inclusive-mcb
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3,000 FOR BRIDGING THE GENDER GAP IN TECH
By Anita Chan
Help us create an inclusive workforce in the fast-growing tech industry. Support FEMTech Berkeley in hosting more events at Cal.
Help us create an inclusive workforce in the fast-growing tech industry. Support FEMTech Berkeley in hosting more events at Cal. Who We Are: FEMTech is the first student organization at UC Berkeley to promote gender diversity and to inspire Cal students from all majors to excel in careers in tech. Through speaker series, mentorship programs, and networking events, FEMTech provides a supportive community for students of all majors and backgrounds to create meaningful connections with like-minded peers. We strongly believe that diversity and inclusion are critical to innovation in the 21st century. We hope to excite new interest in tech while providing support for students who are already in STEM majors. We bring together a network of talented students from various majors who can help form an inclusive workplace that is beneficial for all. Over the summer and during the fall semester, some of our FEMTech members volunteered at Scientific Adventures for Girls, which focuses on getting girls at the elementary school level interested in STEM! We helped them with hands on projects, like the mini bot project pictured here! We're excited to continue volunteering for them and motivating this girls to stay interested in STEM! How support can help: FEMTech Berkeley aims to use crowdfunding to host our biggest campus-wide event this semester – FEMTexpo. This will showcase works created by our talented members since our club’s inception. We will display projects by our robotic and drone teams, as well as works that students have created in our self-paced coding sessions. As one of our largest events of the semester, FEMTexpo will feature a mini career expo, award ceremony, alumni speakers, and a networking session. This event is free and welcoming to everyone who is curious and interested in learning. *PLEASE DONATE TODAY AND HELP US MAKE FEMTEXPO A REALITY* Being a nonprofit, non-exclusive student organization, FEMTech Berkeley depends primarily on donations and limited university grants for support - resources that cover only a fraction of the cost of just a single event with range in attendance from 50-200 students. Associated with the insights, ideas, and voices of 3-5 speakers brought in by each debate/panel are the costs of such large-scale events. Your support is CRUCIAL! Through YOUR support: If we raise $800, we can support our Share team to provide 10 weekly coding lectures. If we raise $1500, we can host an additional 4 talks over Spring 2017. If we raise $3000, we will host FEMTexpo and FEMTech Dine at the end of the semester. FEM Tech Berkeley is excited to expose our diverse community to incredible ideas and inspirations, therefore, please support FEMTech today by clicking the donate button and sharing. FemTech Events and Opportunities: FEMTech Talk A weekly Speaker Series of inspirational leaders from varying fields aiming to demystify tech and promote inclusion and diversity FEMTech Make A hands-on engineering series for all levels of experience. One of the past products of this program was an aqua robot, built by a team of 10 FEMTech members in the invention lab at CITRIS and the Banatao Institute. FEMTech Share A weekly self-paced Coding Session taught by FEMTech's tutors and made available to the entire student body. At these sessions, mentors are also present to provide help to members who need help with personal or class projects. Please support us today by clicking the donate button and sharing. Some of our past FEMTech Talks: Mai Le, Yahoo Search Engine Leader, spoke to members about her path to success and shared her invaluable experience in the tech industry. Top Latina professionals will tell their stories about their journeys in the technology industry and promote diversity in tech. Ashwin, Lead Applications Architect at Intel, shared his experience in robotics, embedded systems, systems architecture, and hardware architecture, as well as his passion of building hardware and software ecosystems that enable others to bring their creative ideas to life. We are very excited to expose our diverse community to incredible ideas and inspirations, therefore, please support FEMTech today by clicking the donate button and sharing. * THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT * Please feel free to contact Anita Chan for further questions at finance.femtech@gmail.com if you have any questions.
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David Tuller's Trial by Error
By UC Berkeley
An investigation into the research behind the CBT/GET paradigm for treatment of the illness variously referred to as ME, CFS, ME/CFS, and CFS/ME.
An investigation into the research behind the CBT/GET paradigm for treatment of the illness variously referred to as ME, CFS, ME/CFS, and CFS/ME. As usual, UC Berkeley has designated October as a month for campus projects to seek tax-deductible gifts through the university's crowdfunding platform. To support my Trial By Error project from January through June of 2022, I am seeking funding for my position (at 65%) as Senior Fellow in Public Health and Journalism at the Center for Global Public Health, which is part of the School of Public Health. Of that amount, approximately $44,000 is for salary, $16,000 for health insurance/employment benefits, and the rest for Berkeley's 7.5 % gift fee. ********** A Short Recap I launched the "Trial By Error" series on Virology Blog in October, 2015, with a 15,000-word investigation of the disastrous PACE trial, which tested cognitive behavior therapy and graded exercise therapy as treatments for the illness or cluster of illnesses variously known as ME, CFS, and ME/CFS. Since then, I have posted hundreds of blogs about that crap piece of research and related issues. I have written articles for major news organizations, authored or co-authored multiple peer-reviewed papers, and given talks in half a dozen countries. Because the symptoms reported by many Long Covid patients overlap with those that characterize ME/CFS, PACE and its bogus findings have finally come under greater public scrutiny. In a widely read September article in The Atlantic about Long Covid, science journalist Ed Yong referred to PACE as "a now-discredited study." It is hard to express the thrill I felt when reading that phrase rendered as a normative statement in such a high-profile venue--even more so when I realized the phrase was linked to my Virology Blog investigation. It actually brought me close to tears. ********** Open Letter to NICE Chief Executive Much has happened recently in this domain. In August, Britain's National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) abruptly delayed the imminent publication of its new and much-improved ME/CFS guideline, based on the objections of powerful medical interests. In response, I organized an open letter to the NICE chief executive, signed by an international roster of more than 120 scientists, physicians, and other experts, urging the agency to publish the new guideline as soon as possible. I re-sent the letter two weeks later, with 30 additional experts signed on, along with more than 130 patient and advocacy organizations, charities, and other groups. Going forward, besides tracking the NICE situation, I plan to keep exposing bad research into psycho-behavioral interventions for ME/CFS and other illnesses that fall under the category of so-called "medically unexplained symptoms," or MUS. And with the pandemic approaching the two-year mark, more and more Long Covid patients are getting diagnosed with ME, CFS or ME/CFS. The biopsychosocial ideological brigades are seeking to colonize Long Covid as they have other fields, and it is important to keep critiquing their research and assumptions. ********** Recent Highlights Here are a few more highlights of my work since the start of the last crowdfunding: *I have posted more than three dozen blogs. Many focused on the NICE guidelines. Others criticized recent studies from the PACE authors and their colleagues, reported developments related to the Lightning Process, and documented the ineffectiveness of CBT as a treatment for MUS. *I have published articles in other journalistic venues. In April, Codastory.com published my investigation of the Lightning Process. In August, I co-wrote a piece for STAT on the implications of the NICE publication delay--including the possible impact on Long Covid patients. In May, Health Affairs published a post I co-wrote called "Paradigm Lost: Lessons For Long COVID-19 From A Changing Approach To Chronic Fatigue Syndrome." *In the academic realm, the Journal of Health Psychology published a rebuttal I co-authored with a colleague of a high-profile paper by Professor Trudie Chalder, one of the lead PACE authors, in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. Another journal, Psychological Medicine, published correspondence I co-wrote with a very smart patient to yet another example of misleading research from Professor Trudie Chalder. *The Journal of Psychosomatic Research published a correction of a study from Professor Peter White, another lead PACE author, based on my complaint. The study, a follow-up to a trial of a self-help graded exercise therapy course, found no benefits for the intervention, but the highlights section failed to mention this inconvenient fact. Now it does. *Also based on my complaints, two other journals--Psychological Medicine and the Journal of the Neurological Sciences—corrected papers that both made inflated claims about the cost of MUS to the National Health Service. The senior author of both papers, Professor Anthony David, is a long-time colleague of Professor Chalder and other proponents of the biopsychosocial approach to ME/CFS and MUS. *I have maintained a consistent presence on Facebook and Twitter, responding to events and drawing attention to bad research and anti-scientific claims. ********** One Final Note Berkeley takes a 5% share as the university's standard fee for gifts, plus 2.5% as a crowdfunding/credit card fee. Therefore, adding 7.5% to your donation will ensure that the full amount you intend is going toward the project itself. The donation is tax-deductible (for US taxpayers at least). Thanks so much for your support. I really appreciate it, especially at this time of global trauma. ********** A link to my original Trial By Error series: https://www.virology.ws/2015/10/21/trial-by-error-i/ A link to all the posts I have written on Virology Blog: http://www.virology.ws/mecfs/
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Formula SAE (Fall 2018)
By Breanna Miscione
Formula SAE is an engineering student organization that designs and builds a small formula-style race car in order to Compete in the Formula SAE Competition.
Formula SAE is an engineering student organization that designs and builds a small formula-style race car in order to Compete in the Formula SAE Competition. Start your engines! Formula SAE is an engineering student organization that designs and builds a small formula-style race car in order to Compete in the Formula SAE Competition in Lincoln, Nebraska every June. Our team is comprised of 60 students from various backgrounds all belonging to at least one of our subsystems: Aerodynamics, Brakes & Driver Interface, Business, Chassis Drivetrain, Engine, Electrical, and Suspension. Since our establishment in 2001, our dedicated members have worked their way from a simple engineering club to one of the top competitors in the nation. Each year we have shown growth in both our engineering design and project management skills. Please support our desire to learn and innovate! Our project runs year-round. Once we finish Competition in June, we begin preparing for the next car by validating our designs during the Summer Testing Phase. This will give us the data we need to further understand our vehicle and improve our designs. During the Fall semester we enter into the Design Phase in which each subsystem undergoes multiple design reviews with sponsors and alumni to ensure that they are working efficiently toward the goals they set at the beginning of the year. Once design is complete, we begin our Manufacturing Phase. During these two months, student machinists make over 300 unique parts for our vehicle and student welders weld our steel space frame chassis. The rest of our members assist by preparing and assembling steel tubes for chassis welding and fabricating foam molds and carbon fiber sheets for the aerodynamic devices. Once we assemble all these components, we move into the Testing Phase. This is the most crucial part of our process as we work to debug the car, validate our designs, and tune the car for optimal performance. At the end of Testing we will be to able to go to Competition fully prepared. Competition itself takes one full week of June. Here our team will be tested on both their knowledge of their designs, as it relates to vehicle dynamics, and their knowledge of the market, as they attempt the sell the car to potential “investors.” Static events include design, fuel efficiency, business, and cost. The car itself is then put to the test in a series of dynamic events that overall test the car's acceleration, cornering performance, and endurance. By the end of the week, the team walks away with great gains of knowledge, achievement of year well-done… and hopefully a trophy! STEM education is important to our members. We constantly strive for innovation and these developments not only help to improve our car for competition but also help improve the our knowledge in design and project management. This would not be possible without sufficient funding so we thank you for your time and consideration. Please show your support today! Below is a point form breakdown of how we plan on using the $10,000 budget. $4000: Carbon Fiber Aerodynamic development & Carbon Fiber Wheel Shells $500: Custom Data Acquisition Systems $1500: Vehicle Dynamics Sensors: Beta Angle, Accelerometer, Wireless Strain Gauges $2000: Additive Manufacturing and CNC Machining $2000: Turbo Charger Development With our crowdfunding efforts, if we reach our goal of $10,000, we have a number of big ticket developments that require these funds. Firstly, converting our car from naturally aspirated to being turbocharged, requires $2000 for all the turbocharging components. Secondly, continuing developing and testing our car’s aerodynamic streamlining requires $2000 to construct and test our carbon fiber aerodynamic components such as the front wing, the side ducts, and wheel shells. Thirdly, to continue our weight reduction development as well as making our manufacturing process more efficient, we want to invest in additive manufacturing and CDC machining technologies amounting to $2000. Also, testing is critical to the efficiency of our team. We want to invest in custom data acquisition systems amounting to $500 to expedite data logging and analysis. Additionally, we want to invest $1500 in vehicle dynamic sensors (i.e beta angle, accelerometers, and wireless strain gauges). This will allow us to better characterize the dynamics of our vehicle so we can further understand and improve our designs. Catch us if you can! Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/calracing/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/calformulasae/ Website: http://fsae.berkeley.edu/ Email: fsae@me.berkeley.edu
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Berkeley Student Farms
By Grace Pan
Help fund garden operations within our student-run farming coalition dedicated to food justice and land sovereignty!
Help fund garden operations within our student-run farming coalition dedicated to food justice and land sovereignty! Berkeley Student Farms (BSF) is a growing coalition of 8 student-led outdoor gardening and farming spaces. At Berkeley Student Farms (BSF), we engage in the co-enactment of community with four primary goals in mind. These goals exhibit the way in which our work is centered around histories and current realities of systemic oppression and marginalization. Our first goal is to support and uplift existing food sovereignty initiatives. As a student collective, we recognize the multi-generational decolonial efforts and mutual aid networks developed by indigenous and black communities long before the existence of Berkeley Student Farms. For our community, striving for food justice including being educated about the histories of oppression and colonization that have necessitated food justice and agricultural practices that are not only more ecologically sustainable, but intentionally designed to resist oppressive economic hierarchies and feed communities that are systematically excluded from the dominant food systems of industrial agriculture. Your donation would help keep our facilities thrive and be a place where all are welcome to learn and participate! Our second goal, land decolonization and empowerment of BIPOC leadership, is how BSF actualizes our commitment to supporting existing food sovereignty initiatives. Four of our eight garden/farm spaces, such as the Fannie Lou Hamer and the Multicultural Center Community Gardens, are directed by BIPOC student leadership. BSF hosts educational workshops to learn from BIPOC land stewards about indigenous ways of relating to land, and specific methods to decolonize our relationships with the land. BSF also works on the land in collaboration with other student groups like the Indigenous and Native Student coalition and students at the Black Resource Center. UC Berkeley does not currently employ a hands-on, experiential, land-based pedagogy; we respond by learning from one another. Your contributions can help make this all possible and connect more people to our farm! Our third community goal is to offer intercultural and place-based learning opportunities. Both our farming practices and the food we grow reflects the cultural diversity of our community, as BSF is one of the only sites on campus where students can have direct, hands-on access to a spectrum of agricultural and food traditions. These traditions and necessary agricultural experiences are greatly impacted by your generosity, allowing us the resources to connect our communities back to their food! Finally, our fourth goal is a commitment to developing local and cross-campus partnerships. Twice a week, our food is taken to the BNC which receives over 1700 unique visitors. This partnership shows how BSF has become integrated within other university food justice initiatives; we as students are committed to feeding the entire school community especially students who are economically and housing insecure as well as the underpaid workers that make the existence of our educational institution possible. You can find the rest of our partnerships such as Cafe Ohlone, The Gill Tract Farm Coalition, and the Berkeley Food Institute, on our website. Your gifts are essential in making sure we can continue to produce food that supports our communities! Donate to Berkeley Student Farms and help fund garden operations within UC Berkeley’s largest student-run farming coalition dedicated to food justice and land sovereignty! In order to meet the needs of our growing coalition, we need support to provide each of our gardens and farms with the resources that they need so that BSF can continue to provide free and nutritious food, wellness programming, and educational workshops to the student body and Berkeley community. These resources include: Greenhouses and storage sheds Tools such as wheelbarrows, shovels, gloves, etc. Seeds and soil Compost materials (thermometer, shredder) Irrigation systems CSA Boxes Signage around the gardens and more! Although established recently (Summer 2020), BSF already supports over 200 volunteers in 8 different garden spaces. Your donation will put tools in the hands of student farmers and seeds into the ground, helping BSF strengthen its coalition across UC Berkeley’s campus and the East Bay. Join the farming revolution! ------------------------------------------------------------------ Contact Us at berkeleystudentfarms@gmail.com Find out more about us through our website, Instagram, and Facebook !
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Visualize
By Julia Kramer
Visualize is dedicated to supporting midwives to screen for cervical cancer through thoughtful and collaborative educational techniques.
Visualize is dedicated to supporting midwives to screen for cervical cancer through thoughtful and collaborative educational techniques. This project has ended, but you can still support amazing Berkeley initiatives by visiting give.berkeley.edu. Your continued support of our students, faculty and staff will ensure that Berkeley remains the #1 public university. Go Bears! Visualize is an organization dedicated to empowering and supporting midwives to screen for cervical cancer through thoughtful educational techniques. We have developed a low-fidelity cervical cancer screening training model that aids midwifes or other healthcare providers as they learn how to screen for cervical cancer using visual inspection of the cervix with acetic acid (VIA). VIA is a low-cost and effective cervical cancer screening method. The training model itself consists of a simulated vaginal cavity that uses an Arduino microcontroller and an LCD screen to provide modular electronic feedback that guides the user through the VIA procedure. Every year, 275,000 women die from cervical cancer. Eighty percent of these cases occur in low and lower-middle income countries (LMICs). Screening for cervical cancer significantly reduces this mortality rate, given that most cervical cancer and pre-cancer cases caught early are treatable. In Ghana, where our project is based, cervical cancer is the number one cause of cancer-related death for women and less than 5% of women have ever been screened. The commonly used Western screening method of the Pap smear is expensive and inappropriate for use in LMICs. Many LMICs lack the proper infrastructure for the Pap smear, and it is therefore not widely used. VIA is a low-cost and effective method to screen for cervical cancer but is not currently widely used, due to a lack of training and awareness of the method. VIA is performed by: a midwife performs a pelvic examination and inserts a speculum into the patient’s vaginal cavity, the midwife visualizes the patient’s cervix for any existing abnormalities, the midwife applies acetic acid (table vinegar) to the cervix, the midwife observes the cervix one minute after application of acetic acid for any acetowhite lesions that may appear, signifying pre-cancerous cells, and upon visualization of lesions, the midwife either refers the patient to specialized medical care or uses cryotherapy to remove these cells. The aim of our project is to design and implement training for VIA cervical cancer screening in Ghana. During a previous immersive experience run through the University of Michigan, members of our design team spent eight weeks observing Ob/Gyn departments and family planning clinics across Ghana. Working through an established connection with two major teaching hospitals in Ghana, we identified the need to train midwives to screen for cervical cancer with VIA. We then spent several months developing many prototypes for a physical training model to support VIA education. This is a novel approach to addressing cervical cancer mortality. A number of people and organizations have attempted to address the issue of cervical cancer detection and early treatment before using VIA and their results have been very positive. However, none of these programs have focused specifically on developing and distributing an effective training method. This is the gap we are working to fill. Our training module aims to empower midwives to perform and teach others to perform VIA, a proven screening method that is affordable and accessible for women. By detecting pre-cancerous cells early, these women can get the treatment they need in time to save their lives. Our immediate next steps include prototype refinement, collaborator engagement, and implementation plan finalization. In particular, we are exploring how the training model can be integrated into nursing and midwifery curriculum in Ghana. After distributing the training across Ghana, we can evaluate whether more midwives perform VIA correctly and effectively. This will lead to further refinements in the program design. We’re using this crowdfunding campaign to reach out and ask for your support as we continue moving forward toward implementation. With your support, we have three aims: Support a team of two Ghanaian engineers to work with us to redesign the training model Purchase enough supplies for our prototyping efforts Travel back to Ghana for a pilot test of the training model The local engineers we plan to work with will be able to provide their technical expertise along with their knowledge of local capabilities. This will help us ensure that the program may be successfully rolled out and taken up. We can then gain further feedback on training model and training program during a pilot test. This work is a collaboration with many stakeholders and supporters in Ghana and in the U.S. As we continue to work on refining the training model, we are grateful to draw upon the support of these entities. For more information on our work, check out: http://bigideas.berkeley.edu/2015/09/03/big-ideasberkeley-winners-visualize-an-end-to-cervical-cancer/ http://insitu.engin.umich.edu/project/visualize-a-cervical-cancer-screening-trainer/ http://www.appropedia.org/Visualize http://news.rice.edu/2014/03/31/wright-state-team-wins-global-health-design-competition-2/ We would love to hear from you! Please contact us if you have any questions or comments Twitter - @VisualizeOrg Julia Kramer - j.kramer@berkeley.edu Maria Young - mariary@umich.edu
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Solar Spring Break
By Brooke Maushund
Support the Solar Spring Break to bring renewable energy to communities in-need and help train students with hands-on experience.
Support the Solar Spring Break to bring renewable energy to communities in-need and help train students with hands-on experience. This project has ended, but you can still support amazing Berkeley initiatives by visiting give.berkeley.edu. Your continued support of our students, faculty and staff will ensure that Berkeley remains the #1 public university. Go Bears! This Spring Break, a group of 12 UC Berkeley students participated in the third annual Solar Spring Break hosted by GRID Alternatives and the World Wildlife Fund. Most residential areas today are powered by energy from fossil fuels, which are nonrenewable, polluting, and contribute to climate change. In order to decarbonize our energy system, it is essential to increase the presence of renewables in the residential electricity mix. However, the upfront cost of rooftop solar systems may deter many homeowners from switching to solar. By installing solar panels on qualifying homes in underrepresented communities, our team seeks to provide needed financial savings for residents while lowering greenhouse gas emissions. In addition to advocating for environmental justice in underrepresented communities, participants of Solar Spring Break will also acquire the technical skills need to install solar panels. This hands-on learning experience will actively enrich participants’ knowledge and understanding of solar energy. Background: We live in a country today with the fourth highest wealth inequality in the world, yet one of the highest nominal GDP’s. We live in a country that has a number of government-backed environmental agencies, yet is still the second highest contributor of carbon dioxide emissions worldwide. Environmental and economic justice are not entirely separate concerns. Renewable energy provides an opportunity to address these intersectional issues. The UC Berkeley Solar Spring Break program, in collaboration with GRID Alternatives, enables students to install solar energy systems on qualifying families’ homes in underrepresented local Oakland communities. Students are empowered to take active roles in community outreach by not only learning technical skills behind carrying out installations, but exploring the implications of their actions through an educational curriculum. The program provides a joint opportunity to alleviate financial burden on deserving families, while cutting greenhouse gas emissions. By raising funds, the Solar Spring Break Team is able to provide installation materials for qualifying families, as well as transportation and housing to selected student team members during the installation -- but on a larger scale, the campaign enables students to take ownership of their potential to have a lasting impact on their community. Crowdfunding: Solar energy is a renewable and carbon neutral source of energy. Once set up, it involves minimal maintenance and running costs, while providing a reliable electricity output. However, the initial installation costs of an average sized home solar panel system (5 kW) can cost over $25000, mainly due to the prohibitively high costs of photovoltaic systems, as well as the labor and electronic components required. Thus, even with subsidized rates and incentives provided by utility companies, most low income communities still cannot afford these facilities. GRID Alternatives aims to overcome this cost barrier, and make clear, solar power accessible to all irrespective of socio-economic background. This will not only benefit the environment, but also improve the financial well-being and living standards of impoverished communities in the East Bay. In addition to the trip, our Solar Spring Break Team, recruited this past fall, has been receiving a thorough education by taking our uniquely tailored DeCal, Solar Energy and Environmental Justice in East Bay, to gain knowledge about solar technology, policy, environmental justice, climate change, urban development ethics, and their intersection contextualized in our East Bay communities. After the trip, each member of the Solar Spring Break team will craft a reflection piece for our Solar Spring Break Earth Week Exhibition, in their desired medium (painting, writing, photo essay, music, etc.). Through a thorough education period created by the DeCal, hands on experience during the trip, and reflection period used through their exhibition piece creation, we ensure that students receive a holistic take away to better our community for years to come after graduating from the program. During the week, the students not only received an education on solar in the climate justice space, but also a look at future career prospects via a tour of SolarCity and an intensive insight into the community they're working in via canvasing efforts for GRID. Take a look at what the students were up to over break: Goal: UC Berkeley's Student Environmental Resource Center (SERC) fronted the $5000 for GRID to run the program over Spring Break. Grid Alternative's Solar Spring used this money to provide equipment, tools, hardware, and other materials to install solar panels for our low income homeowner in Richmond. This money brought environmental and economic benefits of solar power to low-income families in Oakland. Please make a gift today to help us repay SERC, ensure the continuation and expansion our program to help more families and educate more students in the future!
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Student Musical Activities Improvements
By Colin Loyd
Help student musicians continue to perform to the best of their abilities...while staying hydrated!
Help student musicians continue to perform to the best of their abilities...while staying hydrated! Student Musical Activities (SMA) is a thriving center for extra-curricular music at UC Berkeley. SMA is home to the University of California Marching Band, UC Choral Ensembles, and UC Jazz Ensembles. Together these groups provide musical education, performance experience, and leadership and arts management opportunities to 600 students from every academic discipline. All of the groups perform on and off campus for corporate and charity events, reunions and other alumni functions, anniversaries, birthdays, and other special occasions. A piano is an integral piece to the success of each member organization. For instrumentalists, it is used for tuning instruments. For piano players and student composition projects, it is an essential tool for their development. Our pianos have grown old throughout the years of daily usage and we need to replace our only practice room grand piano so that students can continue to excel in their music. We currently have an old dilapidated piano in one of our practice rooms that is not adequate for our students needing to practice. It will not stay in tune, the hammers and action are shot, and replacement is decades overdue. In order for students to get the most out of their practice time, and benefit from the sound they make, we need a new grand piano, at a cost of $14,000. We also need to replace our water fountain in the main lobby of our building. The current water fountain is old, leaks, breaks down often, and does not have a water bottle refilling station. This means that students cannot properly refill their water bottles. With a new fountain, we can reduce waste and students can be better hydrated. The water fountain is used by all SMA members and show patrons. The refilling component will be especially important for the 250 member Cal Band before rehearsals and on game days. We have received partial funding of $8,251 from the Tang Wellness Center. We need your help to raise $6,000 in order to fully fund the project. Please consider donating today. With your help we can continue to excel in our performances! If you have any questions or concerns please contact Colin Loyd at caloyd@berkeley.edu!
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INvent
By INvent Berkeley
INvent teaches STEM knowledge to high schoolers in Peru, Colombia, Chile and Mexico and help them develop a project that solves a problem in their community.
INvent teaches STEM knowledge to high schoolers in Peru, Colombia, Chile and Mexico and help them develop a project that solves a problem in their community. INvent Berkeley INvent Berkeley envisions a future where all students enjoy STEM quality education and can use this knowledge to solve the real-life problems in their communities. Hi! My name is Eduardo Huerta-Mercado and I am an international student at UC Berkeley. Last year I founded INvent, a student organization whose mission is to promote science and technology in schools in developing countries. Next summer, a team of INvent volunteers will travel to Peru and Colombia to engage and empower students by teaching STEM concepts that will enable them to develop social innovation projects to address the issues that burden their societies. PROJECT: Computer Science program for students with disabilities A group of UC Berkeley students will travel to "Alegría del Señor", a Peruvian school for children with disabilities. The students in this school are usually from low-income backgrounds and therefore don´t receive a tertiary education after graduation. Most families prefer to invest in the education of their other children because they are more likeley to get a good job, given the harsh discrimination people with disabilities face in Peru. INvent Berkeley members together with local instructors will adress the issue by implementing a CS program at the school so the students can later work as programers and become active members of society. PROJECT: STEM program to develop hands-on-projects Another group will travel to Peruvian and Colombian high schools to teach the students technological competencies, like electronics with Arduino microcontrollers and 3D design and printing. Once high schoolers learn the basic concepts, INvent instructors will motivate them to use these tools to solve real problems in their communities. For instance, in 2017 a group of female students developed a flooding-detector in response to the devastating floodings that affected Peru. PROJECT: Female inclusion in STEM field A group of INvent members will implement UTK SIECs Social Innovation & Entrepreneurship Centers to empower female students to pursue STEM careers. Through SIECs, female students will complement their technical and soft skills by designing projects, doing research, and conducting experiments. The world needs the female perspective of engineers, scientists, and great thinkers. To learn more about our team and projects check out our website at https://inventabroad.berkeley.edu/ Thanks!
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STAC: The Interstellar Microgravity Experiment | Fall 2021
By Tasha Lewis
Our project uses Blue Origin's New Shepard flight to test the effects of varying exposure to microgravity on bacterial antibiotic resistance.
Our project uses Blue Origin's New Shepard flight to test the effects of varying exposure to microgravity on bacterial antibiotic resistance. About STAC: Space Technologies at Cal (STAC) is a student engineering organization of 80+ highly driven University of California, Berkeley undergraduate and postgraduate students focused on developing innovative space technologies and research. We are creating a collaborative student space platform incorporating multiple research labs and industry partners to enable research projects such as modular High Altitude Balloons, biological Microgravity Experiments, Quantum CubeSats, and more. As student researchers, engineers, and designers, we aim to push the frontier of space innovation with each of our projects in order to bring humanity incrementally closer to being an interplanetary society. With three previous High Altitude Balloon launches, a previous Microgravity Experiment launch with Blue Origin in early 2019, and phenomenal Space Tech Symposiums at Berkeley, we have a lot of space experience under our belt. We are eager to advance our efforts even further in 2021 with a planned CubeSat launch sponsored by NASA, multiple High altitude balloon launches, and the upcoming launch of TIMEII! We are excited to share with you how we are achieving our mission, and look forward to having you onboard! The Interstellar Microgravity Experiment (TIME II) The Time II project began by building upon the initial TIME I project aimed at examining the development of C. elegans in space and a laser ablation experiment. After the launch of that project, we strove to adapt and improve the existing payload structure for more in depth-biological research. Though large-scale biological experimentation has been conducted in space, we hope to test the ability to run space biology experiments with smaller, autonomous payloads. Previous experiments on the International Space Station show increased antibiotic resistance in E. coli. We hope to confirm and expand on these findings with our project. By characterizing the gene expression of E. coli during spaceflight, we hope to learn how bacteria increase their antibiotic resistance and attempt to find a solution to mitigate the risk astronaut health posed by ineffective medicine during long-duration spaceflight. Beyond the immediate scientific results, our project will serve as a proof of concept that this level of biological research can be done on similarly accessible payload types as well as show that the modular payload design successfully allows for a variety of experiments to be run in one payload framework. Our research team currently provides hands-on education for a cadre of undergraduate students aspiring to make an impact in space biology. The proposed project demonstrates the ability of a student-led research initiative (STAC) to tackle a pressing biomedical problem, in our specific case, the issue of global antibiotic resistance. The funding raised will go towards supporting our launch with the additional fees related to biological experimentation. Budget ItemEstimated Cost (USD)JustificationCarbon Fiber Square Tubing (3 m)$50To create a lightweight, rigid chassis to encase the plates with experiments.3D Printed Parts SLA (Chassis) + Resin$20To connect all of the necessary pieces together to form the chassis.Epoxy/Adhesive$10To seal and secure all needed components together.3D Printed Parts SLA (Plates) + Resin$150 ($6 per plate)To create the geometries and plates needed to host the experiments. Enough for flight + 2 scrubs and ground control.Design Equipment (servo motors, wiring, droppers, syringes, epoxy/fasteners)$100To control the release of E. coli.Top Semi-Permeable Membrane$20To create the first layer of containment needed for the experiment and allow for oxygen to reach the E. coli.PCB$24To power the electronics needed to conduct the experiment.Thermoresistors$50 ($10 each x5 plates)To maintain the necessary temperature for the E. coli for the experiments.RNA Later$340To be used as a measure of the efficacy of antibiotics under microgravity.Antibiotics (Gentamicin)$63.50The antibiotic chosen to be tested under microgravity.E. coli$60The bacteria chosen to be tested under microgravity.Sequencing$11,000Post flight RNA analysis for ground and flight samples.Flight Base Cost$8,000To provide the needed microgravity environment for the experiment.Late Drop Off for Launch$5,000To ensure the E. coli is in the correct phase, log phase, for when the experiment takes place.Biological Experimentation Risk Cost for Flight$5,000 - $10,000Blue Origin’s fees associated with biological experiments being conducted aboard their rocket.Lab testing (Post-Research)$200 for necessary lab time and equipmentTo cover the costs of lab testing/equipment once the experiment is finished.Direct Cost Subtotal$30,087.50-$35,087.50Indirect Cost Subtotal$1,000To cover travel costs for essential team members during launch time as well as research conferences.Total Costs$31,087.50-$36,087.50
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Cal Sailing (Spring 2018)
By Sarah Paulsen
Please help support Cal Sailing! Every donation helps us improve and get to regattas, purchase a new motor, purchase more dollies and help us replace our fleet.
Please help support Cal Sailing! Every donation helps us improve and get to regattas, purchase a new motor, purchase more dollies and help us replace our fleet. The Cal Sailing Team was started in 1922 and is the second oldest club sport at Cal. We are 30 members strong and are a student-run with two volunteer coaches. We practice out of the Treasure Island Sailing Center, right next to the Bay Bridge, three times a week as well as competing on the weekends against other club and varsity teams. We are continually looking to expand our team's skills and continue the Corinthian spirit at Cal. Since we are completely student-run, we have very limited resources towards raising funds for traveling and improving our practice equipment. We are in a conference where teams have their own paid coaches and their university's financial support, which makes it difficult for us to try and compete on an even playing field. We have the talent and drive to become one of the best teams in the Pacific Coast Conference, we just need a little help to give us that boost. Your donation will help pay for: Out-of-pocket competition costs Replacing a stolen motor Buying more dollies. Help to replace our fleet of FJs Will you help our team continue our success by making a gift today? We are traveling more than we ever have this semester, from up and down the California Coast, Florida, South Carolina, to Hawaii and hopefully College Nationals in Virginia. The team pays out of pocket for these travel costs, which caused many of our best sailors unable to go. In early February someone stole our motor off our motorboat at Treasure Island Sailing Center. One of our alumni donated this brand new motor to us, and unfortunately, we were only able to use it for only three months before it was stolen. The lack of motor prohibits us from using the motorboat, which is an essential resource for practice. We need your help with replacing this motor. We are also open to motor donations. Another resource we need is help to purchase new dollies for our FJs. Currently, most of them have flat tires and are held together with tape. The dollies are crucial to carrying the boats in and out of the water at practice and for when we host regattas. Please make a gift today. We greatly appreciate your support and thank you for helping us become the best team we can be! Go Bears!
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Charting a Course Through the Cosmos
By Jason Wang
Ever wanted to zoom through the galaxy or tour a black hole? Help UCB astronomers make this a reality by supporting our interactive virtual reality space tours.
Ever wanted to zoom through the galaxy or tour a black hole? Help UCB astronomers make this a reality by supporting our interactive virtual reality space tours. This project has ended, but you can still support this initiative and others led by the Astronomy Graduate Students. Visit us online to make your gift today! Have you ever wondered what it would be like to walk on the surface of Pluto, or fly by the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy? We’re a group of scientists at the UC Berkeley astronomy department and we’d like to help you find out. We’re raising money to integrate astronomy visualization tools with new virtual reality technology to create an interactive and immersive platform for communicating our department's research with the public. In short, we are fundraising for equipment that would allow us to: Share astronomical phenomena that cannot normally be seen through a backyard telescope Fly through the galaxy and interact with astronomy up close Use new technologies to spark interest in STEM We’d like to build an encompassing immersive outreach platform here at Berkeley using the astronomy visualization tools World Wide Telescope and Space Engine. These two programs, in conjunction with a touch screen kiosk in our lobby or with tablets and virtual reality headsets for outreach events, will take public communication of current astronomy research to a new level. Once implemented, people can take a virtual reality tour to the beginning of the universe or watch a star explode form up close, all with a swipe of their finger. The flexibility of our proposed setup will even allow us to bring astronomy into classrooms around the Bay Area through existing science outreach initiatives. We are excited that the public is interested in astronomy! This past year we launched Astro Night, a monthly event that brings the community to our building for a lecture from an expert followed by stargazing. The lecture series got over 1,800 people interested on Facebook and drew increasing attendance with each event, with up to 300 people attending in one evening. Participants ranged from Berkeley students to families from all over the Bay Area, who commonly expressed a desire for more such outreach events. Astro Night attendees waiting to stargaze through the Campbell Hall rooftop telescope The success of this series and a graduate student’s video of directly imaged planets orbiting another star going viral, really clarified for us the power of visualization in conveying science and inspired us to develop a more interactive outreach platform. We wish to engage children and the public at large not only with astronomy, but with science as a whole by pushing the limits of what new virtual reality technology can accomplish. Consider making a donation now to help us finance the hardware to make this possible! Students and visitors on UC Berkeley campus viewing a partial solar eclipse
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IRAP Middle East Trip
By UC Berkeley
IRAP's Middle East professional trainings foster IRAP Berkeley's commitment to producing the next generation of refugee rights advocates.
IRAP's Middle East professional trainings foster IRAP Berkeley's commitment to producing the next generation of refugee rights advocates. OUR PROJECT IRAP-Berkeley is seeking $6,000 to send four law students to the Middle East in January 2018. While abroad, students will provide important legal services to refugees. They will also develop their own legal skills and build relationships with medical, educational, and other nonprofit organizations that serve local refugee populations. When students return to Berkeley, they will share their experiences with the Berkeley community through a written report and on-campus panel discussion. Funding will be used for the purchase of plane tickets, as well as compensating students for the costs of hostels, food, and transportation to and from the airport. Any costs associated with tourism or other recreational activities will be covered by students. IRAP-BERKELEY STUDENTS ON THE BEIRUT 2016 TRIP. ABOUT IRAP The International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP) was founded in 2008 to resettle Iraqi interpreters, under threat of death for their work with the United States military. IRAP was the first organization in the United States to provide comprehensive legal representation to individual refugees seeking resettlement. Since its founding, IRAP has responded to the growing regional refugee crisis by expanding its services to refugee populations from 55 countries, including Afghanistan and Syria. IRAP’s clients are drawn from the region’s most vulnerable populations. They include survivors of torture and sexual violence, children with medical emergencies, and members of ethnic and religious minorities. IRAP operates largely through its 29 law school chapters. Each chapter is responsible for building case teams between students and attorneys, which handle every aspect of a client's legal case for resettlement. IRAP chapters also engage in legal research, policy advocacy, and awareness-raising activities to support IRAP National’s larger mission. ABOUT IRAP-BERKELEY The Berkeley chapter of IRAP is among the largest and most active of IRAP’s student chapters. IRAP-Berkeley is comprised of 40 students and 21 attorneys representing 19 cases. Providing dedicated, high-quality legal services to refugees is the heart of our work. We also engage in policy advocacy, academic engagement with refugee issues, fundraising for client’s legal needs, and trainings on client-focused legal work. The most personally and professionally rewarding of these trainings are IRAP's yearly sessions in Amman, Jordan and Beirut, Lebanon. During these week-long workshops with IRAP's Middle East offices, students receive intensive training on culturally-sensitive professionalism when providing legal services to clients who have undergone trauma. IRAP-BERKELEY STUDENTS AT THE POST-BEIRUT 2016 TRIP PANEL Additionally, students visit local and international NGOs that provide direct legal, health, and educational services to refugees. These site visits give students a comprehensive perspective on the problems facing refugee communities. They also allow students to interact personally with the communities we serve. Finally, students conduct intakes with potential IRAP clients, gaining invaluable hands-on experience. Students who participate in these trips gain unique skills and knowledge, propelling many into life-long careers as refugee and immigrant advocates (see our bio section!). IRAP-BERKELEY STUDENTS ON THE BEIRUT 2016 TRIP. IRAP-Berkeley's long-term goal is to put in place a recurring series of trips, with student participants alternating between work in Amman and Beirut. This will allow Berkeley Law to have a consistent humanitarian involvement in—and academic output surrounding—the refugee crisis in the Middle East. Moreover, it will continue Berkeley's tradition of producing highly-competent, ethical professionals dedicated to public service. Our students engage with clients as former service members stationed overseas, the family and friends of refugees and immigrants, and members of a student body dedicated to public service through the law. IRAP-BERKELEY STUDENT AT THE ORGANIZED POST-TRAVEL BAN ACTION AT SFO. The U.S. resettlement program is the largest in the world and premised on the notion of strength in diversity. In working through and advocating for this resettlement program, we aim to embody the best of American values. As a result, IRAP is on the front lines of the fight against anti-immigrant, anti-refugee, and anti-Muslim policies. We organized this crowd funding campaign to facilitate Berkeley Law's continued participation in IRAP's Middle East trips, which represent an integral component of the larger campus's unwavering commitment to social justice and public service. THANK YOU!
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Summer Books for BUILD Students
By Gresia Calderon & Joy San Luis
BUILD is a reading program dedicated to improving students' literacy skills. Help us give each of our 1,000 students a book to take home for the summer!
BUILD is a reading program dedicated to improving students' literacy skills. Help us give each of our 1,000 students a book to take home for the summer! Background The Berkeley United In Literacy Development (BUILD) Program is a student-led program that believes in educational equity. We are one of the largest reading programs in the East Bay with 325 Cal student mentors providing one-to-one literacy support to 1,000 students who are reading below grade level. The majority of the students we serve are of low socioeconomic status from 20 after school locations in Oakland and Berkeley. School literacy coaches and community partners provide trainings for our reading mentors to equip them with adequate tools to serve our students’ literacy needs. Each mentor works individually with 3 students in 30-45 minute sessions at least twice a week. They work with the same students for at least one semester, and sometimes for years, building strong relationships with one another. Project During the summer, students, especially those from low-income families, are likely to fall behind their peers and lose skills in reading because there is no academic instruction during this time. BUILD wants to provide the students with a gift that will keep them engaged in literacy. BUILD staff work diligently during the academic year to support students’ literacy needs by providing individualized support with feedback from literacy coaches and teachers. In order to work and continue to develop our student’s literacy skills, BUILD wants to provide the 1,000 students we serve with a book to take home and read for the summer. Goal We are raising $5,000 to buy and give each of our 1,000 students a book to take home and read this summer. At the end of each school year, BUILD holds a Reading Awards ceremony to commemorate the students for all their hard work. In order to make this year’s ceremony extra special, we hope to give them their free book at this event. How You Can Help With your support we hope to raise the $5,000 needed to ensure that all 1,000 students we work with are given a book to read after the school year ends. Your gift to BUILD will not only bring our students the joy and excitement that comes with receiving a gift but also a chance to continue their learning during the summer break. We believe it is important for each student to continue to read and learn during the summer to prevent the effects of the “summer slide” from occurring, where students lose some of the achievement gains made during the school year and begin to fall behind. Please consider making a gift today and sharing our project with friends and family you think might support our cause! Gifts of any size will make a tremendous impact in our students’ lives and our goal of getting them their books. For every $25 we raise, 5 of our students will get a book! If we raise $1,000, we’ll be able to give 200 students a book to read for the summer. Thank you, from the 2016-2017 BUILD Team!
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SafeSpace
By Ann Nguyen
An anonymous peer support platform to encourage UC Berkeley students to receive help in a multiple ways and to normalize mental health on our campus.
An anonymous peer support platform to encourage UC Berkeley students to receive help in a multiple ways and to normalize mental health on our campus. This project has ended, but you can still support amazing Berkeley initiatives by visiting give.berkeley.edu. Your continued support of our students, faculty and staff will ensure that Berkeley remains the #1 public university. Go Bears! The Problem Poor mental health is a widespread, national issue plaguing college students across the country. According to a national survey, 85 percent of University mental health center directors reported an increase in "severe psychological problems over the last 5 years.” Nearly one in six college students have been diagnosed or treated for anxiety within the last 12 months. Nationally, half of all college students report feeling so depressed at some point in time that they “have trouble functioning.” A UC Berkeley report had similar, if not more drastic, results; it reported 8.9% of Cal students have seriously considered suicide. Ever-increasing college suicide rates have prompted a discussion on mental health; other elite schools like Yale, MIT and other Ivy Leagues are addressing the lack of resources for mental illnesses and stress-related issues. Should UC Berkeley students’ mental health needs only be addressed under dire circumstances? Preventative measures can be taken to address this issue before dire circumstances arise. 75% of lifetime cases of mental health conditions begin by age 24; college is an extremely sensitive time for mental health development. Because prioritization of mental health improves school performance, reduces school withdrawals, and diminishes adverse life-course consequences, its significance should not be neglected. Part of the problem lies in UC Berkeley’s understaffed and underfunded resources for dealing with mental health issues. Currently, Tang’s CPS services have 50 counselors for 36,000 students (ratio 1:720). Could Tang’s overworked and preoccupied staff be indicative of the desperately needed additional resources? According to an ASUC Senate Bill from 2014’s Mental Health Action Plan, there were only approximately 5,700 students who had records at Tang Center’s CPS services, which is only about 16% of the all 36,000 students; are 30,300 students being neglected? A UC Berkeley Graduate Survey confirms students wish there were more mental health programs on campus. The UC’s are already losing experienced psychologists and psychiatrists –the entire UC system lags behind the private sector in compensation levels for mental health care providers. The rise in severely needed counseling services coupled with a decreasing counseling staff is a problematic paradox. UC Berkeley's Grade for Mental Health Services on Campus: C- The Solution: We are proposing a project idea called SafeSpace: a website AND mobile application for students to anonymously be paired with others similar to themselves and provide each other peer support. Interested students would create an anonymous username and complete a survey in order to find other peers like themselves. This pairing is done by our filter or ranking function. Students can filter or rank their preferences from categories such as race, religion, sexual orientation etc. So as an Asian with social anxiety, I “filter” out so only Asians come up. If I want to be more specific, then I filter out Asians with social anxiety. If I want to be even more specific, I can filter out Asians with anxiety who are 18 years old (freshman). And so on. The more specific, the smaller your pool gets but the more similar they are to you. Through this function, users can find other Cal Bears with similar backgrounds, thus they would have similar experiences dealing with mental health problems. With similar experiences, peers can support each other better and most importantly to not feel isolated. Therefore, SafeSpace can begin to normalize mental health on this campus. In addition, we have paired with another student organization, Student-to-Student-Peer-Counseling. This student organization will provide SafeSpace trained peer counselors. They will have general accounts and can have open hours through the days so that students who need more guidance and support will have the option to talk to trained peer counselors. Furthermore, we will have another tab that lists all the resources both for SHIP and non-SHIP students. We have noticed on campus that people do not know of the myriad of resources at the fingertips of Berkeley students. This resource list can be referred to anytime during the year, so students can find different methods of self-care that would work for them best. These resources would include, but not limited to: different therapy options, clubs on campus, and classes for maintaining wellness. Will you help us make this program a reality by making a gift today? Mockups for Website: Landing Page Mockups for Mobile Application: What distinguishes SafeSpace? 1) The fact that SafeSpace removes the danger of stigma is of utmost importance. Students will no longer neglect themselves emotional support because of embarrassment, unwillingness to reach out, or fear of judgment. By removing the very blocks that self-denies students from support, SafeSpace enables and empowers students to have real conversations with each other. 2) SafeSpace is the perfect way to ease students into professional care (if needed) by demonstrating users the positive effects of sharing and talking about their issues. The first step to seeking out professional care is the most difficult; therefore, SafeSpace can serve as that “transitional tool.” For those who do not need serious care, SafeSpace will deter students from becoming isolated and feeling alone. By joining all the lonely people together, the loneliness disappears. 3) No other program or counselor has ever attempted to bring similar UC-Berkeley students together in an anonymous, safe place. Most important, the “filtering” system will allow students to seek and receive exactly the type of person they are looking for (and being looked for) whilst keeping their identities protected. 4) By speaking with others, students will be able to share information on their experiences regarding professional help and make recommendations based on those encounters instead of relying on the Internet or other clinicians with their own set of adult views; not only will students share information about clinics, psychologists, and resources, but also exchange information on overcoming the school’s general bureaucratic and academic obstacles. In other words, SafeSpace will foster a loving community for students to exchange helpful information and advice with one another. 5) SafeSpace will be accessible every day of the week, at every hour. If a student is having a midnight crisis, they can find other late owls who are online (the “online” button will show who is online). 6)The Resource List will be a useful source of information outlining all the different options students can explore. The list itself can be used without ever having to engage in SafeSpace and will spread campus awareness on certain organizations and clinics. 7) SafeSpace can permit students to seek out emotional support at no cost –studies show many Americans cannot afford the cost of their mental health treatment, even if they have insurance. Our Progress So Far: Our Budget: Anything in purple is what the $4,000 will go towards. However, we do have other expenses to pay, we have looked into other options for funding (i.e grants, competitions, student government) but if we receive more money from crowdfunding it can pay for other items on our budget. Please consider making a gift today! Our Advertising Plan: If you have any questions about our project, please contact: Ann Nguyen at nguyenann1026@berkeley.edu Top image credit: http://www.narbha.org/includes/media/images/youth-mental-health-first-aid-promotion---black-on-white.jpg
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Trial by Error
By David Tuller
An investigation into the research behind the CBT/GET paradigm for treatment of the illness variously referred to as ME, CFS, ME/CFS, and CFS/ME.
An investigation into the research behind the CBT/GET paradigm for treatment of the illness variously referred to as ME, CFS, ME/CFS, and CFS/ME. David Tuller What a year. One thing that's happened, for obvious reasons, is that the rest of the world has discovered the existence of serious post-viral conditions. That means the illness or cluster of illnesses known these days as ME/CFS is receiving more attention. Berkeley has again designated April as a month for campus projects to seek tax-deductible donations through the university's online crowdfunding platform for my Trial By Error project. I hope to raise $60,000 in gifts to Berkeley to cover the six-month costs for my position as Senior Fellow in Public Health and Journalism at the Center for Global Public Health, which is part of the School of Public Health. The funding will cover from July through December of this year. Of that amount, approximately $40,000 is for salary, $15,000 is for health insurance/employment benefits, and $4,500 for Berkeley's 7.5 % gift fee. ********** A Short Recap Most of you reading this will likely be familiar with my work, but here's a short recap. I launched the "Trial By Error" series in October, 2015, with a 15,000-word investigation of the disastrous PACE trial, published on Virology Blog. Since then, I have written hundreds of blog posts about that piece of crap and related issues not only in the UK but in the US, the Netherlands, Norway, and many other countries, written many articles for major news organizations, authored or co-authored peer-reviewed papers, and given talks in multiple countries. In March. the news organization VICE cited my work in an excellent article on the possible links and overlaps between ME/CFS and Long Covid. After mentioning the central role of PACE in popularizing the psychogenic view of ME/CFS, the author wrote: "Despite letters and commentaries (and even scientific studies) the PACE trial remained the gold standard for treatment, endorsed by every major medical organization. Finally, in 2015, the journalist and public health expert David Tuller published a 15,000 word critique of the study, and the tide began to turn." Yet the following week, the Wall Street Journal ran a disturbing opinion piece that presented Long Covid as the invention of deluded patients, suggested that Long Covid and ME/CFS patients suffer from mental illness, and referenced PACE as representing the "prevailing view" of medical professionals--with no apparent awareness that the trial has been debunked. So there is apparently still a lot of work for me to do in discrediting bogus studies Given the speed of events, it is hard to predict exactly what will be coming up in the next six months. In the UK, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence is expected to release the final version of its new ME/CFS guidelines in August--just delayed from April! So I definitely plan to address these developments. Now that we're past the one-year mark of the pandemic, more and more Long Covid patients will likely be getting diagnosed with ME, CFS or ME/CFS, so it will be important to keep an eye on these definitional challenges. Certainly I will try to smack down more bad research on psycho-behavioral interventions for ME/CFS and other chronic illnesses, especially those that also fall under the category of so-called "medically unexplained symptoms," or MUS. ********** Some Recent Highlights Here are a few recent highlights of my work:: *The Journal of Health Psychology has accepted an analysis I co-authored (with Irish psychology professor Brian Hughes) of a recent paper by Professor Sir Simon Wessely and Professor Trudie Chalder in the Journal of the Royal Society of London. This review of clinical outcomes from almost 1000 patients who received CBT is full of bogus and unjustified claims. Our paper documents the many flaws and formally requests that the misleading abstract be corrected. *I have written multiple posts about the complicated and unclear overlaps between ME/CFS, MUS and the Long Covid phenomenon. The biopsychosocial brigades are seeking to colonize Long Covid as they have these other fields, and it is important to keep critiquing their research and assumptions. *Medical Humanities, a journal from BMJ, has published a paper I co-authored (with Northwestern University law professor Steven Lubet) about MUS, which called for humility on the part of experts in making definitive statements about conditions of unknown etiology. The commentary was a response to an egregious 2019 paper co-authored by Professor Michael Sharpe, one of the lead PACE investigator. *Another co-written paper is current under view, and a couple more are in the works. While I have devoted most of my time to reporting, it is important that scientifically illiterate studies are also debunked in the medical literature and not just in journalism or blogging venues. *BMJ Pediatrics Open has retracted a study of CBT plus music therapy as a treatment for chronic fatigue in adolescents after acute EBV (aka mononucleosis and glandular fever). The study violated multiple core scientific principles and the journal's review process broke down. A smart patient initially pointed out some of the issues to the journal, and I followed up with multiple posts and letters to BMJ. (Unfortunately, the journal posted a very bad revised version, but still.) *I have maintained a consistent presence on Facebook and Twitter, responding to events and drawing attention to bad research and anti-scientific claims. ********** One Final Note Berkeley takes a 5% share as the university's standard fee for gifts, plus 2.5% as a crowdfunding/credit card fee. Therefore, adding 7.5% to your donation will ensure that the full amount you intend is going toward the project itself. The donation is tax-deductible (for US taxpayers at least). Thanks so much for your support. I really, really appreciate it, especially at this time of global trauma. ********** This is a link to my original Trial By Error series: https://www.virology.ws/2015/10/21/trial-by-error-i/ This is a link to all the posts I have written on Virology Blog: http://www.virology.ws/mecfs/
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STEM Explorations: Expanding the Reach of STEM Mentorship
By Genevieve Spiotto
SENDforC is a STEM mentorship organization that pairs college students with high school students in our community.
SENDforC is a STEM mentorship organization that pairs college students with high school students in our community. About SENDforC: SENDforC is a STEM mentorship organization that pairs college students with high school students in our community. SENDforC's mission is to provide under-resourced high schools with hands-on extracurricular STEM opportunities. Our goal is to work towards reducing the opportunity gap that prevents minority students from pursuing a career in STEM or even considering their potential growth within a STEM field. Mentorship is an especially integral aspect of SENDforC’s mission, as mentors do not simply facilitate learning as their high school teachers might, but guide their mentees personally and academically. SENDforC mentors offer support and advice to their mentees as they explore their interests and prepare to apply to college. SENDforC currently offers 3 tracks for Summit students to participate in: Research, College Prep, and Stem Workshops. Students in the research track spend the year designing and carrying out their own STEM-related research projects, with the help and support of a SENDforC mentor they are paired with for the year. The College Prep track is dedicated to offering Summit students personal help with their college applications, including their essays, as well as support with deciding which schools to apply to, how to apply for financial aid, and how to decide on a school once they are accepted. Finally, in the STEM Workshops track, mentors create and facilitate weekly lessons and activities related to various topics in STEM, depending on what mentees are interested in exploring. SENDforC Mentors at Summit K2 Our Current Partnership: SENDforC began mentoring students at Summit K2, a nearby high school, in September of 2018, and began its second year of mentoring this August. Summit K2 is a charter school in El Cerrito that opened in 2014. Mentors develop STEM curriculum which they use to mentor students at Summit K2 once a week during after-school mentorship sessions. During our first year of mentoring, mentors and mentees carried out a project involving Strawberry Creek on Berkeley campus in order to assess the health of the creek ecosystem using Chemistry test kits. Mentors have also facilitated lessons and projects in computer science to teach students to code in Python. The introduction of our Research Track allowed us to further our goal of creating opportunities for hands-on STEM experience that will provide a solid foundation in research for students prior to entering college. In the Research Track last year, students chose to explore a range of interesting topics, from studying cancer-fighting phytochemicals to creating an App to pair students with tutors.This year, many students have focused on carrying out research and projects to benefit their communities. One student is creating a website to provide resources for high school students interested in pre-med, while another student is collecting and analyzing data to assess how students in their school are impacted by false news. This year, we implemented our STEM Explorations Track, which is intended to provide mentees with engaging weekly lessons and activities related to STEM topics they are interested in. One week the topic might be biochemistry, while the next it might be related to environmental science. These sessions are intended to introduce students to a range of topics that they aren't always introduced to in high school. This allows them to explore various topics and discover where their interests lie, and whether they would like to further build upon these interests in college. Mentors and mentees work together during a mentorship session. Our Current Initiative: We are currently working to expand upon our STEM Explorations track. Our goal is to provide mentees in the STEM Explorations track with the opportunity to engage in hands-on STEM-related experiments and activities, facilitated either over Zoom or in person. In order to provide this opportunity, we will be putting together “STEM Kits,” consisting of various materials that students can safely use from home or in the classroom to carry out activities that directly relate to the material they learn. We hope that mentees will be able to utilize their STEM kits to gain a valuable hands-on learning experience while also having fun in the process. This semester, mentees will receive STEM Kits with supplies for growing and studying microorganisms on common household items. We will be holding a small competition to see who can come up with the most creative micro-organism design. Mentees carry out a small experiment during a mentorship session. Budget Breakdown: Each semester, we are planning to create STEM Kits with different materials, depending on the topics Workshop mentees are interested in exploring. STEM Workshops tend to host around 10 students per week. Each STEM kit costs at most $50 to put together. $1000 will provide us with the funds for creating STEM kits for two semesters ($50 x 10 mentees = $500 per semester). Any funds that are not spent in one semester will simply be carried over to the next. All funds raised through our initiative will be put towards Fall 2021 and Spring 2022 sessions. Final Note: SENDforC's partnership with Summit has been progressing over the last few years, with more students joining each semester with a passion for STEM and a desire and commitment to learn beyond their everyday classes. It is important that SENDforC continues to expand and grow as a program at Summit, in order to continue to offer extracurricular STEM opportunities. Therefore, we are so incredibly grateful to all those who support our initiative, and would like to give our thanks for supporting not just our Workshops track, but our organization and its mission as a whole. Contact Information: If you have any questions, or would like to learn more about SENDforC, please feel free to contact us, visit our website, or visit our social media! email: calsendforc@gmail.com website: https://sendforc.org/ucberkeley Instagram: @calsendforc Facebook: @calsendforc Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sendforc-inc./about/
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Democracy Camp 2020 | Fall 2019
By Democracy Camp
Democracy Camp is a program for Cal students interested in enhancing our democracy through public service. We hope to continue to enrich student experiences!
Democracy Camp is a program for Cal students interested in enhancing our democracy through public service. We hope to continue to enrich student experiences! Democracy Camp Help Students Answer the Call to Public Service! Democracy Camp is a program for Cal students interested in enhancing our democracy through public service. This four-day spring break “boot-camp” will help 15 undergraduate students get engaged, empowered, and informed faster about how to make an impact in their communities and beyond. Democracy Camp will help students chart their path to a meaningful public service career. In its inaugural year, Democracy Camp was a huge success! We hope to keep this program alive and continue to enrich student experiences here at Berkeley. Please make your gift today and help us spread the word! About Democracy Camp This program will train a new generation of leaders: young people who reflect our society and come from all walks of life. We believe that attracting people with varied perspectives and life experiences to public service will ensure more effective and representative government moving forward. Democracy Camp will give students first-hand exposure to different facets of a public service career: legislative paths, community organizations, local, state and federal government, and philanthropy. Participants will learn directly from presenters about the opportunities available in these fields. They will have networking opportunities and build a cohort amongst themselves to support their career goals. There will also be skill-building modules that focus on practical and tangible takeaways: interviewing, resume writing, and mentoring. Democracy Camp is sponsored by the Institute of Governmental Studies (IGS) and the Robert T. Matsui Center for Politics and Public Service at the University of California, Berkeley. IGS stands at the forefront of research, teaching, and service in California and American politics and policy. Interdisciplinary and non-partisan, we foster thoughtful discussions of issues across party lines that focus on solutions – not just problems. Our mission is anchored by a belief in the transformational power of public service. How You Can Help We are excited to continue this program, but we can’t do it alone! With your help, we hope to raise $7,000 to fund Democracy Camp. Democracy Camp will primarily serve first generation, non-traditional and transfer students. This program increases access and opportunity for all Cal students, especially those who can’t afford to participate in an unpaid summer internship. In addition to the experiential learning program and additional reading materials, all meals and snacks will be provided to students during the week. This will help defray costs for students who may otherwise be concerned about food insecurity during Spring Break. IGS staff are donating their time to create this opportunity for students. Additional funds raised above our goal will offset other costs. Please help us reach our goal of $7,000 by making a gift today! No gift is too small, and your support will ensure that we are able to provide the best educational experience possible for UC Berkeley’s motivated change-makers! To learn more visit: https://igs.berkeley.edu/student-learning/democracy-camp Thank you for your support!
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Berkeley SETI Research Center
By Steve Croft
We're raising funds to equip an undergrad student lab with the instruments to teach the basics of radio astronomy and SETI.
We're raising funds to equip an undergrad student lab with the instruments to teach the basics of radio astronomy and SETI. This project has ended, but you can still support amazing Berkeley initiatives by visiting give.berkeley.edu. Your continued support of our students, faculty and staff will ensure that Berkeley remains the #1 public university. Go Bears! Looking to the Sky Humans have looked up at the sky for millennia and asked the question, "Are we alone?". But only recently have we begun to develop the capability to attempt to answer this question. UC Berkeley is a world leader in SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, and the recent establishment of the Berkeley SETI Research Center (BSRC) has provided an increased focus for these efforts. BSRC researchers include the team behind SETI@home, one of the world's largest distributed computing projects, processing data from Earth's biggest radio telescopes in search of signals from intelligent civilizations around other stars. The team at BSRC includes experts in building the digital hardware needed for the search. With the capability of scanning billions of channels and searching for signal types never before explored, these are like your car radio on steroids, hooked up to telescopes including one that's the largest movable structure ever built on land. We can scan the skies faster, with higher sensitivity, and tuning through more possible frequencies, than we could ever do before. But SETI is still seen as something of a fringe science by many. Sure, elementary schoolers across the world dream of searching for aliens, and Hollywood entertains millions with stories of civilizations inhabiting deep space. But we still suffer by association with the tin foil hat brigade, who post shaky videos of unidentified lights in the sky to YouTube, write polemics about how the government are hiding alien spacecraft at Roswell, and circulate kooky manuscripts about how ET built the pyramids. We want to change that, and a good place to start is to redouble our efforts to educate the next generation of SETI scientists and engineers. Teaching the next generation Currently we have eight undergraduate students working in our lab. They help us write software, plan and carry out our observations, and analyze our data. But we also want to give students hands-on training with the digital hardware that forms the basis of our instruments. Your donation will help us grow our undergraduate program, including purchasing new hardware that we’ll use to train additional students, helping us to develop curriculum materials for the next generation of SETI specialists. The students will gain skills that are useful in a range of 21st century careers in digital engineering and signal processing, and will be active participants in our exciting program as we search for life beyond Earth. Members of our team have been doing SETI for 35 years, and while we haven't yet found a signal, we know that as we expand our capabilities to search, it gets more likely every day that we will find something. In the meantime, we feel privileged to be part of a small group of people working to try to find an answer to one of humanity's oldest questions. The technology we're developing in distributed computing, scalable computing architectures, and digital signal processing also have real-world applications that go far beyond SETI science. We want to share the excitement of the search and to engage and train the next generation who will continue to drive SETI forward as a serious scientific endeavor. $10,000 would enable us to buy a variety of hardware to equip a digital SETI lab for undergraduates, to teach them how to design and build instrumentation for the next generation of SETI searches. This would include computers, antennas, adapters, and pay for time to help teach how to use the equipment and maintain the space. Many scientists agree that we may be close to one of the most revolutionary results in the history of science - the detection of a signal from an alien civilization that may be eons more advanced than our own. Such is the excitement behind this endeavor that members of our group have been called to testify in the United States House of Representatives about the challenges and opportunities of the search. We want to ensure that whenever that signal finally reaches, there will be a group of trained, dedicated scientists listening and watching the skies. Contact Us BerkeleySETI on Facebook Follow us on Twitter
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The Migrant Advocacy Project
By Hena Khairzadah
The Migrant Advocacy Project (MAP) aims to break down the barriers immigrant youth face in their pursuit of higher education.
The Migrant Advocacy Project (MAP) aims to break down the barriers immigrant youth face in their pursuit of higher education. Our Community Partners Making up over a quarter of its residents, Oakland is home to a growing population of immigrants. Consequently, the number of immigrant students in the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) has grown from 1,299 students in 2013 to 2,862 students in 2018, a 55% increase in immigrant youth in the past five years alone. In that same time frame, OUSD has provided their students with the technology that a modern day education demands, and today, every student is given a laptop to supplement their K-12 curriculum. But as students graduate high school, these laptops are recycled back into the school district and a number of graduates are left without adequate access to technology, causing many immigrant graduates pursuing college fall behind on their desired educational goals. Our Program Migrant Advocacy Project (MAP) aims to break down the barriers immigrant youth face in their pursuit of higher education through the MAP Scholars Program, an initiative that improves digital literacy and promotes inclusion of immigrant youth at post-secondary institutions. This summer, ten graduating high school seniors from OUSD will participate in MAP’s digital literacy workshop series consisting of eight classes over a two-month period. The program’s core curriculum will focus on three areas of development: personal, professional and academic. Through a variety of interactive workshops, lectures, and panels, the MAP Scholars Program aims to support immigrant youth in their preparation for college by sharing information, tools, and resources that both enhance and complement the awareness of their strengths and limitless capacities. Upon completion of the program, students will receive a MacBook Pro with AppleCare protection and any donations made to this campaign will be used to directly support our capacity to provide each MAP scholar with access to technology. Budget Breakdown All proceeds will go towards providing each student with an Apple MacBook Pro. Our goal is to raise $10,000 through this campaign, which will allow us to provide 8 students with the technology they need to continue their education. Our Goal Impact and Outcomes: Bridging the Gap Bridging the technological gap and economic inclusion: Every Scholar who completes our eight-week MAP Scholars Program receives a MacBook Pro to take with them to college. Paying for college is not easy and not having access to technology can hinder one's ability to pursue higher education and participate in today's digital age economy. Bridging the educational gap: Unlike most merit-based programs, the MAP Scholars Program does not impose a GPA requirement in our scholarship applications. Doing away with this traditional measure of success, MAP redefines what it means to be a scholar. MAP Scholars are high school graduates who are leaders — students who demonstrate intellectual curiosity and a deep commitment to learning, but more importantly, show a willingness to give and seek help as demonstrated by their familial obligations and community involvement. By recognizing students for their strengths both inside and outside of the classroom, MAP promotes racial equity and inclusion for immigrant youth. Social inclusion: Through MAP’s strength-based, growth-minded curriculum, Scholars will enter college with a greater sense of socio-cultural understanding of themselves in relation to the world around them, more confidence in their relationships with peers and adults, and a deeper understanding of fiscal responsibility. In addition, the MAP Scholars Program will raise each Scholar’s confidence level navigating through academic and professional settings. By working with each Scholar to identify, develop, and foster their unique strengths, MAP Scholars have no bounds when it comes to their success in college and beyond. What Can You Do To Help? Your support is crucial to our efforts of increasing accessibility to technology and equalizing opportunities for immigrant youth in the Bay Area. Each donation MAP receives gets us that much closer to our goal of providing laptops for every MAP Scholar in our Summer 2019 cohort. Not able to make a monetary contribution? That’s okay! Sharing this campaign with your family, friends, and colleagues will help us spread the word and create awareness. Thank you in advance for your support! Contact Information To learn more about the MAP Scholars Program, please visit our website or Facebook page. If you have any questions or would like to discuss the project in more detail you can contact us at migrantadvocacyproject@gmail.com.
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Space Technologies and Rocketry - Arktos | Fall 2017
By the STAR
UC Berkeley's first and only Space Technologies and Rocketry team.
UC Berkeley's first and only Space Technologies and Rocketry team. the STAR Thank you for your consideration in supporting STAR! Space Technologies and Rocketry (STAR), UC Berkeley's first high-powered rocketry team, was founded in the fall of 2015. We aim to create and nurture a community of students from a various backgrounds who are interested in aerospace, either professionally or as a hobby. In our first year, we competed at NASA Student Launch, a nationwide competition in which universities launch rockets of their own design to a height of one mile, and perform a payload experiment during flight. We designed and built two rockets that we launched a total of five times - the subscale URSA Minor, and its bigger sibling URSA Major, a 9-foot behemoth packing an L-class solid motor. URSA Major was launched successfully at Student Launch. Over the next few years, our team plans to expand its horizons considerably. This year, we are in the process of working on new projects- a liquid bipropellant engine and a custom flight computer. These projects will make their debut in June, where we will compete at the Spaceport America Cup hosted by the Experimental Sounding Rocketry Association. Rockets flown at this competition reach heights of up to 30,000 feet, which is considerably more challenging than Student Launch. As such, our projected budget will be larger than our past expenditures. We are looking to fundraise about $40,000. About half of our projected budget will go to the NASA Student Launch competition. The remaining half is split between the Spaceport America Cup, propulsion research, and electronics research. As shown above, our crowdfunding project Arktos is the biggest portion of our current budget. In addition to the research funds and resources from our university, this project Arktos will help us reach our projected budget goal. Your donations will allow us to fund necessary rocket equipment without financial compromise. Ultimately, as we refine our designs and manufacturing processes, we hope to be the first college rocketry team to launch a rocket into space, reaching altitudes of over 100 km (62 mi). Through our competitions and projects, we hope to promote and increase the presence of aerospace engineering here at UC Berkeley. Please, make a gift today to help support our dreams and aspirations to reach the STARS!
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100 Strong
By Tanvi Krishna
We are a UC Berkeley student organization dedicated to the education and mentorship of both Cal undergraduates and at-risk girls in the Berkeley/Oakland area.
We are a UC Berkeley student organization dedicated to the education and mentorship of both Cal undergraduates and at-risk girls in the Berkeley/Oakland area. 100 Strong was founded in 2013 by 5 UC Berkeley undergraduate female students, who won the Big Ideas at Berkeley competition in the category of Global Poverty Alleviation with the idea of creating a leadership development program for 100 young women. We taught our very first DeCal (student-run class) for our mentors in Fall 2013 and began the mentorship program in Spring 2014. Since then, our organization has partnered with REALM Charter Middle School in Berkeley, CA where we pair middle school girls with mentors who are currently students at UC Berkeley, meeting weekly over one year. We work with our mentors to create leadership development workshops covering topics such as teamwork, project management, public speaking and social issues at REALM. The mentoring program culminates with mentees creating their own leadership projects that will positively impact their school or greater community. This year, we are looking to partner with a new school, Montera Middle School in Oakland, to help our organization reach more young girls with our mentoring program. Can you make a gift to help us expand our program? Through our fundraising goal, we hope to get funds to increase our efforts in supporting 100 middle school and high school girls in our leadership program, which has been our ultimate goal since Big Ideas. Currently, we have 40-50 girls each year in the program and we would like to reach more young girls in need of our leadership program. This funding goal will help us pay for more mentee community projects and organize leadership workshops. The funds will also be used towards covering transportation costs that will enable 30 UC Berkeley students to travel to the location of our new school partner. We come to you all for help because we believe every one of you has a daughter, sister, or female friend who could benefit from a program like 100 Strong. We all excelled with the help of amazing mentors, teachers and leadership opportunities. We believe our program is relevant to everyone regardless of background because it provides young women with mentorship and an opportunity to practice being a leader, which will prepare them to take on leadership roles in the future. With more women in leadership positions, we strongly believe society as a whole will benefit. Please make a gift today to help 100 Strong have a lasting impact on the lives of these middle school girls. Thank you for your support! You can find out more about what we do at onehundredstrong.com or find us on Facebook (facebook.com/onehundredstrong) and Instagram (@100strong)!
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Active for Alzheimer's
By UC Berkeley
Active for Alzheimer’s needs your help in ending Alzheimer’s! Your donation will help fund discoveries in the memory field, in hopes of curing the disease.
Active for Alzheimer’s needs your help in ending Alzheimer’s! Your donation will help fund discoveries in the memory field, in hopes of curing the disease. According to the Alzheimer’s Association, every 66 seconds someone in the United States develops Alzheimer’s disease. By mid-century, someone will develop the disease every 33 seconds as the baby boom generation reaches their senior years. In addition, more than 15 million Americans provide over 18.1 billion hours of unpaid care for people with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias. According to the CDC, Alzheimer’s is the 6th leading cause of death. There is no way to prevent this disease or slow its progress. (Image from Alzheimer's Association-- 2014 statistics) Active for Alzheimer’s is working towards fighting against these rising statistics by funding an undergraduate research scholarship for students who work in Alzheimer’s disease research laboratories. Through our scholarship initiative, we seek to inspire students to get involved in Alzheimer’s research to find a cure for this devastating disease, and we hope shape their future career path toward further Alzheimer’s innovations. Another way that we hope to battle the effects of this disease is by volunteering with Alzheimer’s patients who need day-to-day care in the local Berkeley community. We have partnered with the Alzheimer’s Services of the East Bay (ASEB) to bring student volunteers in direct contact with the patients who need our help the most. Most of ASEB’s clients (nearly 65%) are from low income families who struggle with the costs of memory care for their aging relatives. Through this project, we hope to enhance the lives of those spending their days at ASEB through craft projects, gardening, and music. By raising awareness of the effects of this disease, we hope to improve the lives of those struggling with Alzheimer’s and prevent the disease from affecting future generations. Starting this year we are launching an initiative to promote student research of Alzheimer’s disease in hopes of finding a cure. Your donation will go directly towards funding four $1,000 undergraduate research scholarships as well as towards raising awareness for the disease at the UC Berkeley campus and beyond. Please make a gift today!
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UC Berkeley Men's Club Water Polo Fundraiser (Spring 2022)
By UC Berkeley
After losing a year to COVID-19, Cal Men's Club Water Polo resumes its long-standing goal of winning a national championship!
After losing a year to COVID-19, Cal Men's Club Water Polo resumes its long-standing goal of winning a national championship! UC Berkeley Men's Club Water Polo is a self-run, self-funded, competitive water polo team consisting of about 25 undergraduate and graduate students. In the fall, we practice four nights a week while also traveling to biweekly regional tournaments to compete against local rivals like Stanford, Cal Maritime, and UC Davis. We are eight-time regional champions, having claimed the Sierra Pacific Division crown every year from 2012-2018 and again in 2021. On the national scene, we commonly finish among the top five teams in the country. Hoisting the 2021 Divisional Championship Plaque! As always, our team’s main focus is to finally bring a national title home to Berkeley. However, in doing so, we face a major challenge: we are almost entirely self funded. There are numerous costs associated with running a successful team like coach’s fees, travel fees, lodging fees, league fees, uniforms, pool time and equipment. The national championship tournament can be particularly expensive to attend, as it’s hosted at rotating sites across the country (most recently, Huntsville, AL). Because we receive very little financial support from the University, any and all donations make a huge impact in supporting our team! Picture Night at Spieker Pool! After missing over a year of polo because of COVID, we understand better than ever how rewarding it can be to be a member of a closely-knit team. Because we want to provide an experience like this for as many students as possible, the main objectives of our fundraiser are to help subsidize travel expenses for players and to work on gaining additional pool time and practice materials so that we can work towards expanding our team in future years. If you want to see updates on tournament schedules and results, and also see more pictures and videos of the team in action, check out our Facebook page, or follow us on Instagram @calmensclubwaterpolo! Thank you so much for your time and support! Go Bears!
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Formula SAE (Fall 2019)
By Gabriel Sandoval
Berkeley Formula Racing (Formula SAE) designs and builds a small formula-style race car each year to compete in the international Formula SAE competition.
Berkeley Formula Racing (Formula SAE) designs and builds a small formula-style race car each year to compete in the international Formula SAE competition. Berkeley Formula Racing (Formula SAE) is an engineering student organization that designs and builds a small formula-style race car in order to compete in the Formula SAE competition in Fontana, CA every June. Our team is comprised of 60 students from various backgrounds all belonging to at least one of our subsystems: Aerodynamics, Brakes & Driver Interface, Business, Chassis, Drivetrain, Engine, Electrical, and Suspension. Since our establishment in 2001, our dedicated members have worked their way from a simple engineering club to one of the top competitors in the nation. Each year we have shown growth in both our engineering design and project management skills. Our project runs year-round. Once we finish our competition in June, we begin preparing for the next season's car by validating our designs during the Summer Testing Phase. This gives us the data we need to further understand our vehicle performance and set goals and specifications for the next iteration of our vehicle. During the Fall Semester, we enter into the Design Phase in which each subsystem undergoes multiple design reviews with sponsors and alumni to ensure that they are working efficiently towards the goals they set at the beginning of the year. Once the design is complete, we begin our Manufacturing Phase. During these two months, student machinists make over 300 unique parts for our vehicle and student welders weld together our steel space frame chassis. The rest of our members assist by preparing and assembling steel tubes for chassis welding and fabricating foam molds and carbon fiber layups for the aerodynamic devices. Once we assemble all these components, we move into the Testing Phase. This is the most crucial part of our process as we work to debug the car, validate our designs, and tune the car for optimal performance in preparation for our competition. Competition itself takes one full week of June. Here our team is tested on both their knowledge of their designs as it relates to vehicle dynamics as well as their knowledge of the market as they attempt the sell the car to potential “investors.” The competition comprises of a number of both static and dynamic events. Static events include design, fuel efficiency, business, and cost, while the car itself is put to the test in a series of dynamic events that overall test the car's acceleration, cornering performance, and endurance. By the end of the week, the team walks away with great gains of knowledge, the achievement of a successful season… and hopefully a trophy! This year we are attempting to raise a total of $10,000 through our crowdfunding efforts to allow us to complete several big ticket developments that require significant funding: 1. To switch our vehicle's engine from the KTM 350 engine used in previous years to the more powerful KTM 450 engine, we seek $5000 to purchase additional engines and necessary auxiliary parts. 2. To continue developing and testing our car’s composites structures, we seek $3000 to construct and test our carbon fiber aerodynamic components such as the front wing, undertray, and wheel shells. 3. To continue our weight reduction development and make our manufacturing process more efficient, we would like to invest $1000 in additive manufacturing and CNC machining technologies. 4. Finally, we want to integrate additional sensors into our car so we can monitor various vehicle systems during testing. This is estimated to cost around $1000 to purchase various vehicle dynamics sensors such as beta angle, accelerometers, and strain gauges. STEM education is important to our members. We constantly strive for innovation and these developments not only help to improve our car for competition but also help improve our knowledge in design and project management. The skills we learn on the team make us competitive not only at our competition but also in industry where prior engineering experience is extremely valuable. These advancements would not be possible without sufficient funding, so we thank you for your time and consideration. For any questions or concerns, feel free to reach out to us at calfsae@gmail.com. Check our website out at fsae.berkeley.edu, and follow us on Facebook (facebook.com/calracing) and Instagram (@calformulasae).
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California Ice Hockey | Fall 2019 Campaign
By California Ice Hockey
We need your support to achieve our goal of winning our division and being able to compete at regionals!
We need your support to achieve our goal of winning our division and being able to compete at regionals! California Ice Hockey The California Ice Hockey Program was founded in 1929 as the sport began to take its roots across the west coast. This past season, we ended up 20-5 and reached the Pacific Athletic Conference Final for the second straight year. We hope to build upon our recent successes. In order to fulfill our vision and reach the upper echelons of club hockey, we require the funds to travel and play tougher competition, host local summer camps, continue community outreach, and expand our publicity efforts. Will you help us by making a gift today? Mayor of Oakland Libby Schaaf dropping the puck for the Cal vs. Stanford "Big Freeze" game. Photo Credit: David Dyke With twenty eight active players, Cal Ice Hockey is poised to expand in the coming years by fielding more teams with different levels of skill. However, as our team continues to grow each year we accrue more expenses which will limit our ability to compete and improve as a program. Based on previous budgets and our current plans, we expect to spend $86,500 in the 2019-20 season. The majority of our budget is dedicated to rink fees, which covers the costs of renting ice time for practices, games, and community events that we host. Our budgeted expenditures are shown in the graph below. The Crowdfunding efforts that our program made this past year helped the team organize a more comprehensive game and practice schedule while participating in important community outreach events such as “Try Hockey for Free”. However, as the Pacific Athletic Conference expands from 8 to 12 teams and we shift to a 20 game conference schedule, we’ll need additional funds in order to travel and remain a competitive program. Despite having had great success this season, we remain unranked regionally largely because our ranking is based, in part, on the relative strength of our schedule and we do not have the resources to travel and play stronger teams. With more funding, including your generous contribution, we will have the ability to schedule more non-conference games against the premier programs in the West and earn a high enough standing to get an invitation to Regionals and prepare ourselves for the conference tournament. In sum, if we raise more money, we will be able to improve our program. Captain Michael Leone scoring a goal against USC. Photo Credit: Robert Edwards Unlike many of the teams in our division, which receive around $20,000 to $100,000 from their respective universities, UC Berkeley allocates $600 to our program and taxes us $6,370, which results in a net -$5,770. Thus, lion’s share of the Cal Ice Hockey budget is funded by dues collected from players. Unfortunately, given the demands of our sport, dues for the program have increased year to year and, though we hand reduced dues to a select few players based upon need, the price to play can prevent some players from having the opportunity to take part in our program. The chart below reflects the sources of funds for our budget. All things considered, the most important goal of this fundraising campaign is to expand our impact on the surrounding community. Specifically, our team hopes to invest time and money in hockey outreach events with projects like charity games, summer camps, and youth team mentoring. Senior Assistant Captain Delfino Varela with the local Oakland bears youth hockey team All in all, your donation will go a long way to help both the team and the communities of Berkeley and Oakland. This team is something special for all the players and everyone who the community touches. Players celebrating after a goal. Photo Credit: Robert Edwards We are more than just a hockey team; we're a close group of friends brought together by something we're all passionate about: we play hockey together, hang out together, and study together. The community that this team builds is something special and it would mean the world to us if you would help support us. We thank you in advance for your time and attention, our team truly appreciates it. Check out our social media! Facebook: @cal_icehockey Twitter: @calicehockey Instagram: @calicehockey Website: https://www.calicehockey.com Feel free to contact us at team@calicehockey.com devincox99@berkeley.edu jeffrey_chen99@berkeley.edu andrew.wong@berkeley.edu A huge thanks to Peter Shin for helping us out and making & producing our crowdfunding video!!!
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Camp Alima
By Camp Alima
Camp Alima is a STEM-focused camp for high-school aged girls in Morocco. Help us empower these young women to see themselves as scientists and leaders!
Camp Alima is a STEM-focused camp for high-school aged girls in Morocco. Help us empower these young women to see themselves as scientists and leaders! Camp Alima https://youtu.be/1GvDjStr1c0 Camp Alima was established in 2018 with the purpose of exposing high school-aged girls in Morocco to the possibility of a career in the STEM fields including, but not limited to, biology, chemistry, and computer science. The purpose of our student organization at UC Berkeley is to design the STEM curriculum that we will then teach the following summer during a week-long summer camp for interested Moroccan students. This summer camp will take on a two-pronged format. We will first incorporate hands-on science experiments aimed at giving students first-hand experience with the concepts they learn during the school year. We will guide students through the development of a hypothesis, testing of that hypothesis, and finally, interpretation of the results. For the second part of the camp, we will coordinate with Moroccans currently employed in STEM-related industries to discuss leadership and career opportunities with the camp attendees. Our focus as a student organization will be to bring together the various elements of the camp as well as to educate the local Berkeley community on Morocco and our work there through community events. These community events will focus on education-related development and will take various forms such as seminars, panels, community dinners, and more. Contact Us! https://www.facebook.com/campalima/
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Cal Hurling 2020 | NCGAA Nationals (Spring 2020)
By Han Zhang
Donate to send the Cal Hurling Team to the 2020 NCGAA nationals in Orlando, the biggest collegiate event in the sport of hurling!
Donate to send the Cal Hurling Team to the 2020 NCGAA nationals in Orlando, the biggest collegiate event in the sport of hurling! Hi everyone! We are Cal Hurling Club, one of the oldest college hurling clubs in the United States, and an active member of the National Collegiate Gaelic Athletic Association (NCGAA). As a small-sized sport club, we have players of various backgrounds from first-year hurlers and players that have known this sport since childhood, and we are together because we share the same passion for the sport and our wonderful community. The 2020 national collegiate hurling tournament, the biggest of its level in the US, will be held in March in Orlando, Florida. As a 100% student-run team with no stable income source, many of our team members sadly couldn’t make the trip because of financial reasons. However, we want every player who wants to play hurling to have an opportunity, and that’s why we are asking for your donation! All fund raised will be used to cover for our tournament expenses -- we are aiming for a total of $1500, where $200 will be used on accommodations, $1000 on flight tickets, and $300 for new jerseys. We have used the same set of jerseys for over 7 years, and it does not comply with the current Cal sport club sponsorship rules. Therefore, we need to order a new set of jerseys for the whole team. Your donation would be very helpful in sending our team to the tournament, as we proudly represent Cal in the biggest stage in the US! If you are unable to support financially, please share our campaign on your social platform!
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Cal Table Tennis | Road to 2020 NCTTA Nationals
By Angela Guan
Help send Cal Table Tennis to the National Collegiate Table Tennis Association (NCTTA) Nationals and support our quest for gold.
Help send Cal Table Tennis to the National Collegiate Table Tennis Association (NCTTA) Nationals and support our quest for gold. Help send Cal Table Tennis to the National Collegiate Table Tennis Association (NCTTA) Nationals and support our quest for gold. We are a student-run sports club at the University of California, Berkeley, and the one of the largest college table tennis in the US. We are one of the top teams in the US and the current NCTTA Northern California Divisionals Champion in Coed Teams and Women's Teams. This year, we're aiming for more titles for Cal. Top results: - NCTTA Nationals Women's Singles Champion - NCTTA Nationals Women's Doubles Champion - NCTTA Nationals Coed Teams Finalist - NCTTA Nationals Women's Teams Finalist Upcoming Tournaments for Spring 2020: - NCTTA Northern California Divisionals in Sacramento, CA - NCTTA West Regionals in Sacramento, CA - NCTTA National Championships in Round Rock, Texas Our club has been growing to over 60 members, and our competitive team consists of 20 players. We range from EECS, Computer Science, Engineering, to Biology, Math, History, and Economics majors. CalTTC has members from the US, China, Canada, New Zealand, Brazil, Korea, India, Russia, and more countries, and former US National Team members, Angela Guan and Teddy Tran, and former national team members from the US, Canada, and New Zealand. Some CalTTC alumni include former US Junior Champion and National Team member Prachi Jha, 2015 NCTTA Singles Champion Ying Wang, 2011 US Nationals Men’s Singles Champion Peter Li, and 2012 and 2016 US Olympian Lily Zhang. Although table tennis is a growing, thriving Olympic sport, funding for our collegiate club is extremely limited. Aside from $400 allotted to us by Cal Sport Clubs, our funding only comes from membership fees and our own pockets. Your donation will not only fund our venture to Nationals but also our day to day needs as a club. By donating to our club, you'll be helping us provide a better environment, such as adequate tables, nets, balls, and barriers, for all of our players! Support our journey for gold at the NCTTA Nationals this April in Round Rock, Texas. We greatly appreciate your help, support, and contribution in partnering with us to bring home a national title this April. Thank you for your time and consideration. Go Bears! If you have any questions, please reach out to us at calttc@gmail.com and join our Facebook page for latest updates, club events, and team results https://www.facebook.com/groups/calttc/. Your Donation at Work $25 - 15 balls $40 - 1 barrier $50 - 1 net $150 - 1 hotel room for 1 night $250 - Team registration and transportation for Regionals $600 - Flight to Nationals in Texas for 1 team member $600 - Registration fee for Nationals $750 - 1 table
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Materials Science and Engineering Grad Orientation
By Jordan Burns
Our Graduate Orientation each Fall brings the next generation of scientists into a culture of respect, collaboration, ethics and hard work.
Our Graduate Orientation each Fall brings the next generation of scientists into a culture of respect, collaboration, ethics and hard work. The Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) Department at UC Berkeley is a multi-disciplinary program with a community of over 300 people. Our Ph.D. students work across a wide range of cutting edge topics like longer lasting batteries to creating greener recyclable plastics. In addition to their research and class loads, MSE Ph.D. students are actively involved in both department and university-wide organizations. Some of these groups focus on improving life at Berkeley like the Graduate Women in Engineering who support female identifying people in STEM fields. Other orgs like the Science Policy Group focus on how to help policy makers craft science-backed policy and increase civic engagement in the scientific community. Our MSE graduate students are a hard working and passionate bunch with many academic and social interests. The MSE Graduate Student Council (MSE GSC) is the representative body for MSE graduate students. Our mission is to improve graduate student life. We want to build a strong support network for MSE graduate students, bring the community together through events, and advocate on behalf of students. Given our diverse graduate student body, about 50% of whom are international students, we know the importance of building a strong sense of community from the beginning. That’s why the MSE GSC developed a new, in-depth orientation program for our new graduate students. Your donation will go directly to supporting our orientation and will help new graduate students feel at home in the MSE department. Our orientation program gives graduate students a sense of community before starting classes and research. It gives students the chance to learn about the department and university and lets them adjust to their new environment. We also help connect new students to older graduate students and faculty members. Our program holds conversations about ethics in research and school, work-life balance, sexual violence and sexual harassment, stress, and mental health and wellness. We need your support in making this orientation as strong as it can be for our new students. Our main goal in orientation is to let new graduate students get to know each other and feel comfortable before the start of their hectic class and research schedules. To help students get to know each other, we put on social and bonding activities during orientation. We organize department socials, happy hours, hiking, an MSE-themed Escape Room and a language exchange between domestic and international students. Your donations go towards making these events possible and create a welcoming experience for our new students’ first few days on campus. We connect new graduate students to a range of resources available to them on the UC Berkeley campus. They meet and hear from counsellors from the UC Berkeley Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS). They interact with one of the engineering librarians and learn how to improve their research with tips on finding and writing academic papers. Finally, we work with the PATH to Care Center to train our new graduate students in what behaviors are classified as sexual violence and sexual harrassment. We also educate them on what protections they have under Title IX and what ways they can help friends or peers in these situations. By completing this intimate, in person training within our department, instead of in a big lecture hall at the university-wide level, we find that we have much more open, honest conversations about these topics and we find that students feel more comfortable discussing and asking questions. Your donation will help us make the best possible experience in these workshops and compensate the people who work hard to create them. Through all of these sessions and activities, we want new graduate students to feel welcome and part of a community from the moment they arrive on campus. They gain insight on what works and what doesn’t work from older graduate students who they meet during orientation. They can worry a little less knowing about all the resources they have before they begin research and classes. They have new friendships and a sense of their peers’ cultures from team-building activities. Finally, they know who to ask for help, which is probably the best way to make someone feel settled and comfortable in a new environment. Please donate today to help us guide a healthy, successful and socially conscious generation of scientists at our 2020 orientation! To keep up with orientation and the graduate student council, please follow us on Twitter: @ucbmsegsc and on Instagram: @ucbmsegsc or email jordapburns13@gmail.com for questions!
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Helix Medical Summer Program 2020
By UC Berkeley
We're Helix, a 501(c)(3) non-profit striving to create equity in the healthcare field! With your support, we'll provide an excellent 2020 summer program!
We're Helix, a 501(c)(3) non-profit striving to create equity in the healthcare field! With your support, we'll provide an excellent 2020 summer program! Helix Medical was built on the premise of breaking educational barriers for marginalized and socioeconomically disadvantaged high school students to diversify the healthcare workforce. This goal culminates into a free 4 summer medical program that allows matriculants to gain a medical foundation through our core curriculum and clinical site visits that allow students explore health in a hospital, pre-hospital, and clinical setting. For the past 2 summer programs, we have provided opportunities for over 40 amazing students to build a foundation in science and medicine. All 40 of our alumni, who carefully fill out required post-program feedback forms, have cited Helix as a contributing factor to their decision to continue healthcare education in the future. Every single eligible matriculant from the program has enrolled in college, including UC Berkeley, Stanford, and UCSD, and Helix hopes to inspire future cohorts to continue postsecondary education in the healthcare field. Congratulations to our 2019 Summer Cohort! We dearly miss you! Future surgeons in our cohort eagerly showing off their heart and brain dissections To build off our summer program from the past summer, which featured a similar rendition of 4 weeks, we are enacting a more comprehensive curriculum and providing our cohort with seed funding to implement their Social Determinants of Health project that they present to Kaiser clinicians. Consequently, through crowdfunding, Helix intends for any financial contributions it receives to build a foundation for talented high school students lacking such educational resources to become the next generation of promising clinicians. Jasmine, our Helix director, is explaining the SDOH project Students hearing and sharing experiences with healthcare professionals from the Bay Area, including radiologist Dr. Marsha Roberts Our curriculum budget totals to $3400, consisting of the actual laboratory material during the 1 week core curriculum and transportation costs for students to get to their assigned hospital sites during the 3 week site visits. The curriculum portion begins with three health modules that broaden the scope of a health problem from a microscopic pathology standpoint to a socioeconomic and political standpoint. Combined, these activities cost $385, including materials such as blood pressure kits, sheep hearts, pig feet, and hand soap. Miscellaneous labs, which include medical imaging, emergency medical skills, and mouse dissections, complement the health modules with hands-on experimentation to replicate basic scientific research, totaling to $1940 for supplies. The last component of the didactic portion includes the Helix symposium held at the School of Public Health, where students present their research on a public health issue to our program’s network of clinicians and mentors, totaling to $575 for room reservations and poster board costs. Finally, transportations ensures that all 20 of our matriculants receive 5 bart tickets to arrive at their designated hospital, pre-hospital, and clinical sites, which primarily reside between downtown Kaiser Permanente, UCSF and the Bay Area Fire Departments. Each bart ticket will be valued at $5, equating to $500 for 100 total bart tickets.Your generous contributions support purchasing the materials for the core curriculum and the means of transportation for student shadowing opportunities. Work with us to promote equal representation in the healthcare workforce one gift at a time and consider donating today! We're ready for the 2020 summer program! Let's make it happen together! Feel free to contact us at info@thehelixgroup.org, or my personal email at apurvaprasad7@berkeley.edu. Please also visit our site thehelixgroup.org if you want more information about our previous programs!
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Cal in the Capital | Spring 2017
By UC Berkeley
Help send Cal interns to D.C. to participate in Cal in the Capital (CITC), UC Berkeley's student-run internship program in our nation's capital.
Help send Cal interns to D.C. to participate in Cal in the Capital (CITC), UC Berkeley's student-run internship program in our nation's capital. Support student internships in our nation's capital! Supporting Scholarships for This Year's Cal in the Capital Interns The 2017 cohort of Cal in the Capital interns For more than 50 years, Cal in the Capital has launched Berkeley students into challenging summer internships in the nation’s capital, and trained the next generation of leaders and public servants. This summer, over 75 talented interns will face a radically changed political landscape in Washington, D.C. Their experiences and perspectives, their energy and idealism, are needed now more than ever before. Housed at the Public Service Center, Cal in the Capital (CITC) is a student-run internship program that takes place during the summer in Washington, DC. Each year, we prepare more than 70 Berkeley students for these challenging internships. With a reputation for excellence, our interns are in high demand and most students work full-time. To date over 3800 interns have served 1,633,689 hours of service in hundreds of different settings — including Congressional offices, federal and other government agencies, think tanks, nonprofit organizations, media centers, private corporations, and research institutions. Students from all majors, backgrounds, and interests participate in this program, which impacts not only their lives, but society as a whole. Your Support Provides Transformative Summer Experiences Very few summer internships are paid, so the transformative experience of Cal in the Capital is out of reach for most Berkeley students. Our interns currently pay their way by taking on extra jobs during the school year, or through limited scholarships and hard-to-obtain summer financial aid. Even so, the current cost of $5,800 — which includes housing at the UCDC Washington Center, travel, and basic living expenses for the 10-week program — is too much of a stretch. Help us make this transformative experience possible for Berkeley students. How funds are distributed: Funds raised through this campaign will provide students' scholarships, which are distributed based on need. An average of 25 to 30 students receive partial scholarships ranging in size from $300 to $800 for the summer. Estimated budget for financing a summer in D.C. Housing and Utility: $3500 Food: $1000 Air Transit: $500 Local Transit: $300 Other personal expenses (travel, etc.): $500 Suggested budget per intern: $5800 Why Support Cal in the Capital? Congresswoman Barbara Lee, Alumni, Former CITC Intern “I remember my time as an intern fondly, and can tell you without hesitation that this program changed my life, as it has for so many others. Because of my experience with the program, I have always enjoyed having the privilege of hosting Cal in the Capital interns in my congressional office. The passion and dedication that these student leaders display toward serving their country, their communities, and those whose voices too often go unheard is an inspiration to all.” Sofia Gonzalez Platas | Class of 2017 | Political Economy and International Development Studies | CITC Intern 2015 and Director 2016-2017 "I was a member of the Cal in the Capital cohort during the summer of 2015. While in Washington, D.C. I learned the most valuable lesson of all: change and improvements do not come easily, it takes time, unity, and perseverance to accomplish our goals. Despite the current political events that may concern our community, I believe it is incredibly important to empower and encourage our Cal in the Capital cohort students to work for what they believe in while at D.C. with the passion, enthusiasm, and dedication needed to move forward and work together for a better tomorrow." Parash Shah | Donor & Alumni | UCB Class of 2015 | History & Political Science | CITC intern & student director 2014-2015 | 2015 John Gardner Fellow at Human Rights Watch | Current first year law student at UC, Irvine “Cal in the Capital is so important because it truly enhances and compliments what Berkeley students learn in the classroom by developing practical experience and professional growth. I think we need to redouble our efforts to make the program more inclusive. The financial burden often proves prohibitive for students from underrepresented backgrounds. My hope is that as we celebrate all the program has accomplished, let us also invest in the future generations of Cal students so they too, can also make D.C. Bear Territory.” Victoria Brademan | Donor & Alumni | UCB Class of 1973 French & Class of 1980 Law | CITC intern & student director 1972-1973 “CITC did so much for me. How could I not stay involved and give back? CITC remains one of the most well regarded summer internship programs in Washington, DC.It’s time for alumni to come to the rescue in a big way. If you are a former CITC intern, my fondest hope is that you will reconnect with this program and contribute financially to its continued success on a yearly basis. It needs your help to survive and thrive." Dr. Michael McGinnis | Donor & Alumni | CITC Founding Member 1965 “I can’t imagine a more valuable cause to donate to. You’re donating to the University of California, your alma mater. You’re donating to the generation of future leaders for the nation and therefore, investing into the seed corn of the leadership of the nation. And you’re enriching the Washington environment because the contribution of students when they’re on the scene is a contribution that is not just expressed in terms of the work they do, but also in terms of the spirit they bring.” Visit our website: publicservice.berkeley.edu/citc Or, for more information, please contact: Rosita C. Lucas Director of Advancement Services Student Affairs Philanthropy University of California, Berkeley email: rosital@berkeley.edu
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Solar Spring Break | 2019
By SERC
SSB is an alternative spring break program that gives students the opportunity to spend their break installing solar panels on homes in underserved communities.
SSB is an alternative spring break program that gives students the opportunity to spend their break installing solar panels on homes in underserved communities. SERC *After this page closes on 3/1, we will continue fundraising on this site: https://donate.gridalternatives.org/campaign/uc-berkeley-2019-ssb/c207964 This spring break, 2019, two groups of 12 UC Berkeley students will be traveling to areas around Oakland and Salinas to install solar panels for low-income households. This is the 6th year that UC Berkeley students are participating in this “Solar Spring Break” project, hosted by the nonprofit organization GRID Alternatives. Solar Spring Break is supported on campus by the Student Environmental Resource Center (SERC) and is comprised of a week-long trip over Spring Break to install panels and a DeCal (student-taught class) on the topics of solar technology and environmental justice. Most residential areas today are powered by energy from fossil fuels, which are nonrenewable, polluting, and contribute to climate change. In order to decarbonize our energy system, it is essential to increase the presence of renewables in the residential electricity mix. However, the upfront cost of rooftop solar systems is a major barrier that deters many homeowners from switching to solar. By installing solar panels on qualifying homes in underrepresented communities, our team seeks to provide needed financial savings for residents while lowering greenhouse gas emissions. We believe that renewable energy and utility savings should not be reserved just for those with the means to afford solar panel installations. People struggling to make ends meet are the ones who would benefit the most from stabilized and reduced electricity bills, and that is why we focus on this demographic. In addition to advocating for environmental justice in underrepresented communities, participants of Solar Spring Break will also acquire the technical skills need to install solar panels. This hands-on learning experience will actively enrich participants’ knowledge and understanding of solar energy and prepare many for a career in the field of renewable energy. Solar energy is a renewable and carbon neutral source of energy. Once set up, it involves minimal maintenance and running costs, while providing a reliable electricity output. However, the initial installation costs of an average sized home solar panel system (5 kW) can cost over $25000, mainly due to the prohibitively high costs of photovoltaic systems, as well as the labor and electronic components required. Thus, even with subsidized rates and incentives provided by utility companies, most low income communities still cannot afford these facilities. GRID Alternatives aims to overcome this cost barrier, and make solar power accessible to all regardless of socio-economic background. This will not only benefit the environment, but also improve the financial well-being and living standards of impoverished communities in the East Bay and Central Coast. Crowdfunding Goal Participating in each installation effort costs us about $5,000, and since we are participating in both the East Bay and Central Coast projects this year, we need to raise around $10,000 to cover our costs. Here is a more detailed budget breakdown: Solar Panels/Program Fees: $9,000 Meals/Food for both groups for a week: $800 Transportation to/around Salinas and Oakland (BART, rideshare, gas, etc.): $400 Misc./Activities: $100 Grand Total: $10,300 This money will directly bring the environmental and economic benefits of solar power to low-income families in Oakland and Salinas. Please make a gift today to help us reach our goal so we can bring renewable, affordable energy to underserved communities and give students hands-on experience with solar technology! Thank you so much for taking the time to read about our project, and if you would like to know more about the program before making a gift, you can read about it on the GRID Alternatives website and on the SERC website. Note: We began fundraising on a separate site before this one, and the money we raised there (~$3,400) is reflected on this site in order to give donors an accurate view of the total progress of our fundraising efforts.
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Somo Berkeley
By Amelia Phillips
Somo Berkeley works to identify, train, and fund visionary entrepreneurs looking to drive social change in their communities.
Somo Berkeley works to identify, train, and fund visionary entrepreneurs looking to drive social change in their communities. This project has ended, but you can still support amazing Berkeley initiatives by visiting give.berkeley.edu. Your continued support of our students, faculty and staff will ensure that Berkeley remains the #1 public university. Go Bears! Who are we? Somo Berkeley’s mission is to identify, train, fund and mentor entrepreneurs looking to drive social change by building sustainable enterprises in their own low-income urban communities. Somo Berkeley is affiliated with UC Berkeley’s Blum Center and is the recipient of the first place prize in Conflict and Development from Big Ideas@Berkeley. The Trend Today, over 1 billion people live in urban slum settlements around the world, with overcrowding of cities increasing dramatically. Inadequate public services, infrastructure and city management all obstruct economic growth in crowded, low-income urban areas. These densely populated settlements generally do not have basic public services such as education, health care and police protection, and lack infrastructure such as lighting, running water and sewer lines. Pilot Program Somo Berkeley is part of The Somo Project, a Bay Area non-profit. The Somo Project’s initial efforts are focused on the Kibera slum of Nairobi, Kenya, one of the most notable slums of Sub-Saharan Africa. From its beginnings as a settlement in the forests outside Nairobi, Kibera has become home to around 250,000 people, crowded into less than one square mile (Map Kibera). The adult population is highly connected, with 78% owning mobile phones (Ondevice Research). Large, concentrated and connected communities exist in Kibera, providing fertile ground to build a significant social enterprise. Kibera is home to incredible entrepreneurial talent. Walking the various alleyways, one observes brisk economic activity, and innovation and creativity even where little to no infrastructure or support exists. In 2012, the Economist researched the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Kibera and concluded “Kibera may be the most entrepreneurial place on the planet”. We are believers in the talent pool in Kibera. We believe that if you match that with hard work, capital, and long-term partnership, there is huge potential for the growth of social enterprises. As of September 2015, we have made six investments in innovative entrepreneurs who are building enterprises that can meaningfully impact their communities. While it is too early to tell (we believe results can only be measured 2 to 5 from now), the early progress is extremely promising. From upgrading meal programs at schools to teaching programming languages in tech-savvy youth, our entrepreneurs are pursuing innovative solutions to pressing health, education and environmental initiatives. What’s next? Somo Berkeley is looking to launch a new class of entrepreneurs in Nairobi’s informal settlements. One of our focus areas will be to identify high potential women and youth, populations that are often overlooked and for whom business opportunities are scarce. We have begun an outreach program to women’s groups and high schools around Kibera. What we look for? Our philosophy is to invest in and provide the necessary training and tools for entrepreneurs who are looking to change their communities from within. By investing in the right people in search of opportunity and change, The Somo Project can help bring opportunity and long-term stability to urban slum areas. We work to create this stability through training, mentorship and capital, to help entrepreneurs find a path toward sustainability for their enterprises. We take a long-term investment-focused approach; meaning we are rigorous in both identifying and evaluating areas of investment, entrepreneurs, and deployment of capital. The Somo Project has four fundamental criteria for evaluating business plans: 1. Socially focused. We invest in ideas that focus on education, health and the environment. Somo defines socially focused as more than just the creation of jobs. 2. Differentiated product. We are looking for goods or services that are innovative or new to the community — ideas that do something new or better or more affordably. 3. Scalable idea. Our target businesses start small to prove the model, develop a foundation that can be expanded as the market grows, and scale to reach significant populations. 4. Self-sustainable. While our businesses need capital to launch, they do not require regular infusions of capital to work long term. We are looking for businesses that generate enough revenue to organically fund both operating expenses and growth. The Funding. Where is your money going? Somo Berkeley is committed to the 100% model, meaning 100% of donated capital goes directly to training, funding and investing in entrepreneurs. We cover our operating expenses from private donors. We keep it simple. You’ll know exactly how we invest your capital. Contact us: ameliahphillips@berkeley.edu
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Reduce 3D Printing Waste at Berkeley
By Nicole
3D printing generates a ton of plastic trash. A student initiative to create recycling infrastructure to turn trash into material that can be 3D printed again.
3D printing generates a ton of plastic trash. A student initiative to create recycling infrastructure to turn trash into material that can be 3D printed again. If you're familiar with 3D printing, you know about the piles of plastic trash (failed prints, tangled spools, vetoed prototypes) that it generates. For a technology of the future, that's not a very forward-thinking way to operate, right? At the 3D Printing Recycling Project, we believe in the educational power of 3D printing, but we also know there is a greener way to do it. We are building the student-led, on-campus infrastructure for 3D printing recycling at UC Berkeley, so that all of that plastic trash is turned right back into filament and can be 3D printed again. The benefits of our in-house recycling over traditional recycling include: - Existing infrastructure in our area cannot process the most commonly used 3D Printing plastics, so they just go to the landfill - Saving educational labs money, since one spool of new filament can cost around $25 - Saving upwards of 50lbs of plastic trash from the landfill each month! - Making 3D printing a greener technology We hope you will be a part of this revolution! Please consider making a gift so that we can make this a reality. ~~~~~~~~ The money we raise here will go to: - Purchasing an industrial plastics grinder for reclaiming the plastic, and other non-disposable equipment (around $4000) - Safety equipment and training needed for using this grinder (around $200) - Electrical components needed to automate the extruder (around $500) - Other supplies for the project such as replacement nozzles, extrusion cooling system, etc. (around $300) Gifts made to UC Berkeley will be subject to a 5% philanthropic allocation fee. A 2.5% credit card transaction fee will also apply. ~~~~~~~~ For questions and comments about this project, please contact Scott at sfs1997@berkeley.edu. Please donate and share this page on Facebook! Every donation helps us to make 3D Printing at Berkeley more environmentally responsible. Thank you for your time.
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Children of the Andes
By UC Berkeley
We are a summer abroad volunteer program in the town of San Pedro de Cajas, Peru. We help the community address the education achievement gap & health inequity.
We are a summer abroad volunteer program in the town of San Pedro de Cajas, Peru. We help the community address the education achievement gap & health inequity. Who We Are: Children of the Andes is a student-run organization based in UC Berkeley. We conduct a summer abroad volunteer program in the town of San Pedro de Cajas (SPC), found in the Andean mountains of Peru. We work at the grassroots level in collaboration with community leaders to develop sustainable solutions that address the pressing issues of the education achievement gap and health inequity in San Pedro de Cajas. Our development plan strives towards measurable and sustainable progress with organized community projects and realistic goals, objectives, and indicators. Most importantly, our goals align with the development goals of the SPC community. Proper child development is of great importance if a community is to become self-sustainable and prosper. We plan to leave no child behind. What We Do: Our volunteer cohorts are made up of passionate and motivated university students who are willing to acquire and disseminate various forms of knowledge to members of the SPC community, primarily young students and their parents/guardians. We train volunteers with the knowledge and skills necessary to make sustainable changes in the SPC community prior to the beginning of their service. Volunteers carry out their roles as community development facilitators through three meaningful project options. Community Organizing Projects: Public Health Educator Outreach to parents of the district and adjacent annexes of Purhuaracra and San Jose de Cayash. Lead free workshops and community focus groups with the themes of Early care and child development Proper nutrition Vaccines and Preventable Diseases Anemia Healthy Sexual Behaviors Classroom Teaching Assistant We teach students at the primary school Virgen de Fatima N 30748. The primary school “Virgen del Rosario N 30851,” has only one teacher, who is serving also as their director, Directora Estela Condor. This school serves students who find themselves in the low side socioeconomic ladder. Due to the low number of students (12), the school does not qualify for funds to hire another teacher. Goals: Provide the developing school with a projector Assist Principal Condor with classroom management and teaching. Help the youth foster independence and self-value as capable students Promote the pursuit of higher education and exploration of possible fields and careers. Focused Tutoring We tutor students in both primary and secondary schools, ages range from 6 to 16 years of age. We provide individual tutoring sessions to students deemed as disadvantaged and behind the curriculum by their teachers. Tutoring covers following courses/subjects: English (writing and conversational) Spanish (writing and reading comprehension) Math (geometry, trigonometry, algebra, calculus) Science (Physics, human biology, chemistry) Support Our Cause: Please consider making a gift today and sharing Children of the Andes with your friends and family. Gifts of any size are highly appreciated, as they will make a big impact in the development of education and child/maternal health of San Pedro de Cajas. All donations are fully tax deductible. With your donation, we will be able to: Provide stipends to make program fees accessible to students from all backgrounds. We cannot cover the financial needs of many of our participants. With your help we can ensure that this opportunity is accessible to our volunteers. Stipends cover food, housing and transportation for the entire length of the program (2 weeks). Raise funds to provide school, sport, medical and hygienic supplies to be donated to local primary and secondary schools as well as local healthcare providers and cultural centers. Cover transportation to adjacent, more isolated, annexes of Purhuaracra and San Jose de Cayash where we will be outreaching as well. Cover the cost of materials to be used in workshops, presentations and informational meetings with community leaders, teachers and parents/guardians. Buy a projector for the underfunded educational institution of Virgen de Fatima If you have any questions/concerns, or wish to learn more about us, feel free to email us at any time at childrenotandes@gmail.com
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Golden Bear Competitive Bhangra Uniform Upgrades
By Golden Bear Comp. Bhangra
We are dedicated to promoting awareness of the Punjabi Culture through dance! Help our family become competition ready this season!
We are dedicated to promoting awareness of the Punjabi Culture through dance! Help our family become competition ready this season! Golden Bear Comp. Bhangra Golden Bear Competitive Bhangra (fondly known as Cal Bhangra) was formed to promote awareness of the Punjabi Culture at UC Berkeley through the expression of traditional, folk Punjabi dance. By creating a group full of young, passionate Berkeley students, our organization hopes to keep Bhangra alive at Cal. We are a dedicated group of individuals who gives countless hours to perfecting our art form. Our practices generally last anywhere from 2-3 hours a night, three days a week. We'll practice wherever we find space and whenever we find time, whether that be in Hearst Gym on a weekday or in RSF Garage on a Friday night. As a result, we've had the opportunities to compete in national and international Bhangra competitions, placing second at Legacy of Bhangra 2016 and placing first at Bhangra Blowout 2017–and that was just last year! However, our team is not just about winning competitions and adding to our achievements. As 40+ college students who spends countless hours together, we have really become more like a family than a team. Whether it be at socials, practices, or even just hanging out on campus, the members of Golden Bear Competitive Bhangra are always there to support each other. Our primary source of fundraising is competing at and winning regional and national Bhangra competitions. Most competition rubrics weigh heavily towards the quality of the team’s costumes and props. Unfortunately, our costumes and props have gone through 5 years of wear and tear and are no longer adequate to use on stage. We are hoping to replace our outfits and props so that we can continue to spread Punjabi culture and represent Cal around the US. Currently, we do not have the funds necessary to replace our costumes and props. Therefore, with the support of this campaign, we hope to raise the $2,000 necessary to become competition-ready. This will get us 12 new costumes, 8 new saaps (a folk dance prop), and 12 new daangs (another folk dance prop)! Any and all donations are greatly appreciated. If you have any questions, please feel free to email calbhangra@gmail.com. Check us out on our social media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/calbhangra/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/calbhangra/
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QACON '18 | Limitless
By Cal Queer & Asian
QACON is a free, three-day, student-run conference held annually at UC Berkeley. Donations will go to improving resources and keeping the conference accessible.
QACON is a free, three-day, student-run conference held annually at UC Berkeley. Donations will go to improving resources and keeping the conference accessible. Cal Queer & Asian Our Story QACON (Queer and Asian Conference) is a free three-day, student-run conference hosted at UC Berkeley devoted to the queer and Asian identities. The conference has been around since 2008 and is the only conference of its kind at the collegiate level. The first annual Queer and Asian Conference was founded with the intention of being a conference in which each participant’s story could and should be heard. The key difference that distinguished this conference from others was the inclusion of a “Storytime” component — a session in which individuals were invited to share their personal stories with each other in small, intimate groups, and continues to be one of our most popular activities. With this emphasis on personal stories, QACON aspires to develop the process of community building with the message that empowerment often comes from within — that inspiration doesn’t have to be external but can come from our own voices, narratives, and experiences. Can you help us continue to run this conference by making a gift today? Recent conference themes This Year’s Theme: Limitless In light of the turmoil faced by our communities last year, QACON ’17 presented the theme “Enough" to convey a message of empowerment and resistance—that we are enough, and that we have had enough. Since then, there have been many other aggressions against our communities, including, but not limited to, Trump’s attempt to ban trans individuals in the military, the firing of the entire Presidential Advisory Council on H.I.V./AIDS, and the deportations of Southeast Asian and Muslim refugees and immigrants. In spite of these and many other attacks, our communities have survived by facing our challenges head on, and learned to rise through adversity. Thus, with the spirit of resilience and resistance in mind, QACON ’18 wants to push beyond being simply “enough”— we are Limitless. Being limitless is about realizing our potential to be more without neglecting our past and present struggles. We must acknowledge our limits, whether they be bamboo ceilings or gender binaries, and push past them. With the election of Danica Roem, the first openly trans state legislator, and Taiwan’s legalization of same sex marriage, these triumphs show that we already challenge the limits of labels and victimizing narratives. We will only continue to do so through the everyday radical act of existing as queer Asians and embracing our boundless potential. More themes from past conferences Our Mission The conference is primarily attended by those in the queer and/or Asian communities, many of whom are college students from across the country; alumni, community members and organizers, high school students, and youth groups also regularly attend. That said, with part of our goal being promoting university values of diversity, education, and open dialogue, the conference is open to people of all backgrounds who are interested in learning more about and supporting the queer and Asian intersection. We also aim to make this conference as accessible as possible, and thus have made the conference free of cost to attendees. Our goals are to empower individuals, build community, and encourage our attendees to think critically about the struggles faced by our intersection. Through keynote speakers, workshops, film and art showings, community performances, storytelling, and devised mingling activities, we aim to both celebrate and investigate the intersection of the queer and Asian identities, an intersection which is often overlooked in textbooks and conventional curriculum. Our space is open to all who are interested, whether they be queer, Asian, or allied individuals. Not only will attendees be exposed to a great deal of history, culture, and ideas related to our conference’s focus, but they will also be able to establish networks of support with other attendees who share similar experiences. A recent committee meeting Where do donations go? We are currently trying to raise money in order to best provide for these goals. As many people from the Berkeley community and beyond attend our conference, we wish to give them the best experience possible, and in order to do so, we would like to have the best events, speakers, and resources. Room reservations on campus, vegan, gluten-free food, and publicity materials are also significant costs to the conference. In addition, a major concern of ours is accessibility (for example, transportation on campus and visual/audial aids), and with extra funding, we hope to be able to make the event accessible and enjoyable to anyone who wishes to attend. We currently have about 80% of our minimum budget fulfilled, but this low allocation omits nonessential but desired items in our ideal budget, like more food, more/higher quality booklets, more colors on the T-shirts, a Snapchat filter, and the ability to pay (or at least give nice gifts to) our performers. A summary of this year’s budget In donating to this conference, donors can help expand the reach of this conference and enrich the experiences of those who attend. With more support, we hope to be able to spark important conversations about underserved communities, and for these discussions to reach beyond the conference itself into the mainstream. Should we end up with more than what would be reasonable to spend for this year, we will save any excess funds for next year’s conference. Please support our cause by making a donation today! Thank you so much for your support, and go bears! For more information, feel free to check out our website, visit and message our Facebook page, or shoot us an email at qaconference@gmail.com. Also, of course, don’t hesitate to drop by! As previously mentioned, the conference is open and free to anyone who wishes to attend. Register today!
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Berkeley Political Review FA’ 18
By Isabella Chow
The Berkeley Political Review (Cal's only nonpartisan political journal) is crowdfunding to cover costs of its semesterly print magazine!
The Berkeley Political Review (Cal's only nonpartisan political journal) is crowdfunding to cover costs of its semesterly print magazine! Your Donation and Support The Berkeley Political Review (BPR) would truly like to thank you for all of your support! We are trying to reach our initial goal of $1000. All of this money will be used to cover the costs of our print magazine, which we distribute to Berkeley and beyond for FREE. Please make a gift today! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Who are we? The Berkeley Political Review was founded in the aftermath of September 11, 2001 by a group of students dedicated to the informed analysis and discussion of political events. The very first issue featured coverage of the U.S. response to the attacks. Since then, BPR has covered two presidential elections, the war in Iraq, the election of Arnold Schwarzenegger as California governor, the expansion of the EU, global poverty, immigration raids, the politics of ethanol, Berkeley tree sitters, and everything in between. Ten years later, BPR remains the only non-partisan political news magazine at U.C. Berkeley and has transformed tremendously from a small publication into a campus powerhouse endorsed by the Institute of Governmental Studies and the Journalism School. On a national level, BPR has been invited to the Alliance of Collegiate Editors. This national organization of fifteen collegiate sociopolitical publications fosters cross-campus dialogue on important issues and secures professional contacts for member publications. BPR is the only public school publication in this alliance including Harvard, Brown, Columbia, Princeton, Duke, and a number of other top-tier university publications. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- We Need You! We are fundraising to cover costs of printing BPR’s semesterly magazine, which is distributed to students, faculty, and community members free of charge. With your donation, we can continue to create quality content to impact, inform, and inspire others. To continue our success, we need your help. Please consider making a donation to the Berkeley Political Review - no matter how big or how small, every dollar counts! Thank you for your support! For more information, check out our website at https://bpr.berkeley.edu. To keep up to date on what we have next, like our Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/berkeleypoliticalreview/. Questions? Feel free to contact us on Facebook Messenger.
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Cooking Well | Teaching Kitchen
By UC Berkeley
Help students learn to cook real food through hands-on meal preparation and cooking classes.
Help students learn to cook real food through hands-on meal preparation and cooking classes. Cooking Well: Teaching Kitchen Your gift to the Cooking Well Teaching Kitchen will help our students and team of dietitians provide whole, real food nutrition education through hands-on meal preparation and cooking classes. The UC Berkeley Student Nutrition Advocacy Club (SNAC) in partnership with Recreational Sports Department is raising money to supply a teaching kitchen in the Recreational Sports Facility. Our goal is to help students learn to cook and eat healthy food on a budget. Basic needs has become a critical issue on campus with approximately 39% of undergraduates and 23% of graduate students experiencing some form of food insecurity. In 2016-17, the Food Pantry—UC Berkeley’s emergency relief food supply program—served over 10,000 visits by students who are food insecure. Our goal is to help those students along with all students better understand how to create healthy, nutritious, and tasty meals on a limited budget. Your generous gifts will help us purchase the needed equipment (cookware, bakeware, appliances, tools, and utensils) for our classes. Every $400 raised will outfit one cooking station that can teach 2-3 students how to cook a healthy meal! Every dollar counts! Your generosity will directly impact hundreds of students and help them develop nutrition habits that lead to a healthy life today and for years to come! For more information, contact: calcookingwell@gmail.com. Please donate right now! Thank you! Imagine THIS at the RSF! Help us make it a reality! Please DONATE! Who is SNAC? The UC Berkeley Students Nutrition Advocacy Club (SNAC) is a student-led organization that works to promote nutritional awareness on the UCB campus. Comprised mostly of dietetic students, SNAC is a resource for students interested in becoming registered dietitians. Check out our website, which features interesting nutrition issues, our events, guest speakers and recipes: http://ucbsnac.webs.com/ Find out more about the Recreational Sports Facility (RSF)! Rec Sports members enjoy access to two recreation centers, four pools as well as free drop-in group exercise classes, wellness activities, discounts on personal training, massage services, outdoor programs and much more. Membership types for all audiences. Check out the website for more information and schedule of activities: https://recsports.berkeley.edu/
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Cal Energy Corps
By UC Berkeley
Fund summer internships for UC Berkeley undergraduates to conduct multidisciplinary, hands-on research on energy and climate issues.
Fund summer internships for UC Berkeley undergraduates to conduct multidisciplinary, hands-on research on energy and climate issues. This project has ended, but you can still support amazing Berkeley initiatives by visiting give.berkeley.edu. Your continued support of our students, faculty and staff will ensure that Berkeley remains the #1 public university. Go Bears! Support Cal Energy Corps! THE IDEA "I saw people of all ages, newborn children to aging grandparents, and, strangely, they usually said the same things: There’s not much to do here. It’s hot and we can’t stand it. Can you help us out? I spent my whole life with uninhibited access to resources. It just felt natural – I never really had to think about it much. But there I was, seeing whole communities of people that devoted most of their daily lives to securing what I paid little attention to. My time with the [local] residents showed me that my work this summer might take one less burden off their residents’ shoulders, so that they can focus and invest more in their futures. Who knows what kind of wonders they might do without that worry?" -Aakash Agarwal, 2014 Cal Energy Corps Participant The Cal Energy Corps program provides students like Aakash with the opportunity to step outside their comfort zone and challenge the traditional outlook on global issues. This undergraduate internship program engages the best and brightest undergraduate students from UC Berkeley in the design, development, and delivery of sustainable energy and climate solutions around the world. The program enables students to gain practical experience by connecting social issues and technical solutions in a cohesive learning and leadership environment. THE PROGRAM Duration: 8-12 weeks in the Summer Internship: Opportunity to conduct independent, hands-on research on energy and climate issues including (but not limited to) renewable energy, biofuels, electric vehicles, and sustainable design Deliverables: Annual Cal Energy Corps Symposium in the Fall following the program where students present their projects to the university community and the public. THE LOCATIONS The most unique aspect of the Cal Energy Corps program is its founding philosophy that energy and climate issues are part of a larger international agenda. These issues are not geographically specific, and therefore require cross-boundary perspectives in order to achieve true progress. This program provides a culturally immersive internship that allows students to gain first-hand knowledge in the political and scientific context that exist beyond their experiences at Berkeley and more importantly, bring these experiences back home. Some of the many countries that past Cal Energy Corps participants have conducted research in are shown below: THE STUDENTS All undergraduate students at UC Berkeley are eligible for the Cal Energy Corps program - passion for energy is the most important qualification! We have had participants from a variety of majors, disciplines and schools of thought participate. The wide variety of majors that past partcipants have studied is shown below: THE FUNDING The Cal Energy Corps aims to enable all students to participate in these internships, removing any discouragement because of financial need. All expenses go to students - covering their travel, housing expenses, stipends, and research presentations. Your gift could fund a student for a week, a month, or a full summer of life-changing and impactful experiences: THE IMPACT As you can see, Cal Energy Corps goes beyond the paperwork and errand-running of other internships and pushes students to test their skills and academic knowledge in complex, challenging situations. Students return from the program excited and passionate about a commitment to sustainable technologies and bring this forward as they apply for jobs, continue onto graduate school, and influence the world. “I feel more capable of taking on any challenges here at Cal. Seeing the real world impact of engineering is very sobering and motivating. I got to see the faces of the people I was affecting and it gave a whole new meaning to the work I was doing ... where the fruits of my labor were really going to” - Aakash Agarwal Beyond personal development, the program has a ripple effect on the University and surrounding communities. Returning students share their experiences with their classmates, professors and coworkers, bringing new meaning and insight to our local community. Over a period of four years, Cal Energy Corps has already sent 98 students to 12 countries around the world, changing the lives of participating students and contributing to groundbreaking research in energy technology and policy. As the program continues to expand, we hope to offer even more students these transformative internships in an even wider array of countries and fields of research. Help us take that next step: Donate today. And, we are excited to share that the power of your donation will be multiplied! Power Standards Lab, an Alameda-based leading provider of precision electric power instruments, has agreed to contribute $10,000 and will donate an additional $10,000 if we can raise $20,000! Thank you to Power Standards Lab! FOR MORE INFORMATION Visit the Cal Energy Corps Home Page Read about the experiences of the 2014 participants in their blog posts Cal Energy Corps Facebook page Cal Energy Corps Twitter Berkeley Energy and Climate Institute (BECI)
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Cal Women's Club Soccer | 2019
By Cal Women's Club Soccer
While pursuing higher education, the Cal Women’s Club Soccer team is a supportive community filled with highly skilled young women playing competitive soccer!
While pursuing higher education, the Cal Women’s Club Soccer team is a supportive community filled with highly skilled young women playing competitive soccer! Cal Women's Club Soccer WE'RE HEADED TO TEXAS! Your Cal Women's Soccer Club have just qualified for Nationals taking place in Texas this year! With funds being especially low this year, anything you can give will help them travel and take on top competition at Nationals. About Us Cal Womens’ Club Soccer is a club that promotes a competitive and highly motivated athletic environment. With over 50 members and two levels of teams, the club offers players a soccer experience at varying levels of intensity. Our club is very tight-knit and filled with lots of talent, and in recent years have won league multiple times. Many of our players gave up opportunities to play at elite levels in order to pursue their academic dreams at Berkeley. Many of our players are going into their 4th year on the team and have worked hard to make this team feel like a family. As a self-funded program, our teams work hard and make lots of sacrifices in order to keep the program running, but in order to afford uniforms, pay refs, and travel to our out of state games we need all the help we can get! This year our team is on the road to winning league once again, meaning we’ll be heading to Regionals in San Luis Obispo and eventually Nationals in Texas. In order to allow our team to reach its full potential and be able to focus on developing our skills, we need to make sure we have enough funds to cover all of our expenses. We need you to make this happen! Any donation no matter how small is greatly appreciated. This team offers a strong community in a school that can seem so big at times and it is really important to all of us to make sure our program stays running. Budget Breakdown Even with each player paying dues every semester, donations like yours allow this team to stay afloat as well as hopefully lowering dues for all teammates. Donations ensure that anyone, no matter their economic status to play a sport we all love. We have even in the past been able to offer scholarships to those who could not afford dues because of wonderful donations such as yours! Here is our budget breakdown: Follow Us! Instagram: @calwomensclubsoccer Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/calwomensclubsoccer/
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Children of the Andes | Summer 2018
By Shivany Condor
We are a summer abroad volunteer program in Peru working with the community leaders to address health inequity and the education achievement gap.
We are a summer abroad volunteer program in Peru working with the community leaders to address health inequity and the education achievement gap. WHO WE ARE Children of the Andes is a student-run organization based in UC Berkeley. We conduct a summer abroad volunteer program in the town of San Pedro de Cajas (SPC), found in the Andean mountains of Peru. We work at the grassroots level in collaboration with community leaders to develop sustainable solutions that address the pressing issues of the education achievement gap and health inequity in San Pedro de Cajas. Our development plan strives towards measurable and sustainable progress with organized community projects and realistic goals, objectives, and indicators. Most importantly, our goals align with the development goals of the SPC community. Proper child development is of great importance if a community is to become self-sustainable and prosper. We plan to leave no child behind. WHAT WE DO We mobilize students who are willing to acquire and disseminate various forms of knowledge to any interested members of the SPC community, primarily young students, and their parents/guardians. We train volunteers with the knowledge and skills needed to make sustainable changes in the SPC community prior to the beginning of their service. Volunteers carry out their roles as community development facilitators through three meaningful project options: Public Health Education: Volunteers prepare and conduct free public health workshops for the parents of the town covering topics such as nutrition, immunizations, mental and physical health, etc. This workshop is held in one of the schools central in town and each group of volunteer presents on these topics with diagrams and statistics. Education Mentor: Volunteers also mentor primary and secondary grade students in the fields of Math, Science, English, and Spanish. Aside from being tutors, they also develop relationships with their students and encourage them to demystify the world of higher education. HOW YOU CAN HELP We implore that you please consider making a gift today and sharing Children of the Andes with your friends and family. Gifts of any size are highly appreciated, as they will make a big impact in the development of education and child/maternal health of San Pedro de Cajas. All donations are fully tax deductible. We ask that you please aid us in covering the following costs: Help provide scholarship awards to make program fees accessible to students from all backgrounds. We cannot cover the financial needs of many of our participants. Nevertheless, with your help, we can ensure that all of the students have access to this amazing service where they will not only teach in the community but also learn from it. The program fees cover food, housing, and transportation for the entire length of the program (2 weeks). Help us raised funds to provide school, sport, medical and hygienic supplies to be donated to the local primary and secondary schools, local healthcare providers and cultural centers. Help cover the cost of the free workshop materials to be used in the public health focus groups. On the right, you can see a general breakdown of our budget and how we allocated funds that are donated to us! Feel free to contact us at childrenotandes@gmail.com if you wish to learn more about us!
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ANova Hacks 2022
By Conor Mora
ANova Hacks is an overnight hackathon for students from underresourced high schools, designed to change the way they think about computer science.
ANova Hacks is an overnight hackathon for students from underresourced high schools, designed to change the way they think about computer science. Our team hopes to raise $4000 for our annual hackathon. We will use the money to provide the best experience for our students from under-resourced backgrounds. Would you be interested in supporting our cause? A hackathon is rooted in the simple, but complex world of “creation.” During hackathons, teams come together to bring one of their own ideas into tangible reality using technology. Regardless of their interest in computer science, students are exposed to the wonders of technology and its impact on our world. Together, we can inspire the next generation of innovators to hack to new heights. Every semester, ANova puts on a hackathon for students in underserved communities. This year, ANova Hacks will be a hybrid hackathon with a virtual introductory week and an in-person overnight, free-of-charge hackathon designed to change the way our students think about computer science. We want to give them the skills and experience necessary to achieve their career aspirations, and spread their ideas to the world through technology. As students at a top school for computer science, ANova recognizes the importance of diversity. The majority of our students come from urban areas where most students are not exposed to computer science or higher education. We hope to not only transform the spark of an idea into a prototype, but also to ignite a passion for computer science in our participants. By presenting a firsthand look at virtual reality, gaming, information security, artificial intelligence, and more, we provide students with an exciting look into the forefront of technological innovation. ANova Hacks merges the fundamental computer science techniques taught at our weekly site visits with events geared towards the construction of a project. Panels and workshops about financial aid, college life and the application process inspire students to pursue higher education in one of their passions. We offer students knowledge and advice from successful, experienced industry leaders as well as mentorship from passionate UC Berkeley students. Most of all, ANova Hacks is about forming friendships with these students so that they have the resources they need to achieve their goals. Oftentimes, the hackers who attend hackathons have built before and have been exposed to the infinite possibilities out there. Computer science has consistently been more prevalent in communities with consistent access to computers and the tech industry. However, a significant amount of potential computer scientists don’t have these opportunities, and that’s where ANova Hacks fits in: a hackathon specially for students in under-resourced communities to instill the belief into our students that every one of them can change the world through a college education and through the power of technology. We hope to empower our students through this hackathon so that they can transcend the limits of their circumstance and ignite a passion towards becoming an engineer in the future. We hope that you can be a part of this journey and help us make this possible for our students! Our hackathon aims to empower our students to not only pursue a college degree, but also use technology for social good. Through ANova Hacks, we aim to give them the skills and experience necessary to spread their ideas to the world. We imagine a diverse tech industry where age, gender and background do not limit one’s ability to pursue computer science, and ANova Hacks aims to make that a reality. To introduce our students to various kinds of technologies they may be able to use throughout the hackathon, we will bring in industry experts and host a variety of workshops. Last year, we led a completely virtual hackathon through various platforms, and hosted workshops ranging from sessions on financial aid and higher education to lessons on machine learning and hardware. Our experienced ANova members also led workshops on web development, design, and introductory Python and Java. At ANova Hacks 2022, we hope to bring even more interesting and enlightening workshops to our students, such as sessions on computer security and game development. Thus, in addition to having 24-hour mentorship for projects, each student will have access to educational workshops throughout the hackathon led by passionate UC Berkeley students. ANova Hacks is about forming friendships with these students and empowering them so that they have the resources they need to achieve their goals. To make this valuable experience accessible to our students, we host this hackathon free of charge. We aim to ultimately raise $10,000 for our hackathon so that we can run as many workshops as we can in a spacious venue with awesome prizes for our hackers. These $4,000 from Crowdfunding are only the first step in our journey to providing students with a safe, encouraging environment to work, learn, and have fun. Our goal for this crowdfunding campaign is to raise enough money to fund our venue for our Hackathon and be able to provide an amazing experience to our students free of charge. If we raise over $4000, we'll spend that money towards providing students with BART tickets to attend the hackathon! Your support will help make this possible. Please donate today! In addition, several students were unable to attend ANova Hacks in 2018 due to conflicts with transportation to and from the venue. In order to encourage more students to attend our event, we would like to offer a transportation reimbursement option or pre-paid BART tickets, which would support students who would otherwise be unable to afford a trip to the hackathon. With extra funding, we’d like to encourage more students to attend our event by covering their transportation fees. We hope that you’ll be a part of our movement to inspire as many students as possible with computer science, mentorship, and a supportive, hands-on learning environment! To truly expose our students to what industry is like, ANova has partnered with industry leaders like Google, Facebook, and HackerEarth in previous years to provide swag and panelists for our hackathon. Our sponsors have made previous hackathons possible with their invaluable experience in helping out with workshops and panels to give our students the full experience. We would like to thank them below for making previous ANova Hacks amazing: Facebook Google Microsoft Dropbox Databricks Workday IBM .tech Domains HackerEarth Trader Joe's ANova is a registered student organization in UC Berkeley dedicated to improving computer science education in under-resourced communities across the Bay Area. We partner with middle and high school teachers and administrators to develop curriculum catered individually for each classroom. Our outreach and mentorship efforts strive to introduce students of all backgrounds to computer science. We currently reach out to over 100 students at ten different middle/high school programs. To be considered for our program, each one of these schools must provide above 40% free and reduced lunch. Every site has its own curriculum catered to its own specific needs. As part of our mission, we also host ANova Hacks annually, an event dedicated to showing the wonders of computer science to our students. Help ANova fund a 24-hour hackathon for under-resourced students and spread the love for Computer Science! Please make a gift today! Thank you for your support! To find out more about us, visit us at berkeleyanova.org or facebook.com/BerkeleyANova.
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Men's Club Soccer
By Jake Weppner
To date, Men’s Club Soccer is the only self-funded & student coached soccer program on the West Coast. We hope to continue this & your support goes a long way!
To date, Men’s Club Soccer is the only self-funded & student coached soccer program on the West Coast. We hope to continue this & your support goes a long way! Who We Are The Cal Men’s Club Soccer Team is one of the only self-coached and independently funded college club soccer teams in the nation. Our club consists of over 30 dedicated players, many of whom rejected NCAA offers to attend Berkeley, that train three times a week and compete against other universities on weekends. Off the field, our players are dedicated students and active leaders in campus organizations such as student government, professional clubs, and fraternities. As we are self-funded, we rely entirely on player dues, generous donations, and on many personal sacrifices from our members. In the past, we have been fortunate enough to receive support from friends and family that have graciously provided us with housing and accommodations during our travels. However, even with this amazing support and budgeting frivolously, it has become increasingly difficult to keep up with the increasing cost of competition. Just within the last year, we had to travel to Southern California twice as we qualified for the regional tournament, for which players individually had to pay for transportation and housing. Going forward, we hope to compete at the highest level of club soccer and provide men at UC Berkeley with the opportunity to play soccer. We would greatly appreciate your support and a donation of any size would greatly help us in our goal of continuing to compete. Thank you so much for your consideration and go bears! What Your Donation Goes Towards Keep Up With Us Find our schedule on our website and follow our social media for more regular updates! Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/calclubsoccer/ Thank you for all your support!
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BridgeUSA
By Loren Curry
BridgeUSA believes that good governance starts with constructive political discussion wherein a diverse range of ideas can engage one another.
BridgeUSA believes that good governance starts with constructive political discussion wherein a diverse range of ideas can engage one another. UC Berkeley has a unique and dynamic history in regards to free speech, from the Free Speech Movement to the riots which occurred last year. While Berkeley has consistently been a hot spot for uncivil political dialogue, it is not the only place where this issue is faced -- all across the country politics is deeply polarized and rarely discussed in a productive manner. BridgeUSA attempts to address that exact issue on campus and in the greater Berkeley community through discussion events, debates, speeches, and workshops. The purpose of these events is to build a bridge community -- one in which students and community members from across the ideological and intellectual spectrum can engage with one another not as partisan rivals trying to espouse their viewpoints but instead as a group working together to understand the various sides to an issue. The ultimate goal of a BridgeUSA event is to not only understand the viewpoint of those who disagree with you, but to also understand why they believe what they do. In addition, BridgeUSA events have a solutions-oriented approach: by exposing students to the spectrum of viewpoints on an issue, they can begin to think about how they would solve that issue. After hosting many events last year, we began to brainstorm for the upcoming year and decided on the idea of a debate with speakers across the political spectrum, which will take place in February of next year. Since debates allow a wide spectrum of viewpoints to be shared and for a larger attendance than smaller discussions, we believe that it will be highly effective in illustrating the BridgeUSA vision and goal. Our budget for this event is roughly $5,200 -- these costs will include advertisements, travel costs, the venue, audio and visual, and speaker fees. BridgeUSA hopes that this event will leave attendees challenging their own beliefs, pondering diverging viewpoints, and empathizing with those who have differing perspectives. Please make a gift today to help us build a bridge community at Berkeley today! You can learn more about our organization at www.bridgeusa.org. Thank you for your support!
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Palestine Trek
By Palestine Trek Team
Pal-Trek’s mission is to build a network of future advocates in the United States through an immersive educational trip to Palestine.
Pal-Trek’s mission is to build a network of future advocates in the United States through an immersive educational trip to Palestine. A huge THANK YOU to our generous donors for helping us reach our initial $9,600 goal in just 10 days! We are overwhelmed by and so grateful for all of your support! We have created a NEW stretch goal of $20,000, which will further subsidize the cost of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. If we can reach our $20,000 goal, we will be able to provide a $500 subsidy to each of our eligible Trekkers. Please continue to show your support by sharing or donating today! For the first time ever, Berkeley is organizing a Spring Break trip to Palestine! The trip is open to graduate students at UC Berkeley and UC Hastings. The purpose of Palestine Trek is to introduce trekkers to Palestinian heritage, history, people, and culture, to expose the reality of life under military occupation, and to elevate the Palestinian narrative. Palestine Trek will contribute to changing the discourse on the Israel/Palestine conflict by critically engaging graduate students through a robust week-long trip to Palestine. In the current political climate, this goal is more important than ever. During the trek, students will meet activists, artists, businessmen, and politicians, and visit heritage and religious sites. ************ Mission: Pal-Trek’s mission is to build a network of future leaders and advocates in the United States who learn the Palestinian narrative through an immersive educational trip to Palestine. The trip will consist of a robust week-long trip through 11 cities in historical Palestine and will include over 20 speakers from political, business, and human rights organizations. ************ How the trip works: 1. Build awareness: By building firsthand awareness, Palestine Trek will help to generate excitement for justice for Palestine on campuses across the U.S. and beyond! Before the Trek, the team will organize historical & political learning sessions to further awareness and situate trekkers in the historical, political, cultural, and social context of the Trek 2. Promote on-the-ground learning: This year's Trek will feature 8 jam-packed days moving through 11 cities in historical Palestine Palestine Trek will feature meetings and talks with 20+ speakers 3. Meet with leaders across human rights, business, politics, and more: Movement leaders and human rights organizations High-level public officials Business leaders Journalists 4. Engage individuals, campuses, and communities after the Trek: After the Trek, the team will organize debrief sessions & readouts to the public By trekking alongside Pal Trek contingents from various campuses, students will join a network of trip participants across top academic institutions in the U.S. ************ We cannot do this alone. We hope you will support this important cause. We truly thank you for your contributions to this once-in-a-lifetime experience. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us at: trekberkeley@gmail.com!
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Tiny House in My Backyard (THIMBY)
By Sabrina Werts
Help us build an affordable, sustainable tiny house to address Richmond housing needs — and to take us all the way to SMUD's 2016 Tiny House Competition!
Help us build an affordable, sustainable tiny house to address Richmond housing needs — and to take us all the way to SMUD's 2016 Tiny House Competition! This project has ended, but you can still support amazing Berkeley initiatives by visiting give.berkeley.edu. Your continued support of our students, faculty and staff will ensure that Berkeley remains the #1 public university. Go Bears! www.thimby.org | @THIMBY_Berkeley | information@thimby.org INTRODUCTION We are Tiny House in My Backyard (THIMBY), an interdisciplinary team of UC Berkeley graduate and undergraduate students working together to build an affordable, 100% solar-powered tiny house on the site of the Berkeley Global Campus in Richmond. Richmond, like many other cities around the world, is facing a challenge: how do you house a growing population while the size, cost and carbon footprint of homes continue to rise? We think our tiny house can help tackle these issues. Thanks to their small size, tiny houses are more affordable and more sustainable than traditional homes. Our tiny house in particular will be off-grid, waste-recycling and 100% solar-powered. And we’re keeping costs down by choosing affordable building materials. Although we’re only building one house this year, our project doesn’t end there. Our house will be a living lab that could lay the foundation for a community of affordable, carbon-neutral housing. Oh — and one more thing. In October 2016, we’re taking our house to Sacramento to compete in the Sacramento Municipal Utility District’s (SMUD) 2016 Tiny House Competition. You can read more about the competition here if you're interested! THE PROJECT We’re building a tiny house that will: Be small enough to fit in the unused portions of urban lots (less than 400 sq. ft.) Be off-grid, 100% solar-powered, and waste-recycling Serve two residents In addition, we intend to work with the Richmond community to design a context-appropriate tiny house and provide educational opportunities for Richmond residents as well as UC Berkeley students. THE FUNDING We already have a trailer, a build site and a team — so where exactly will your donation go? Though we have the basic materials for our project, we need extra funds to help develop our water heating, space heating and greywater recycling systems. These systems will be integral to our home's ability to conserve water — an especially high priority for homes in CA. THE IMPACT This project represents an opportunity for students, in Richmond and at UC Berkeley, to learn about sustainable design principles through hands-on experience in all phases of development, from design to construction to performance evaluation. Plus, our house will be a “living lab” on the Berkeley Global Campus, allowing researchers to test novel technologies and strategies for residential design and systems integration. We intend for it to catalyze additional projects, such as those produced by the UC Berkeley Solar Decathlon team, designed to address the pressing issues of climate and housing that face the East Bay Community. FOR MORE INFORMATION Check out our website at www.thimby.org or email us at information@thimby.org.
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California Ice Hockey | Spring 2019 Campaign
By The California Ice Hockey Team
Our team would like to give back to our surrounding communities and improve our team as a whole with the money we raise from this campaign.
Our team would like to give back to our surrounding communities and improve our team as a whole with the money we raise from this campaign. The California Ice Hockey Team The California Ice Hockey Program was founded in 1929 as the sport began to take its roots across the west coast. As we approach the club’s 90th anniversary, we have made it our mission to embody the values of the University of California on and off the ice. Last year, the team finished in first place in the PAC-8 during the regular season. This season, we ended up 20-5 and reached the Pacific Athletic Conference Final for the second straight year. We hope to build upon our recent successes. In order to fulfill our vision and reach the upper echelons of club hockey, we require the funds to travel and play tougher competition, host local summer camps, continue community outreach, and expand our publicity efforts. Will you help us by making a gift today? Sophomore Jeffrey Chen participating in last semester's Try Hockey for Free Event With twenty-four active players, Cal Ice Hockey is poised to expand in the coming years by fielding more teams with different levels of skill. However, as we add more players to the roster, we accrue more expenses, which could limit our team’s ability to expand our program. Based on previous budgets and our current plans, we expect to spend $86,500 in the 2019-20 season. The majority of our budget is dedicated to rink fees, which covers the costs of renting ice time for practices, games, and community events that we host. Our budgeted expenditures are shown in the graph below. 2019-2020 Projected Budget The Crowdfunding efforts that our program made this past year helped the team organize a more comprehensive game and practice schedule while participating in important community outreach events such as “Try Hockey for Free”. However, as the Pacific Athletic Conference expands from 8 to 12 teams and we shift to a 20 game conference schedule, we’ll need additional funds in order to travel and remain a competitive program. Despite having had great success this season, we remain unranked regionally largely because our ranking is based, in part, on the relative strength of our schedule and we do not have the resources to travel and play stronger teams. With more funding, including your generous contribution, we will have the ability to schedule more non-conference games against the premier programs in the West and earn a high enough standing to get an invitation to Regionals and prepare ourselves for the conference tournament. In sum, if we raise more money, we will be able to improve our program. Senior Captain Michael Leone carries the puck up the ice in the Big Freeze, Photo Credit: David Dyke Unlike many of the teams in our division, which receive around $20,000 to $100,000 from their respective universities, UC Berkeley allocates $600 to our program and taxes us $6,370, which results in a net -$5,770. Thus, lion’s share of the Cal Ice Hockey budget is funded by dues collected from players. Unfortunately, given the demands of our sport, dues for the program have increased year to year and, though we hand reduced dues to a select few players based upon need, the price to play can prevent some players from having the opportunity to take part in our program. The chart below reflects the sources of funds for our budget. 2019-2020 Projected Income All things considered, the most important goal of this fundraising campaign is to expand our impact on the surrounding community. Specifically, our team hopes to invest time and money in hockey outreach events with projects like charity games, summer camps, and youth team mentoring. All in all, your donation will go a long way to help both the team and the communities of Berkeley and Oakland. We thank you in advance for your time and support, our team truly appreciates it. USA Hockey's Fall 2018 Try Hockey for Free Event Junior Goaltender Sami Morse taking shots from aspiring hockey players Threshold Goals! If our campaign reaches the following amounts, we will... - $10,000: Raffle off signed pictures - $15,000: The executive committee will dye our hair blonde - $20,000: Host a public skate with our fans Check out our social media! Facebook: @cal_icehockey Twitter: @calicehockey Instagram: @calicehockey Website: https://www.calicehockey.com Feel free to contact us at team@calicehockey.com sami.morse@berkeley.edu jordankthompson@berkeley.edu More about us:
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Berkeley Women in Business 2022
By UC Berkeley
Berkeley Women in Business empowers women in the workforce through professional development and discourse on gender equity.
Berkeley Women in Business empowers women in the workforce through professional development and discourse on gender equity. About Berkeley Women in Business (BWIB) Berkeley Women in Business [BWIB] was founded in 2005 and now is a well established organization on campus that hosts around 50 active members. Berkeley Women in Business empowers women in the workforce through professional development and discourse on gender equity. We strive to develop our members into well-rounded individuals with the skills necessary to succeed in their careers. Yearlong, we host events that assists undergraduates to develop their professional skills as well as learn about women in the workforce. We also host retreats, socials, and mentorship opportunities throughout each semester. Our members develop a sense of belonging and trust within our community that allows for, not only professional development, but personal growth. Our organization is open to all students, all majors, and all genders who are in support of women in the workplace. BWIB Community The BWIB community hosts different professional development events every week. In addition, here at BWIB we have a tight knit community who support each other. We host retreats, banquets, and other events that bring us together. Financial Literacy and Economic Justice BWIB engages in several projects to enact social change throughout the world. This Crowdfunding campaign will allow us to further scale our impact by funding these projects. Financial literacy is the ability to use knowledge and skills to manage financial resources effectively for a lifetime of financial wellbeing. BWIB has curated content to be distributed among Berkeley students and the youth to have the skills to become financially independent and successful. The funds used from this campaign will go towards developing the brochures and informational booklets that many will be able to take advantage of. Micro-financing involves small loans typically in the range of $100-$25,000 to individuals or groups that may otherwise have little to no access to traditional financial services. BWIB has used the Kiva platform to microfinance for the past year. Thus far, we have lent over $500 to women-owned businesses across the world in Africa, Latin America, and the Philippines. Kiva allows BWIB to reach women in countries that we may not have the opportunity to help otherwise. Many of the women we lend to support their families through their own businesses. Our loans help them expand and grow their business and help secure their financial futures. We hope to use the funds from this campaign to give loans to more women throughout the world. Women in the Workforce Conference BWIB annually hosts the Women in the Workforce conference for young individuals to meet and listen to powerful women leaders in the business industry through workshops and keynote speakers. Through networking and discourse, individuals will learn about women's empowerment in the workplace and engage in conversations with respected industry leaders who are truly changing the world and breaking the status quo. Although improving, the discrimination and inequality women face in the workforce is undeniable. Men hold 62% of manager positions compared to the 38% women hold. 35% of women face some type of sexual harassment in the business field. 29% women feel that their gender is an obstacle to advancement. To break these facts and stereotypes, the Women in the Workforce educates and brings insight to young individuals from respected women in the industry and their stories. The conference had around 100 members attend. Past keynote speakers include of Gioia McCarthy, SF Market President and Northwest Division executive at the Bank of America as well as Jenny Dearborn, founder and CEO of Actionable Analytics Group and former Chief Learning Officer at SAP. Workshops were led by individuals such as Marjolein Cuellar, the managing director at Boston Consulting Group, and Alta Sparling, director of campaigns at Sephora. In order to reach out to as many Berkeley individuals (both female and male) to attend this conference, we launch this crowdfunding campaign. BWIB hopes to continue making a change in gender equity in the workforce and we believe the way to do so is to inspire and influence as many people as possible. By donating to our project, we will be able to scale this conference and make a bigger impact in the community and hopefully reach out to more people across colleges all over the USA. Budget The budget for our yearly conference is approximately $3000. Given the COVID-19 situation, we are working to resemble the remote experience as closely as possible to the in-person conference. Please see our allocation below. Learn More about Us Website: http://www.berkeleywomeninbusiness.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BerkeleyWIB/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/berkeleywib/
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EUREKA-1: Berkeley's First Liquid-Powered Rocket
By Salvador Salcedo
Building, launching and recovering Berkeley's first liquid-powered rocket, EUREKA-1, capable of reaching ~40k feet
Building, launching and recovering Berkeley's first liquid-powered rocket, EUREKA-1, capable of reaching ~40k feet MISSION Space Enterprise at Berkeley (SEB) is UC Berkeley’s Spaceshot Liquid Rocketry team, and our ambition of being the first collegiate team to send a liquid bipropellant rocket to space, Project Kármán, is only possible through the generous financial contributions of our community. PROJECT EUREKA-1 Berkeley’s first liquid bi-propellant rocket, will soar to an apogee of 40,000ft this spring at a top speed of Mach 1.4, breaking through clouds and collegiate records. Its liquid oxygen and liquid propane powered engine, LIGHTBULB, will generate over 650lbs of force as it carries the rocket skyward. LIGHTBULB has been successfully fired 4 times, and the team is currently in the process of integrating it into a vertical airframe to fly as soon as April 2022. LAD-5 The testbed for EUREKA-1's recovery is being developed concurrently to E-1. LAD-5 will carry E-1's avionics and recovery systems, and will launch prior to E-1 this spring atop a commercial solid-motor to 10,000ft. This allows us to test these mission-critical systems before they are integrated onto E1, which will lead to E1's successful recovery. Though it won't break any Berkeley records for altitude or velocity (those belong to its older sibling, LAD-4), LAD-5 will be SEB's first rocket to use 3D printing as the foundation for its airframe (LAD-4 launch listed below). 40,000ft is EUREKA-1’s lofty goal, but space is further yet. The Karman line, the boundary at which the Earth’s atmosphere ends and space begins, sits at an altitude of 330,000ft, or 62 miles. EUREKA-1 is ultimately a testbed for our spaceshot rocket, EUREKA-3, which will soar past the Karman line and do what no collegiate team has yet accomplished: put a liquid-fueled rocket into space. TEAM Designing, building, and testing EUREKA-1 and other projects has collectively taken many thousands of hours. Our efforts take a team of over 30 passionate and dedicated students across all disciplines, without which our dreams of space would never be reached. Our years of late nights at our workspace, Richmond Field Station (RFS), and many long drives to Friends of Amateur Rocketry (FAR), are not the only things that have led to our success. It is also the generosity of the community on which we fly. It is for this reason that we ask that you consider donating to Space Enterprise at Berkeley. With your support, we will show the world that space is not an impenetrable barrier passed only by governments and corporations. We will prove that college students, and anyone else with the necessary passion and motivation, can reach out and touch the stars. To blue skies and bright stars! BUDGET The structures portion will go towards the materials required to construct the rockets themselves, such as tanks, valves, actuators, nozzles, and the airframe. For avionics, you donation will help cover the cost of electronic components needed for our flight computer, data acquisition boards (DAQs) and other miscellaneous electronics. A large part of our expenses is the cost of gas to transport us and our rockets to an amateur rocketry facility, named FAR, in the Mojave Desert. It is essential for us to make the journey since FAR has the proper infrastructure to test/launch vehicles safety and economically. Since we cannot test our system with Liquid Oxygen due to safety concerns at RFS, we cryo-test our vehicles use Liquid Nitrogen which allows us to characterize our system behavior at cryogenic temperatures. PERKS *All perks are cumulative THANK YOU! To hear more about what we do check out our website or send us an email! Website: www.berkeleyse.org Email: spaceenterpriseatberkeley@gmail.com If you'd like to stay up-to-date on all things SEB sign up for our newsletter at the link below! Newsletter: https://www.berkeleyse.org/newsletter
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The Millet Project: Where Have All the Grains Gone?
By Patricia Bubner
Cereal grains go back a long way. Our goal is to diversify agriculture and our diet by the cultivation and consumption of lesser-known grains such as millets.
Cereal grains go back a long way. Our goal is to diversify agriculture and our diet by the cultivation and consumption of lesser-known grains such as millets. Where have all the grains gone? The Millet Project We are a group of researchers and students from UC Berkeley who are passionate about diversifying our food and agriculture by the cultivation and consumption of lesser-known grains such as millets. Despite the variety of cereal grains that have been cultivated by humans over time, today, corn, wheat and rice comprise at least 89% of worldwide cereal production. This, in turn, has caused losses in the variety of food and consequently nutrients in our diet. Taken together, these changes have adverse environmental and nutritional impacts. Our Mission: Our goal is to diversify agriculture and our diet by rediscovering the traditions of cultivating and consuming millets. Millets are a group of gluten-free cereal grains that are highly nutritious and commonly contain higher fiber, mineral, vitamin, and protein levels, compared to corn, rice and wheat. “Millet” is not a botanical term for a certain plant type but rather an umbrella term for various small-seeded grasses grown as cereal crops for human consumption. Most millets are resilient to varied environmental conditions - some are drought tolerant and others can grow in wet conditions and on skeletal soils. They have a relatively short growth period of 90-110 days, and often do not depend on the use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. With support from the Berkeley Food Institute in 2015, we planted four kinds of millets in six different locations in Northern California along with our farmer collaborators, raised awareness about the grain in our community through a Millet Exhibit and created a website to catalog millet based information and recipes. We are now in our second year and actively expanding our cultivation trials and collaborations with local farmers in Northern California. How You Can Help: Your contribution today will help us to expand our grower community for the 2017 growing season, and to continue our outreach efforts by reaching out to food diversity and security groups, improving our website and the millet recipe collection, hosting community events such as the Millet Exhibit at the UC Gill Tract, offering tours through our millet plots, creating millet-based food and drinks, interacting with new growers and plant scientists, and informing them about millets and our project. We also plan to extend our educational outreach activities to local high schools and kitchen gardens. Please make a gift today and help us spread the word about our project! We are committed to providing interested farmers as much information as possible about growing millet. By growing millets at the UC Gill Tract Community Farm in Albany and the Kearney Research and Extension Center (KARE) in Parlier, CA, we are able to study their drought tolerance, growth and yields in more detail. We have an active collaboration with scientists at the USDA Plant Gene Expression Center (PGEC) in Albany who study the millet microbiome under drought conditions and this will be continued. Additionally, in the 2017 growing season, we would like to expand our grower community in California to include more types of farms and more geographic microclimates. By the end of 2017, we will establish a knowledge base about the feasibility of growing millets in Northern California, the drought tolerance of millet, and best-practice protocols for farmers on how to grow different types of millet. We will increase the momentum already generated and have local consumers be more aware of millet and its uses. With big and small food companies beginning to incorporate millet in their foods today, this seems to be an achieveable goal. Finally, we wish to provide enough US-grown finger millet, pearl millet and teff millet seeds to enable local farmers to grow and sell these millets in the US. Currently, only proso millet is sold for consumption, and establishments such as Ethiopian restaurants and Indian restaurants currently import finger and teff millet from overseas. Thus, growing and popularizing millets within the U.S. will enable us to achieve our goal – diversifying our agriculture and diets! Make your gift today to support the Millet Project - and please share with your friends to help us spread the word! Here's our budget breakdown: 45% for farming includes: 1. buying seeds, 2. paying out collaborator farmers for their millet farming needs, 3. expanding our work to include more farmers, 4. helping to make millets into a profitable crop for at least some farmers by offering them opportunities to visit millet growers in Colorado, North and South Dakota, 5. renting the millet plot at the UC Gill Tract Farm. 30% for the The Millet Project Exhibit: 1. preparing and buying food, drink and informational supplies, 2. printing information and publicity materials, 3. renting tables, chairs and canopies. 25% for outreach activities includes: 1. talking to school authorities and children in classrooms, 2. conducting home garden millet farming workshops where we teach people our experiences, and supplying seeds, 3. popularizing millet as a food by conducting millet cooking classes, 4. collaborating and organizing joint events with other food diversity and food security groups. About the Millet Project Conceived by Amrita Hazra, the Millet Project was granted early stage funding by the Berkeley Food Institute (BFI, http://food.berkeley.edu/) in February 2015. The project, co-authored by Amrita Hazra, Patricia Bubner (postdoctoral researchers, Plant and Microbial Biology (PMB)), Gavin Abreu (MBA student, Haas School of Business), Peggy Lemaux, Sarah Hake (faculty) and supported by Pedro Gonçalves (postdoctoral researcher, PMB) and Ramji Pasricha (undergraduate student), proposed to test growth conditions for growing proso, pearl, foxtail and japanese millets at the UC Gill Tract Farm in Albany, and at collaborating farms in five other locations in Northern California (Ukiah, Bolinas, Davis, Willits, and Healdsburg). Drought tolerance and qualitative yields for these millet varieties were tested, the group interacted with the community to educate them about the need for diversity in their diets and in the field, and introduced many people to the types of millet grains and their uses. In 2016, the Millet Project family expanded to include Becky Mackelprang, Martin Alexander, George Chuck, and Hailey Zhou, and the team has launched a trial which includes five varieties of millet (proso, pearl, foxtail, teff, finger millet) and with more collaborating farmers. They hope to learn more about the drought tolerance of millet and its growth in various microclimates and on different soil types. Lastly, in September 2015, the Millet Project Exhibit hosted a sold out 250+ people Millet Exhibit at the UC Gill Tract farm, where community members were invited to take guided tours through the millet plots to learn more about this grain, and to taste millet-based food and beverages. Through events and outreach such as this, the Millet Project team has been able to build a network with farmers, bakers, brewers and scientists. They will be conducting the second Millet Project Exhibit on the 11th of September, 2016 and you are invited to visit it and learn more! Some of The Millet Project team members; from left to right: Martin, Peggy, Patricia, Becky, Amrita, Pedro. (https://themilletproject.org/about-us/the-team/)
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Cal Table Tennis Road to NCTTA Nationals
By Angela Guan
Help send the Cal Table Tennis Team to NCTTA National Championships in Greensboro, North Carolina in April and support our quest for gold. Thank you! Go Bears!
Help send the Cal Table Tennis Team to NCTTA National Championships in Greensboro, North Carolina in April and support our quest for gold. Thank you! Go Bears! Help send Cal Table Tennis to the National Collegiate Table Tennis Association (NCTTA) Nationals and support our quest for gold. We are a student-run sports club at University of California Berkeley. In the last two years, at the NCTTA Championships, Cal brought home a gold for women’s singles, silver for coed teams, and silver for women teams. We are currently the 2019 NCTTA Northern California Divisionals Champion in Coed and Women's teams, 2019 NCTTA West Regionals Women's Team and Women's Singles Champion, and aiming for more titles for Cal. Our club has been growing to over 50 members as well as our competitive team which has over 15 members. From EECS, CS, Engineering, to Biology, Statistics, History, and Economics majors, CalTTC has members from US, China, Canada, New Zealand, Brazil, Korea, India, and more countries. CalTTC has brought together a diverse team including current US National Team member, Angela Guan and over 10 former national team members from US, Canada, and New Zealand. CalTTC has included 2012 and 2016 US Olympian Lily Zhang. Upcoming Tournaments for Spring 2019: - NCTTA Northern California Divisionals in San Jose - NCTTA West Regionals in Orange County - NCTTA National Championships in Greensboro, North Carolina Although table tennis is a growing, thriving Olympic sport, funding for our collegiate club is extremely limited. Aside from $400 allotted to us by Cal Sport Clubs, the rest of our funding comes from only membership fees and from our own pockets. Your donation will not only fund our venture to Nationals but also our day to day needs as a club. By donating to our club, you'll be helping us provide a better environment, such as adequate tables, nets, balls, and barriers, for all of our players! Support our journey for gold at the NCTTA Nationals. We greatly appreciate your help, support, and contribution in partnering with us to bring home a national title this April. Thank you for your time and consideration. Go Bears! If you have any questions, please reach out to us at calttc@gmail.com and join our Facebook page for latest updates, club events, and team results https://www.facebook.com/groups/calttc/. Your Donation at Work $25 - 15 balls $40 - 1 barrier $50 - 1 net $150 - 1 hotel room for 1 night $250 - Flight to Regionals in Orange County for 1 team member $600 - Registration fee for Nationals $650 - Flight to Nationals in North Carolina for 1 team member $700 - 1 table
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MOVE: API Community Organizing Fellowship
By Kimmie Tran
Help provide Cal students with first-hand internship experience with non-profit community organizing work and professional skills to help their future careers!
Help provide Cal students with first-hand internship experience with non-profit community organizing work and professional skills to help their future careers! Join us to help provide non-profit social justice work experience to student activists! MOVE: API Community Organizing is a social justice based experiential learning program that places Asian Pacific Islander (API) students into local community organizations, in order to develop the next generation of community organizers. Fellows work 8-12 hours per week and attain non-profit work experience, gain critical knowledge on topics related to social justice, and build strong relationships with supervisors who become mentors and even future employers. We are an empowered team grounded in our mission for public service and commitment to social change, and hope that you are able to support our work today. To the right is our fellow, Kimmie Tran, outreaching with Banteay Srei, an anti-sex trafficking and anti-sexual exploitation of children organization under Asian Health Services in Oakland. Founded in 2017, we are a new organization looking to secure funds in order to continue the successes we have accomplished thus far. In our third year, MOVE has impacted 18 student fellows and partnered with 8 community organizations that work with various underserved populations (e.g. Asian Prisoner Support Committee & Chinese Progressive Association). Below is our fellow, Chelsea Lee, mobilizing a group of students to directly discuss with Alameda tenants about tenants’ rights. Our fellows support organizations that are often low on staff/ resources for their important work, including but not limited to: supporting current and formerly incarcerated people, building Queer and Trans API power, fighting against wage theft of Chinese working class people, and leading youth development programs. We would like to increase funds to support our work, so we can effectively provide students with this experiential learning opportunity and assist various local non-profits and underserved communities. With the large amount of time spent as a fellow, our cohort is often unable to maintain a job to sustain themselves financially; thus, your funds would compensate the fellows’ work, as well as exercise fair labor practices. Providing this small stipend also ensures that we can be inclusive to all fellowship applicants, assuring that we are not overlooking qualified fellows who cannot afford to work with no pay. In addition, your funds will support the fellows in traveling to and from their host sites via Bay Area Rapid Transit trains, as well as our community banquet which is a time for showcasing final projects and networking. Please donate today to support our mission in providing an incredible social justice and community based learning experience. Keep in contact with us through social media! Website - movefellowship.berkeley.edu Facebook - facebook.com/movefellowship Instagram - instagram.com/movefellowshipcal Twitter - twitter.com/MOVEfellowship Email: team@movefellowship.berkeley.edu
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Help Aerospace SAE Compete in Texas!
By Charles Jai-Sheng Lin
Support the efforts of Cal's airplane engineers to compete at Texas and grow our aerospace presence!
Support the efforts of Cal's airplane engineers to compete at Texas and grow our aerospace presence! About Us Founded less than 5 years ago, Aerospace SAE was created to help educate students on principles of aerodynamics and flight. As the premier aerospace-focused student competition team, we design and manufacture remote-controlled cargo planes. Our goal is to prepare our engineers to enter the aerospace industry! Our year starts in the summer as we begin planning out our timeline and begin initial design. As we start the first semester, we spend our time improving our design through analysis. Eventually, we construct prototype planes and test fly them. During the second semester, we finalize our design and build aircraft for our competition in the spring. Team members adding finishing touches to the plane before its test flight. This is our team's 3rd year of competition. We take it very seriously, as during summer vacation, our team's leadership has been meeting regularly to discuss design and season objectives. However, the primary issue hindering our success this year is the lack of funding for our team's trip to the competition, which will be hosted in Texas. The Breakdown Our current budget breakdown is as follows: Airfare: $2900. This will be the primary expense, as round trip tickets to Fort Worth will be around $300 per member. Hotels: $1600. Assuming hotels will around $75, this money can be used for 7 rooms (4 people each), hosting the estimated 28 members of our team for the 3 nights of competition. Shipping: $500. This covers costs of shipping our planes and equipment over to Texas. This is critical for maintaining our aircraft throughout the competition! Every contribution is valuable, and you can rest assured knowing your gift will help us take off (quite literally)! Your contribution will directly help sustain the efforts of Berkeley's aerospace engineers as we lay the foundation for a growing aerospace presence on campus. Please make a gift today and help spread the word about our project!
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Wheel The World. Going Where No Wheelchair Has Gone Before
By Camilo Navarro
Help Wheel the World to become the first inclusive expedition in Easter Island, and boost adaptive tourism in Rapa Nui.
Help Wheel the World to become the first inclusive expedition in Easter Island, and boost adaptive tourism in Rapa Nui. My name is Alvaro Silberstein, I’m from Chile and I’m currently a grad student at UC Berkeley. Thirteen years ago I was in a car accident and suffered a spinal cord injury that left me with permanent Quadriplegia with 100% of my body from the chest down paralyzed and partial mobility in my arms and hands. Since that day I live in a wheelchair, but I have learned to not let this limit me. I believe that people with disabilities live in a world that wasn’t designed for us. Even though, we manage to overcome barriers, seek our desires and contribute to making a better world. Having the experience of studying at UC Berkeley, learning about Ed Roberts and the Disability Rights Movement; inspired me to create awareness of people with disabilities as active human beings with a passion for living fully. I’m convinced that barriers are on the environment and not on our minds. This is the main reason why with my friend Camilo, we founded Wheel the World, an organization that seeks for 4 goals BOOST outdoor adventures for people with disabilities. CREATE AWARENESS of people with disabilities as active persons that can live fully. CONSCIOUSNESS about the barriers that people with disabilities face day a day. INSPIRE with overcoming, fellowship and love life histories. That is how, last year we organized our first expedition to Torres del Paine, Patagonia. I became the first person in a wheelchair to complete the famous and challenging “W” trek of one of the 8th Wonder of the World. To achieve this, we had to buy special trekking wheelchair, which we donated to the National Park so other persons could repeat the same adventure. Only one month after, already 3 people with disabilities have gone to Torres del Paine with the special trekking wheelchair! Wheel the World is now organizing a second expedition to Easter Island on December 2017. Rapa Nui is visited by more than 80,000 tourists per year. This National Park has biking, hiking and great places to scuba dive and surf. Unfortunately, the island doesn’t count with adaptive equipment for people with disabilities. This is why we want to boost inclusive outdoor activities for the community and tourists that come to the island. This time we want to develop the project with a local person with a disability and explore the island doing hand-cycling, trekking, scuba diving and surfing. Our goal with this crowdfunding campaign is to raise the money to buy 2 trekking wheelchairs and 2 hand-bikes that will be donated to an organization of Easter Island after the expedition. We will go with a professional filmmaker and photographers, so we can reach as many people as we can, enhancing to live this opportunity. We are convinced that the most important thing with adaptive sports is to be creative. We invite you to join our project so we can change the way of doing tourism!
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PictoKit: Retirement Toolkit
By Amanda Zhao
Support an out-of-the-box initiative to empower workers through portable, design workshops that teach retirement education.
Support an out-of-the-box initiative to empower workers through portable, design workshops that teach retirement education. This project has ended, but you can still support amazing Berkeley initiatives by visiting give.berkeley.edu. Your continued support of our students, faculty and staff will ensure that Berkeley remains the #1 public university. Go Bears! OUR IDEA PictoKit: Retirement Toolkit is a portable workshop kit that teaches retirement financial literacy through the innovative application of co-design. Co-design is a process often used in product development where a customer works alongside the designer and directly participates in the creation and development of their product. PictoKit applies through its toolkit the concept of co-design to retirement education, reshaping the approach of teaching from a one-way, classroom format to a collaborative, participatory workshop. We believe that this innovative approach will address an important financial need: the lack of retirement literacy among economically disadvantaged, young working adults. In fact, a startling “55% of young working adults reported not saving in either an individual retirement account or a 401(k) account and 40% do not have a savings account that they contribute to regularly”. Through visual, hands-on design activities such as a familiarity spectrum or impact mapping, participants will learn to collaborate with others, reach individual solutions, and have an active voice in what they are learning, ultimately empowering them to make informed decisions regarding their current and future financial goals. OUR MISSION Within the U.S. today, financial illiteracy remains a prevalent concern, becoming a significant means of financial exclusion. Limited retirement education has led to a troubling trend in which more Americans outlive their assets in retirement due to inadequate planning and knowledge. This need for retirement financial literacy is especially demonstrated among lower income, young working adults (20-38 years old), who lack access to such literacy programs and consequently, often enter the workforce without a clear understanding of saving and investing for retirement. In fact, there exists a significant gap between confidence levels of lower and higher income brackets, indicating an inequality in financial knowledge and a need to address it. Furthermore, financial topics are often viewed as dry and complicated, and retirement financial planning is no exception. Many individuals are increasingly overwhelmed by the complexities of retirement planning, from initially saving to finding good vehicles for investment. However, we believe our Retirement Toolkit will address this lack of resources through an innovative and engaging approach that targets an existing age/income gap in financial literacy. Activities such as timeline mapping will allow participants to understand retirement planning not as an abstract topic, but as something relevant and necessary. THE IMPACT “Learning about retirement has never been this fun.” - PictoKit participant “In a few hours, I learned so much. Retirement is a lot clearer now.” - PictoKit participant As seen in these testimonials, Retirement Toolkit empowers the public through financial inclusion. We believe that everyone deserves a secure financial future, regardless of their economic circumstances. By working with each other to discuss retirement challenges, plot goal timelines, and play investment term cards, participants can internalize complex retirement concepts in a way that is engaging and informative. The Retirement Toolkit empowers individuals to not only shape their learning, but also to create informed financial decisions for the future. In addition to financial inclusion, the Retirement Toolkit seeks to build long-term relationships with participants and employers to create a supportive and responsive community for long-term financial security. Products such as the Take-Home Manual provide continued financial resources after initial instruction, while our website and ongoing partnerships with community nonprofits and employers provide a community for support and feedback. In fact, the Retirement Toolkit has already begun expanding its network, establishing trial partnerships with groups like Cal Dining and the Cooperative Center Federal Credit Union. Additionally, the Retirement Toolkit is working closely with Big Ideas@Berkeley to further develop its solution, currently participating as a finalist in the Big Ideas@Berkeley Competition. WHAT IS CO-DESIGN? Co-design is best understood through its name. Traditionally, design in industry is a process where an individual creates a product or concept for a client. In turn, the prefix “co-” means together, mutually, and in common. Combined, the two terms come to signify an innovative method of design in which the client and designer work together to create a final product. This approach ensures not only that the final product matches the client’s needs, but also empowers the client, who may now make his/her own creative decisions. Our innovation is consequently to use this participatory characteristic of co-design to not only create, but also teach. That is, we translate the client-designer relationship in conventional co-design settings to a student-teacher relationship in a workshop setting. Workshop participants have an active hand in what they are learning. By doing so, we create an informative yet appealing way to teach crucial information that is often considered dense and difficult to understand. Specifically, we plan to teach retirement financial literacy, a critical skill that is necessary in ensuring a secure future, yet is lacking within the U.S. This need for retirement financial literacy is especially demonstrated among lower income, young working adults (20-38 years old), who lack access to such literacy programs and consequently, often enter the workforce without a clear understanding of saving and investing for retirement. Instead of dense reading or memorization, we challenge traditional teaching methods for financial and retirement literacy through collaborative activities that directly involve our participants. THE RETIREMENT TOOLKIT The Kit: Initial Learning and Reproducibility: The Retirement Toolkit is comprised of two parts: (1) the workshop kit, and (2) the take-home manual. In regards to the workshop kit, it is the primary medium through which participants are taught. Comprised of the materials necessary for the various workshop activities (e.g. post-its, markers, construction paper), as well as the workshop facilitator manual, the kit provides all the necessary tools that are required to teach and facilitate a retirement financial literacy workshop. It is through these workshop co-design activities that participants are first exposed to our retirement literacy curriculum, and will learn to collaborate with others, reach individual solutions, and have an active voice in what they are learning. Retirement literacy topics covered in our curriculum include: Saving & Debt Management Budgeting Investments & Risk Retirement Products & Resources The Retirement Toolkit also employs an innovative method of distribution. That is, the Retirement Toolkit provides all the necessary tools to set up a retirement financial literacy workshop, minimizing needed equipment and making the workshop reproducible and cost-efficient. This is because all of the kit’s content consist of materials that are low-cost and easily accessible, all either downloadable from our website or distributed manually. While we will initially be facilitating the retirement literacy workshops with the kit for free to businesses and partners with young workers, with time individuals can order/download the kits themselves to create workshops in their own communities and workplaces, creating a two stage growth plan to distribution. Sample investment term cards from kit. The Take-Home Manual: Continued Learning and Portability: In addition to the kit, our product will include Take-Home Manuals for all participants. These manuals provide not only a summary of the concepts covered in the workshop, but also offer blank budget templates, curriculum worksheets, and other resources for participants to apply their new-found knowledge and to take their first steps toward retirement planning. Even after the workshop, these manuals remain a go-to resource for participants to access at home, presenting opportunities to both track progress after the workshop and seek more information about financial literacy. SUPPORT THE RETIREMENT TOOLKIT To provide accessible retirement literacy workshops, we depend on your support in helping us continue and improve our free workshop curriculum. Our goal is for all workers, regardless of their economic position, to have the same opportunity to secure their future. Your tax deductible gift today will help us to continue providing this critical learning resource for economically disadvantaged young working adults free of cost. All funding goes to creating each kit of materials for every workshop, with $90 providing one kit for an entire workshop, covering key topics such as saving & debt management, budgeting, investments & risks, and retirement products & resources. Donate to support PictoKit! FOR MORE INFORMATION Contact: Amanda Zhao at amanda.zhao@berkeley.edu Website: www.pictokit.org
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Building Equitable and Inclusive Food Systems at UC Berkeley
By The Team
Creating safe spaces to address the barriers and possibilities for greater equity, diversity, and inclusion in the UC Berkeley food system.
Creating safe spaces to address the barriers and possibilities for greater equity, diversity, and inclusion in the UC Berkeley food system. UC Berkeley is experiencing an unprecedented surge of interest in food and agriculture, but this enthusiasm remains segregated. Students, faculty, and staff involved in campus food initiatives tend not to reflect the diversity of the broader UC Berkeley community, nor of the communities most affected by food system injustices. Simultaneously, food insecurity among UC Berkeley students is disturbingly high. In response, the Berkeley Food Institute (BFI) launched a new project “Building Equitable and Inclusive Food Systems at UC Berkeley” in 2015, in collaboration with the Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society, Centers for Educational Equity and Excellence, Multicultural Education Program, and numerous other organizations on campus. The growing “food movement” on the campus is a strategic opportunity to address the need to transform campus climate, and to fully integrate diversity, equity, and inclusion into Berkeley’s programs, capacity building, and campaigns. Since 2015 the “Building Equitable and Inclusive Food Systems at UC Berkeley” project has brought together active collaborators from across campus to bridge the gap between food and justice. During the first year, project partners formed a campus working group, held three successful workshops, and began mapping the UC Berkeley food system. Now in its second year, this project continues to create brave spaces for open dialogue and critical thinking, and cultivate a more socially just campus, where food and agricultural research, teaching, activism, and operations are equitable and inclusive. With your support, this year we will be able to grow significantly and implement the following core activities: UC Berkeley Foodscape Map: Democratically create a comprehensive, interactive map of the UC Berkeley food system to both a) visualize barriers to the full participation of traditionally marginalized community members, and b) reveal opportunities for overcoming such barriers. Our dynamic map will name and locate all food-related organizations, people, and resources on campus and illustrate how they may intersect, hinder, and/or emancipate, as well as reveal decision-making power and networks of collaboration. This map will be unveiled in spring 2017, and formally presented to the new administration (Chancellor and Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost) to inform the emerging UC Berkeley Food Policy Council. The UC Berkeley Foodscape Map will directly affect how students can access the resources they need to be nourished and healthy, as well as to undergo meaningful learning experiences in food and agriculture. Student Fellows: Fund graduate student fellows to manage the project (our initial goal will fund one fellow). Additionally, we will be holding a public forum on October 26, 2016, on the intersections between equity and food in the UC Berkeley context, featuring distinguished Berkeley faculty from the Division of Equity and Inclusion and the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management. Early donors to our campaign can receive front row seats at this event. Join BFI and project partners in creating a campus climate and food community that is both diverse and delicious. Please make a gift today and help us spread the word! Your donation of any amount will play a crucial role in contributing toward more just and pleasurable food experiences – whether in teaching, researching, learning, growing, or eating – for the entire UC Berkeley community, honoring all of our beautiful differences. Thank you for your support! Project Budget $4,000 Mapping software $2,000 Foodscape Map Reveal Event $4,000 Graduate Student Fellow $10,000 Total Project For more details about the project and fellows, including downloadable resources, please visit the BFI Equity and Inclusion website. Very special thanks to Jonathan Fong, Kiana Aryan, and Emily Anderson for their amazing work on our video!
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The Greater Good Science Center "Science of Happiness" Podcast
By UC Berkeley
The Greater Good Science Center is creating a new podcast to share the "science of a meaningful life" with tens of thousands of listeners on the go.
The Greater Good Science Center is creating a new podcast to share the "science of a meaningful life" with tens of thousands of listeners on the go. Do you know the secret to happiness? Most people want to know -- and some people think they already do. It turns out it's not a secret. Social science research over the past 20 years tells us a lot about what really goes into a meaningful, joyful, socially connected life. The Greater Good Science Center is creating a new podcast, The Science of Happiness, to share these insights with listeners all around the world. We already reach millions of readers with our award-winning online magazine, and hundreds of thousands of students in our Science of Happiness online course. Now, proven research, simple tips, and compelling stories will be with you on your phone, wherever you go. Public Radio International has already agreed to help distribute the podcast on its huge network, and we'll be in the iTunes and Google Play stores. The whole season of 26 bi-weekly episodes will be entirely for free to listeners. It costs over $100,000 to produce an entire season, and you can be a part of helping make this new resource a reality -- for yourself and for the benefit of thousands of people around the world. Please support the new Greater Good podcast series with a donation today. We're eager to get into the studio and into your earbuds -- and we can't do it without you. Thank you! For more information about this project or about the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, please visit our website or email greater@berkeley.edu.
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{m}aganda magazine publication
By Kimberly Chua
Help us fund our magazine! Our theme is Babae(x), which translates from Tagalog to “Womxn". We strive to uplift women and artists through this publication
Help us fund our magazine! Our theme is Babae(x), which translates from Tagalog to “Womxn". We strive to uplift women and artists through this publication Who are we? {m}aganda magazine is a student-run academic publication based at the University of California, Berkeley. Founded in 1989 , it has evolved from its beginnings as a bi-annual magazine, and is now a diverse anthology of submitted work that is published once a year. We serve as a vital forum for the presentation of diverse experiences and opinions through all platforms for creativity–including art, prose, poetry, film, music, journalism and scholarly writing. {m}aganda magazine aims to foster critical dialogue within and across our communities through arts, literature, and education. We believe in the necessity of art as a means of influencing social change. We accomplish this by providing integral spaces and opportunities for all of us to develop ourselves as creatively conscious individuals in our communities. {m}aganda magazine provides a means for creative cultivation, community consciousness, and growing artists through spaces including, but not limited to: the annually published magazine, open mics, art galleries, and workshops. Babae(x) This year’s magazine theme is “Babae(x)” which translates from Tagalog in English to “Womxn”. With this year’s theme, we strive to include the narratives of womxn and as well as an appreciation around the womxn or femxle figures in our lives. This theme is extremely relevant in 2019-2020, considering how we want to center the theme around the intersectionality between the Pilipinx identity and what it means to be a “Babae(x).” Here is context as to why we chose Babae(x) as our theme: This year, {m}aganda magazine board is an all femxle executive board. It is rare to see so many womxn hold positions of power as they are so often interrupted, spoken over, and silenced. Because of this, we wanted to use {m}aganda magazines’s platform to unapologetically center and uplift womxn. In centering womxn in this creative space, we are shifting the conversation from simply acknowledging womxn to celebrating them and upholding their complexity. Just like womxn, the moon has many perceived phases, and is caught between romanticisms and expectations, and just as the moon only appears in the night, and is only acknowledged in darkness, women too are only validated in the extremes, if at all. We encourage the community to take the time to take a look around: at our mothers, our teachers, our loved ones, ourselves–and bask in the complexity of that which surrounds us, has always surrounded us, and will always be a part of everything that we do, even in the day, even and especially in the night. We hope that through this publication, we can continue to uplift womxn in a creative manner. Note: the usage of the “x” is be inclusive of the non-binary gender identities. What does your donation support? We are seeking assistance with publication printing costs and magazine launch costs. The budget for our magazine publication and launch is approximately $1,500. Please see our allocation below. Why donate? Funding our magazine publication costs would go far and beyond to help the sustainability of {m}aganda magazine. For the past 33 years, we’ve uplifted the voices of artists through our magazine and hope to continue to promote critical dialogue within this publication and through the launch of our magazine. The love and passion our students and artists contribute to our publication keeps {m}aganda magazine going every single year. We greatly appreciate your support as it would play an integral part in sustaining {m}aganda magazine. Please make a gift today to support {m}aganda magazine; we are truly grateful for any contribution! Sala{m}at! Learn more about us! Please contact us by emailing us at maganda.finance@gmail.com if you have any questions regarding our crowdfunding campaign. Website: https://magandamagazine.wordpress.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/maganda.mag/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maganda.magazine/ Issuu: https://issuu.com/magandamagazine
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SPECTRE - STAR's Two-Stage Rocket | Fall 2018
By Dinesh Parimi
Support Cal's competitive rocketry team as we take Berkeley one step closer to the stars!
Support Cal's competitive rocketry team as we take Berkeley one step closer to the stars! STAR is UC Berkeley’s only openly accessible high powered rocketry team. We were founded in Spring 2016 by a small group of people who wanted to launch off-the-shelf model rockets. Soon, we realized that Berkeley was severely lacking any form of aerospace education and took an active role to fill that void. In just a few short years, we have evolved into a large team with nearly 100 members across different majors and backgrounds who share a burning passion for space exploration. Now, we need your help to keep our momentum going - will you make a gift today? Exploration and development of space is a rapidly growing and developing field, and our mission is to enable students from diverse backgrounds and majors to get involved with that area, even in the absence of an aerospace major on campus. We feel that we uniquely serve the campus community by accepting all interested members regardless of their experience and background. Our project this year is to build SPECTRE, STAR’s rocket for the upcoming IREC (Intercollegiate Rocket Engineering Competition) in Summer 2019, and our stepping stone to take Cal to the stars! The technologies we develop in the course of this project will contribute directly to our long-term mission to make UC Berkeley the first university to launch a student-built rocket into space. As Berkeley’s home for students interested in space travel, STAR strives to bring together students from varied backgrounds and show them that anyone with passion and drive can touch the stars. SPECTRE represents our next step - a larger vehicle, equipped with more complex subsystems and designed with more complex processes, than anything we’ve done before. When complete, it will fly to 10,000 feet - twice as high as anything we’ve previously attempted - under the power of a custom liquid bipropellant engine. However, project SPECTRE is more than just one launch. Our team will engage in independent research projects on novel avionics and propulsion systems, to name a few, with the goal of putting these technologies into use on an eventual space shot. SPECTRE is our first step towards launching into space, and every dollar we raise will go directly towards the materials and equipment we need to make it happen. We are also continuing to engage in community outreach events that have been a cornerstone of our organization since its inception, where we aim to inspire the next generation of rocket scientists and astronomers. These involve both engaging with the campus community through workshops, and with the broader Bay Area community through hands-on activities with children from kindergarten through high school. In short, SPECTRE will inspire. It will empower our members to believe they can do anything; it will inspire the greater campus community to chase their own dreams; and it will leave the spark of imagination and adventure in the Bay Area community at large. Please make a gift today! Thank you for your support. https://stars.berkeley.edu/ ucberkeleystar@gmail.com https://www.facebook.com/ucberkeleystar/ https://www.instagram.com/_calstar/
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Swim Club at Berkeley
By Swim Club at Berkeley
The Swim Club, founded this semester, is a new community of student-athletes, who share a passion for swim! We need your help to compete at college swim meets!
The Swim Club, founded this semester, is a new community of student-athletes, who share a passion for swim! We need your help to compete at college swim meets! Swim Club at Berkeley To a swimmer, there is nothing more reminiscent than waking up in the early morning for a swim meet. We miss the team cheers, cramped warm up pools, and the joy of racing a personal best time. The Swim Club at Berkeley was established this semester to bring the fun community of competitive swimming we all love to Berkeley! Swim Club at Berkeley is currently in its first official semester as a club, but has been in the works since Fall 2017. Other than the NCAA team on campus, UC Berkeley has no other competitive swim team for students, so our founders wanted to establish an inclusive community for swimmers of all skill levels to enjoy the sport and compete with other college clubs. With a current roster of nearly 80 swimmers, we have the ability to be the team-to-beat at both regional and statewide swim meets! However, due to a lack of funding, we are at risk of being unable to fund competition costs. As a new club on campus, we need funding to be able to attend swim meets and compete with other university teams. By supporting the Swim Club, you are giving passionate student-athletes an opportunity to shine in both local and national competitions! Our Swimmers Our swimmers range from all levels of experience, from those who began swimming in high school to members of National swim teams. Although a majority of our swimmers are underclassmen, we have an almost even divide of classes from 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022, so the legacy of our team will remain even after our current officers graduate. While our members vary in speed, we all share our immense love and passion for the sport. Our Goal Meets are central to the livelihood of a swimmer, and we want to be able to provide this positive and competitive setting for our new team, not just as bonding experiences, but also to gauge our progress and skill. However providing the experience of competition for our swimmers is not cheap. Universities in our area, like Stanford, San Jose State, Santa Clara University and most U.C.’s have swim clubs that regularly hold dual meets and invitationals. The funding needed to register for and travel to these campuses rises with each participating swimmer. Meet registration, as well as travel and lodging, all come out-of-pocket from those who want to compete. Although we try to subsidize costs as much as possible using the money we gain from club dues, meet fees still sometimes remain too high for our swimmers to compete. We want our swimmers to have the full experience of competing with other schools, and we hope that our crowdfunding campaign can help us cross this hurdle! Your donations will go towards our estimated budget, which cover meet expenses and team apparel. Your Impact Overall, we’re just a bunch of students who love to swim. As students at one of the most high-achieving universities in the world, we’ve all experienced our share of academic stress and doubts. However, the ability to escape these pressures at practice with our friends is a privilege we have; the second we dive into the water, all our worries are washed away. The support from all our donors gives us the equipment we need to provide a fun, collaborative space for our swimmers, and give UC Berkeley one more thing to brag about. We hope you consider making a gift to our team today! To learn more about our swim club, visit us at swimclubatberkeley.weebly.com! If you have any questions, you can contact us at swimatberk@gmail.com. Thank you so much for your support. A few of our swimmers enjoying dinner at Sliver Pizzeria on Telegraph.
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Cal Club Gymnastics | NAIGC Nationals
By Cal Club Gymnastics
Help send Cal Gymnastics Club to NAIGC Nationals in Rhode Island! We will be representing UC Berkeley in the biggest gymnastics competition of the year!
Help send Cal Gymnastics Club to NAIGC Nationals in Rhode Island! We will be representing UC Berkeley in the biggest gymnastics competition of the year! Cal Club Gymnastics Who Are We? Cal Gymnastics Club is an organization run by student volunteers who are passionate about gymnastics. Our mission is to offer gymnastics training for both recreational and competitive gymnasts and to make the sport accessible to everyone. We are committed to being inclusive, as our team is composed of UC Berkeley students, staff, alumni, and community members, with levels of experience ranging from beginners to formerly competitive gymnasts. Our Goal We are a competition-focused team that travels to meets all over the country. Our goal is to raise money to cover some of the expenses of traveling to competitions. Gymnastics is an expensive sport, and as a club, we try to absorb some of the individual costs to relieve the financial burden on our members. We raise most of our money by hosting fundraising events such as Parents Night Out where we supervise children so their parents can have a night out on the town. Fundraising is essential to our mission because we want competitive gymnastics to be available to all of our members regardless of their financial need. This year, our team will be traveling to Providence, Rhode Island to represent UC Berkeley and compete in the national competition sponsored by the National Association of Intercollegiate Gymnastics Clubs (NAIGC). Nationals is the biggest college club gymnastics meet in the country (it is even gaining international attention) and the highlight of our competitive season. We train hard all year long, including summers, to prepare for this very important event. Budget Breakdown Please help support the Cal Gymnastics club and your donations will help send our team to nationals where we can represent UC Berkeley in the biggest competition of the year. Many of us attending NAIGC Nationals have never competed before, and it’s amazing to give so many people this opportunity. Attending this competition is something very special to us, and our most important team activity by far. Thank you to all our donors for your support! We couldn’t do it without you and your gifts. Please feel free to contact us with any questions or comments! Email: jasminecasey@berkeley.edu Connect with us on social media! Website: https://www.calgymnasticsclub.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CalGymnasticsClub/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/calclubgym/?hl=en Go Bears!
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Conscious Coffee Project
By Christine Tran
Join us in combating human trafficking and become a conscious consumer by donating to support our Coffee Festival!
Join us in combating human trafficking and become a conscious consumer by donating to support our Coffee Festival! Join us in combating human trafficking and become a conscious consumer by donating to support our Coffee Festival! The Conscious Coffee Project is officially the fair trade representative at Cal. Fair trade is an international non-profit with members who advocate the payment of higher prices to exporters, as well as improved social and environmental standards. We are a team of UC Berkeley students with a goal to empower other students and the local community to make informed consumption choices that support economically vulnerable communites susceptible to human trafficking! We also have an app that is available via iPhone and Android called "ConsciousCoffee" which shows nearby coffee shops that have partnered with us at our Coffee Festival in 2019. It also includes pictures and information about the coffee shop and what products are considered fair-trade. Our Mission: “Sustainability” is a word used in the business world to describe processes throughout the chain of production ⚒ Agricultural products like coffee heavily depend on land and workers that are both also easily exploited, which can lead to harmful long term consequences on the environment and society. Sustainability is a broad term, branching beyond the environment into economic and social arenas as well. There needs to be a healthy balance between all three in order to provide the coffee community—from consumers to farmers— with a high quality product that is mindful on a local & global level "Ethical sourcing" acts as an umbrella term for labels like Fair Trade, USDA Organic, Rainforest Alliance, and many more. Since it's represented through so many different labels and industries, it can be hard to gain a cohesive understanding of the significance of this term Our Festival: We have an Outreach team, App Development Team, and Media Team in order to ensure that the Coffee Festival on campus is super informative and fun for our students and peers at Cal. Partnerships with Counter Culture, Guayaki, and local roasters have made this experience possible. Our App: Download our ☕️Conscious Coffee App☕️, available on the Apple Store and Google Play! Check us out on Social Media! Instagram Facebook LinkedIn Check out this article written about us by the Blum Center at UC Berkeley! WE WILL ALSO BE SPEAKING ON BEHALF OF FAIR TRADE UC BERKELEY AT THE FAIR TRADE CONFERENCE IN PASADENA ON MARCH 20-22, 2020! https://fairtradecampaigns.org WHAT YOUR MONEY GOES TOWARDS: Email: berkeleycoffeeproject@gmail.com
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Volunteers for Medical Outreach Sp’ 2019
By UC Berkeley
Volunteers for Medical Outreach (VMO) is a student run organization that fundraises towards funding healthcare resources in underserved communities in Vietnam.
Volunteers for Medical Outreach (VMO) is a student run organization that fundraises towards funding healthcare resources in underserved communities in Vietnam. Established in 2008, Volunteers for Medical Outreach (VMO) is a student run organization that attends and fundraises for medical outreach trips in Vietnam each summer. Our members spend the school year learning about healthcare in the region, raising awareness for prevalent health-related issues experienced in Vietnam, and soliciting donations to buy the medical supplies necessary to run the mobile clinics, hepatitis B vaccination clinics, and corrective surgery programs that we attend. Every dollar that we raise goes towards funding healthcare resources in underserved communities—giving to our cause allows us to create a lasting impact and help improve health outcomes in areas that need the most assistance. Will you help us by making a gift today? To reach our goals, VMO works alongside amazing nonprofit organizations such as Aid for Children Without Parents (ACWP) and Friends of Hue Foundation (FHF), based in San Jose. Traveling with ACWP, FHF, and Vietnamese officials throughout the trip, VMO members assist doctors during clinical sessions, teach basic health lessons to school children, calm children post-vaccination, and help maintain local schools. We believe that our efforts make a substantive impact and are a valuable experience for our club members. Donating to our organization helps us create and maintain sustainable projects and partnerships that work toward our goal of achieving global health equity one community at a time. As we attempt to broaden our reach, we require the means to purchase more supplies and expand our club. At the moment, VMO has an operating budget of around $9,150. Visualized in the graphic below, the majority of our funds are dedicated towards purchasing the vitamins, antibiotics, and medical supplies necessary for our mobile clinics and vaccinations. With your help, we’ll have the potential to hold more clinics, have more than one trip each summer, or expand to other areas of need. Most of the money that we raise is collected by club members via personal fundraising efforts and through events such as Krispy Kreme and Banh Mi Sales. Given our budgetary restrictions, we need more money if we’d like to make a bigger difference, which is a big reason why we’re doing this Crowdfunding campaign. Furthermore, because members must pay for their own hotel, flights, and food, some individuals are unable to attend due to financial limitations. If this campaign is successful, we will be able to purchase more medical supplies, expand our fundraising efforts, and create scholarship programs for those who wish to contribute, but cannot afford the expense. All things considered, we believe that our organization makes a difference. Your contribution will help us achieve our goals and expand our impact. We thank you for your support, we truly appreciate it. Check out our social media! Facebook: @calvmo Twitter: @cal_vmo Instagram: @calvmo Website: https://vmo.berkeley.edu Feel Free to contact us at: viktoria.sardillo@berkeley.edu brdeanda@berkeley.edu
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Cal Table Tennis | Road to NCTTA Regionals and Nationals!
By Erica Tran
Please support our team and club! We really appreciate your help - we will be using the funds for travel expenses and also for new tables, nets, and barriers.
Please support our team and club! We really appreciate your help - we will be using the funds for travel expenses and also for new tables, nets, and barriers. Help send Cal Table Tennis to the National Collegiate Table Tennis Association (NCTTA) Nationals competition and support our quest for gold! We are a student-run sport club at UC Berkeley. Last year, at the NCTTA Championships, Cal brought home a gold for women’s singles, silver for coed teams, and bronze for women teams. In 2018, our team will be competing in Divisionals (San Jose) and Western Regionals (San Diego) on our way to the NCTTA Nationals, which will be held in Round Rock, Texas this April. For the past several years, our team has performed very well at NCTTA competitions. We have consistently won first or second place at divisionals and regionals, and have always been a top contender for gold at nationals. We had a breakthrough performance at nationals last year and placed higher than ever. Our team has many talented players - we have Lily Zhang, 2012 and 2016 Olympian, and multiple former national team members to round out the roster. Although table tennis is a growing, thriving Olympic sport, funding for our collegiate club is extremely limited. Aside from $400 allotted to us by Cal Sport Clubs, the rest of our funding comes from only membership fees and from our own pockets. All members pay $40/semester, or $70/year, and on average, we receive $3500-4000/year from membership. Although this is a significant amount, $600 goes to paying registration fee for NCTTA, and $500-$1000 goes to buying equipment for the club. Because of this, we usually self-fund our out-of-state trips. Your donation will not only help fund our venture to Nationals but also our day to day needs as a club. Because we have had to prioritize immediate costs, like tournament and travel fees we have subsequently lacked the funds to provide our club with more basic necessities, such as adequate tables, nets, balls, and barriers for training. By donating to our club, you'll be helping us provide a better environment for all of our players! Your Donation at Work $25 - 15 balls $40 - 1 barrier $50 - 1 net $150 - 1 hotel room for 1 night $300 - Flight to San Diego for 1 team member $450 - Flight to Austin, Texas for 1 team member $500 - Registration fee for Nationals $600 - 1 table We are a passionate group of student athletes who tirelessly practice, coach, and promote the sport. Support our journey for gold at the NCTTA Nationals. We greatly appreciate your help, support, and contribution in partnering with us to bring home a national title this April. Thank you for your time and consideration. Go Bears! Keep Up With Us Follow our Facebook Page to keep up to date with our latest events, updates, and tournament results!
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QACON '19 (Queer and Asian Conference)
By Queer and Asian Conference
QACON (Queer and Asian Conference) is a free three-day, student-run conference hosted at UC Berkeley devoted to the queer and Asian identities.
QACON (Queer and Asian Conference) is a free three-day, student-run conference hosted at UC Berkeley devoted to the queer and Asian identities. Queer and Asian Conference Our Story QACON (Queer and Asian Conference) is a free three-day, student-run conference hosted at UC Berkeley devoted to the queer and Asian identities. The conference has been around since 2008 and is the only conference of its kind at the collegiate level. The first annual Queer and Asian Conference was founded with the intention of being a conference in which each participant’s story could and should be heard. With this emphasis on personal stories, QACON aspires to develop the process of community building with the message that empowerment often comes from within — that inspiration doesn’t have to be external but can come from our own voices, narratives, and experiences. Can you help us continue to run this conference by making a gift today? Recent conference themes Fiat Flux: Let There Be Change! As queer Asians and Asian Americans, we’re in a position we’ve never been in before. For the first time, there has been a wave of queer and Asian representation on screen, as well as in both social and traditional media. With the success of several mainstream films, we’re finally seeing narratives with actors who look like us. However, there are very few people in the media who are like us, who live the realities of day-to-day queer and Asian life. Off the big screen, our progress is internationally hindered by legislation. Several Asian governments have enforced a variety of anti-queer legislation. Here, members of the trans community have been banned from serving in the U.S. military, while Cambodian, Laotian, Hmong, and Vietnamese American families are being split up by ICE. The list of injustices goes on. As our community fluctuates, so must we change. This year’s theme is a nod to the collegiate community from which this conference sprouted. Fiat Flux: Let There Be Change reframes the University of California’s motto: Fiat Lux: Let There Be Light. It is not enough to shed light on these challenges; though important, acknowledgment of issues does not equate to improvement. We must seek to create and maintain space for institutional, personal, and communal change in order to shape our future. There is no doubt we are hurtling forward; however, we must reflect on our progress to ensure that we are headed in the direction that best serves the entirety of our community. more themes from past conferences Our Mission The conference is primarily attended by those in the queer and/or Asian communities, many of whom are college students from across the country; alumni, community members and organizers, high school students, and youth groups also regularly attend. That said, with part of our goal being promoting university values of diversity, education, and open dialogue, the conference is open to people of all backgrounds who are interested in learning more about and supporting the queer and Asian intersection. We also aim to make this conference as accessible as possible, and thus have made the conference free of cost to attendees. Our goals are to empower individuals, build community, and encourage our attendees to think critically about the struggles faced by our intersection. Through keynote speakers, workshops, film and art showings, community performances, storytelling, and devised mingling activities, we aim to both celebrate and investigate the intersection of the queer and Asian identities, an intersection which is often overlooked in textbooks and conventional curriculum. Our space is open to all who are interested, whether they be queer, Asian, or allied individuals. Not only will attendees be exposed to a great deal of history, culture, and ideas related to our conference’s focus, but they will also be able to establish networks of support with other attendees who share similar experiences. Where do donations go? We are currently trying to raise money in order to best provide for these goals. Since many people from the Berkeley community and beyond attend our conference, we wish to give them the best experience possible, and in order to do so, we would like to have the best events, speakers, and resources. Room reservations on campus, vegan, gluten-free food, and publicity materials are also significant costs to the conference. In addition, a major concern of ours is accessibility (for example, transportation on campus and visual/audial aids), and with extra funding, we hope to be able to make the event accessible and enjoyable to anyone who wishes to attend. a summary of this year’s budget In donating to this conference, donors can help expand the reach of this conference and enrich the experiences of those who attend. With more support, we hope to be able to spark important conversations about underserved communities, and for these discussions to reach beyond the conference itself into the mainstream. Should we end up with more than what would be reasonable to spend for this year, we will save any excess funds for next year’s conference. Please support our cause by making a donation today! Thank you so much for your support, and go bears! For more information, feel free to check out our website (currently down—we’re looking into getting free hosting), visit and message our Facebook page, or shoot us an email at qaconference@gmail.com. Also, of course, don’t hesitate to drop by! As previously mentioned, the conference is open and free to anyone who wishes to attend. Register today!
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Migrant Advocacy Project | 2020
By Gabriela Nunez
MAP breaks down barriers immigrant youth face in their pursuit of higher education through a college preparatory workshop series and scholarship initiative.
MAP breaks down barriers immigrant youth face in their pursuit of higher education through a college preparatory workshop series and scholarship initiative. Our Community Partners Making up over a quarter of its residents, Oakland is home to a growing population of immigrants. Consequently, the number of immigrant students in the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) has grown from 1,299 students in 2013 to 2,862 students in 2018, a 55% increase in immigrant youth in the past five years alone. In that same time frame, OUSD has provided their students with the technology that a modern-day education demands, and today, every student is given a laptop to supplement their K-12 curriculum. But as students graduate high school, these laptops are recycled back into the school district and a number of graduates are left without adequate access to technology, causing many immigrant graduates pursuing college fall behind on their desired academic and career goals. Our Program Who Are We? The Migrant Advocacy Project (MAP) aims to promote racial equity for immigrant youth by increasing access to higher education. Our majority-minority team consists of four working professionals and three current UC Berkeley students, all of whom are extremely dedicated to promoting MAP’s values and furthering its mission. MAP Team and MAP Scholars at the 2019 Awards Ceremony What is the MAP Scholars Program? The MAP Scholars Program is a college preparatory program and scholarship initiative that promotes the inclusion of immigrant youth at their postsecondary institutions by reducing immigrant students’ self-reported, perceived barriers. In the upcoming Summer 2020 term, 10 graduating high school seniors from the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) will participate in eight workshops. The program’s core curriculum will focus on building students’ confidence in the following: Resume building Job interviewing skills Email etiquette Networking in the digital age Initiating and maintaining professional communication with professors Initiating and maintaining professional communication with employers Ability to seek employment and mentorship on their college campuses Financial literacy Through a variety of interactive workshops, keynote lectures, and panels, the MAP Scholars Program supports immigrant youth in their preparation for college by sharing information, tools, and resources that both enhance and complement the awareness of their strengths and limitless capacities. Scholars are invited to apply their skills through a final workshop, which consists of a career panel discussion followed by one-on-one informational interviews with professors and professionals within their field of interest. Upon completion of the program, students will receive a MacBook Pro laptop with AppleCare protection. Our Budget All proceeds will go towards providing each MAP Scholar with an Apple MacBook Pro laptop. Our goal is to raise $10,000 through this campaign, which will allow us to provide eight students with the technology they need to continue their education. Impact and Outcomes: Bridging the Gap Economic inclusion: College expenses and the fear of incurring debt both act as barriers to higher education. By awarding each scholar with an Apple MacBook Pro laptop, MAP hopes to alleviate some of the burdens of financing an education.Not having access to reliable technology hinders a student’s ability to complete homework assignments and reduces overall productivity, which can have greater implications for career attainability. Social inclusion: Participating in various on-campus activities, such as honor societies, research, greek social life, and professional student organizations require the completion of online applications. Not having access to reliable technology can hinder a student’s ability to participate in these on-campus communities, which can push students to the margins of their college campuses. Educational equity: Unlike most merit-based programs, the MAP Scholars Program does not impose a GPA requirement. By selecting students based on alternative measures of success, MAP seeks to redefine what it means to be a scholar. MAP Scholars are community-oriented leaders who demonstrate intellectual curiosity, resilience in the face of adversity, and a willingness to give and seek help. Employing a holistic selection process promotes equal opportunity for students who come from diverse backgrounds to participate in this program. To learn more about the MAP Scholars Program, please visit our website or Facebook page. If you have any questions or would like to discuss the project in more detail, you can contact us at migrantadvocacyproject@gmail.com.
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Men's Club Water Polo | Spring 2020
By Ari Diddams
As seven time divisional champions, UC Berkeley Men’s Club Water Polo is fundraising to build upon past success and strengthen the community our team provides.
As seven time divisional champions, UC Berkeley Men’s Club Water Polo is fundraising to build upon past success and strengthen the community our team provides. UC Berkeley Men's Club Water Polo is a highly competitive team composed of around 25 students. During our CWPA competitive season, which runs from September through November, we practice for over eight hours each week in addition to competing in biweekly tournaments for the latter month and a half of the season. Past and present players after our most recent alumni game! We are members of the hotly-contested Sierra Pacific Division, which comprises nine teams hailing from across Northern California, including rivals Stanford and UC Davis, and from which the top team qualifies for nationals. Having emerged as division champions for seven straight years from 2012 through 2018, and after narrowly losing to a buzzer-beating goal in the 2019 championship game, we’re eyeing the 2020 season as a team with a history of success and a freshly stoked desire to reclaim our position atop the Sierra Pacific Division and punch yet another ticket to nationals. The team gathers before an offseason tournament game at SDSU! However the team faces a major challenge, we are almost entirely player funded. There are numerous costs associated with running a successful team like coach’s fees, travel fees, lodging fees, league fees, uniforms, pool time and equipment. This year the team hopes to raise $4000, with $2500 going towards tournament lodging, $500 towards travel fees, and $1000 towards pool time, lifeguards, tournament entry fees. We need your help and support to push the team towards our fundraising goals. Please share this page and keep up with what we are doing on our facebook page @UC Berkeley Men’s Club Water Polo!
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Cal Men's Lacrosse
By Devin Koval
Fundraising proceeds will go directly to supporting Cal Men's Lacrosse and its operating expenses.
Fundraising proceeds will go directly to supporting Cal Men's Lacrosse and its operating expenses. Hi, I’m Devin Koval, current president of Cal Men’s Lacrosse. During the 2019 season, we went 17-1 with an appearance in the National Championship. During the abbreviated 2020 season, we went 7-1 and were ranked first in our league. We’re really excited about our team this year and are looking to make another deep run in the MCLA national tournament this spring. As you may know, our team is student-run, as it has been since its inception in 1964. Unfortunately, the funding we receive from the school constitutes less than 1% of our operating budget. As players, we pay annual dues, but we depend largely on donations. We have been so blessed to have such an amazing and generous network of people supporting us every year, but we need your help. In fact, half of our income comes from donations from alumni, family, and friends! They are vital to our existence and vital to our success. Can you make a gift today to help us remain competitive? Your donation will help the club pay for coaches, game fees, and essential player equipment like jerseys and gear. Please make a gift today. I want to thank the families and alumni who have given so much to the program. Your support allows us to play our home games in Memorial Stadium, travel to Northern and Southern California, and make consistent appearances in the National tournament. Thank you for making that possible! Go Bears! Follow us! Facebook - California Men’s Lacrosse Twitter - @CalBearsLax Instagram - @calmenslax
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Cal Cycling
By Crystal Haryanto
We are a collegiate racing team and a community of bike enthusiasts! Your valuable contributions will support racing and non-racing members alike
We are a collegiate racing team and a community of bike enthusiasts! Your valuable contributions will support racing and non-racing members alike Welcome to the Crowdfunding page of the UC Berkeley Cycling Team! We hope you will enjoy getting to know us a little more. Cal Cycling offers road, gravel, and mountain biking to undergraduate and graduate students. Whether it be a Saturday social ride along the Bay or a Sunday slam across the country at Nationals, we have a wide range of available pursuits for the budding or professional cyclist. Every year, we compete in the Western Collegiate Cycling Conference and USA Cycling. We are coming off of a strong mountain bike season, having placed 2nd and 4th at Collegiate Nationals in STXC and XC, respectively, and gearing up for a successful road season. Past victories include placing 1st in road at the world’s largest cycling festival, the Sea Otter Classic, and a Cal Sports Female Athlete of the Year title. 2nd in STXC at Collegiate MTB Nationals 2021 Yet, what it means to carry the Cal Cycling name goes beyond competitive achievements. First and foremost, we are a tight-knit support network. With over 200 members currently, cycling as a sport continues to grow even after the pandemic bicycle boom. From recommending trails to lending equipment, we uphold values of fitness and community. We strive to embody a space for anyone to thrive, however that may be defined. In fact, many of our recreational riders become first-time collegiate racers who go on to stay active long after graduation. Several of our proficient athletes, gaining skills and confidence through our team, go on to race in other individual leagues. While we have a blast with each other, we also recognize the importance of giving back. We’ve done charity ride events to benefit the victims of California wildfires and women in poverty, to name a few. Our next goal is to give back to the passion that we love so much. During recruitment, quite a few expressed interest in joining Cal Cycling but did not have bikes. This is a barrier that we’d like to help overcome. As a student-run club sports team, the University does not provide us with financial support and hence we rely on member dues, sponsorships, and the generosity of folks like you. Your valuable contributions support racing and non-racing members alike. Funds would greatly assist us to: 1. Make recreational cycling accessible by covering the purchase of extra bikes and storage facilities 2. Make competitive cycling accessible by covering race fees for new racers 3. Bring back the Berkeley Streets Criterium in 2022 4. Hire a coach Essentially, funds would allow us to expand on resources so Cal Cycling can keep serving as a backbone for all levels of cyclists. Take a quick look at our general expenses: We sincerely appreciate you taking the time to read about our team. Will you please consider making a gift today? Not only will you be supporting athletes, you will be supporting communities—local and global. Stay in touch! Website: https://cycling.berkeley.edu/ Email: contact@cycling.berkeley.edu Instagram: @calcycling
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UnConference
By Lisa D. White
The Coalition for the Public Understanding of Science (COPUS) UnConference promotes people doing good science through community engagement & collective impact
The Coalition for the Public Understanding of Science (COPUS) UnConference promotes people doing good science through community engagement & collective impact This project has ended, but you can still support amazing Berkeley initiatives by visiting give.berkeley.edu. Your continued support of our students, faculty and staff will ensure that Berkeley remains the #1 public university. Go Bears! Building a scientific citizenry - one person at a time Science is a journey: exciting, creative, dynamic, and unpredictable. Science is a blend of logic and imagination. Scientists are people from all walks of life who enjoy the process of discovery. With training and participation in the scientific community, anyone can become a scientist. COPUS, the Coalition for the Public Understanding of Science, is an eclectic group of individuals invested in promoting good science. With your support we hope to grow participation in the COPUS network by holding a 3-day COPUS Unconference for members of a diverse and broad community who are passionate about science. COPUS Unconference gatherings help to build a greater scientific citizenry, one person at a time, and promote public awareness of science using a variety of innovative resources, including those associated with the UCMP Understanding Science website (http://undsci.berkeley.edu/). With additional support, we hope to grow participation in the COPUS Unconference to include science teachers, future science teachers, graduate students, and new individuals eager to meet and discuss strategies and opportunities that will serve the community as a whole. COPUS catalyzes connections - locally, regionally, nationally - to people, resources, and programs. We depend on friends and donors like you to broaden the network, energize individual and collective voices of many who are passionate about science! The COPUS Unconference will: (1) Grow a core group of passionate enthusiasts that advance the movement together while providing professional and personal support for one another. (2) Promote innovation and experimentation in how we communicate science. (3) Share what COPUS learns and creates with the larger scientific community. (4) Increase person-to-person interactions that build awareness and understanding of how science works, who scientists are, and why science matters. (5) Expand COPUS members' understanding of the public to ensure respect for the beliefs and experiences that influence their understanding of science. Help us achieve a national, cultural shift toward increased understanding of what science is, who scientists are, what they do, and why science matters. COPUS. With your support for COPUS, we can build a scientific citizenry - one person at a time!
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Nigerian Student Association at UC Berkeley: Bigger than Berkeley
By UC Berkeley
The Nigerian Student Association at UC Berkeley preserves and embraces Nigerian culture, and provide an inviting, safe community for all.
The Nigerian Student Association at UC Berkeley preserves and embraces Nigerian culture, and provide an inviting, safe community for all. Our Story The Nigerian Student Association at Cal (NSA) is a student-led campus organization that aims to promote cultural diversity and celebrate Nigerian heritage at the University of California, Berkeley. Our organization strives to promote the advancement of Nigerian and other African cultures within the African diaspora nearly 8000 miles away from our home continent. Through the multitude of culturally inspired events and activities organized by our organization, NSA continues to diversify the Cal community by showcasing vibrant ethnic traditions, customs, and values as well as challenging common misconceptions about Africa typically broadcasted in today’s media outlets. The NSA serves as a home away from home to many Nigerian students on the campus of UC Berkeley. We symbolize the history and beauty of Nigerian culture through our unique harmony of diverse perspectives. Why Support You can directly support multiculturalism on the campus of UC Berkeley through initiatives which promote cross-cultural awareness, celebrate diversity, and unify students of all backgrounds at the University should sponsor our organization. Our events and activities spread messages of inclusivity, recognition, and respect for cultural heritage in the community. Impact & Importance The many cultural activities, events, and programs that NSA organizes for the surrounding community are instrumental both in sharing the essence of Nigerian culture with other ethnic groups at UC Berkeley and in educating the community on who we are as Nigerians, as Africans and as a people. In so doing, we create a space on campus for promoting ethnic diversity and cultural consciousness. How YOU Can Help Join us in keeping the spirit of rich, colorful, cultural pride alive on the campus of UC Berkeley! Proceeds raised through our Crowdfunding campaign will directly pay for costs for NSA events happening this school year, including our big annual cultural show production. Your gifts will ensure that our organization stays true to our heritage, our mission, and our custom traditions by providing the best quality cultural events, activities, and performances that our students and campus community can cherish and take pride in! Help Cal bears embrace cultural expression, and add flavor to a student’s college experience! Any and all contributions are welcomed and are very much appreciated. Our Enterprises The “Nigerian Student Association: Cultural Advancement of Africa in the Diaspora” project is a series of initiatives established by NSA to support the organization’s mission of cultural advancement at the University of California, Berkeley. We are fundraising as a means of acquiring financial support for the many enterprises we have planned for the year, of which include: The annual NSA Cultural Show production The first annual “State of Africa” Case Study Competition Nigerian Independence Day celebration UC Berkeley World Food Fair participation Cultural dance performances Collaborative events uniting fellow African student organizations and other multicultural student groups Interactive educational programs Meeting with Mr. Sowere, an activist and Nigerian presidential candidate Other campus-wide community events & festivities Itemized Budget Breakdown Please make your gift today to help the NSA! Thank you for your support! Contact & Follow Us! Email: nsa.ucb@gmail.com Website: https://ucberkeleynsa.wixsite.com/home Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NSACAL/ Instagram: @ucberkeleynsa
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The Public Health Advocate
By The Public Health Advocate
We're an undergraduate publication focused on educating communities across the world about public health issues. Help us expand our reach!
We're an undergraduate publication focused on educating communities across the world about public health issues. Help us expand our reach! The Public Health Advocate With a diverse undergraduate class of over 30,000 students, UC Berkeley has a diverse set of student voices. The Public Health Advocate’s goal is to bring those student voices to life. We are a publication established in 2005 dedicated to educating our local, national, and global communities about current public health topics. We provide students an opportunity to publish articles about issues they are passionate about researching and addressing. This year, we have a group of 36 students working to bring this publication to life. We achieve this by publishing two print issues every academic year: once in the fall and once again in the spring. These full-color magazines, with informative visuals and insightful quotes, showcase our students' work and are freely distributed across UC Berkeley's campus to have the highest impact on the campus community. To our contributing writers, copy editors, and editorial board members, a printed issue is also a physical representation of the countless hours of work put in by our time writing, researching, editing, and interviewing. Our spring 2018 print issue cover. However, due to limited funding, we have not had enough money to be able to publish all of our students' work in our semesterly print issues. With your support, we hope to change that. Please make a gift today! Your contributions will help allow us to add 10 more available pages to publish student articles about topics relevant to our community, from environmental health to health policy and advocacy. We hope to be able to print 250 additional issues of our semesterly print issues with your support so more members can have access to our students' work. Finally, we can recruit even more students to share and explore their passions. We believe everyone has an idea or experience worth sharing. We hope you do, too! Connect with us: Visit us at our website. Follow us on Facebook. Email us at editorialboard@pha.berkeley.edu.
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Young Worker Leadership Academy
By Kelsie Scruggs
At the YWLA youth learn their rights on the job and then create and plan for an innovative project to complete back in their home communities. Help fund us!
At the YWLA youth learn their rights on the job and then create and plan for an innovative project to complete back in their home communities. Help fund us! Every year, teams of youth from communities all over California come together for the annual Young Worker Leadership Academy (YWLA), coordinated by the Labor Occupational Health Program (LOHP) here at UC Berkeley. During this 3-day Academy, youth and their adult sponsors discuss what a good, healthy job should look like, including the rights and protections young workers already have. They also learn how communities work together to create change. Working with their team, they create and plan an innovative project to implement back in their own community—everything from education sessions for their peers, getting their school or district to systematically provide information about job rights and job safety to teens when they apply for work permits, and even developing and distributing their own posters, videos or fact sheets. The youth who participate come from diverse backgrounds, and are supported by an adult at a local organization or school program, including community youth employment programs or alternative schools that serve lower income or at risk youth. The YWLA presents an opportunity—sometimes a first opportunity—for these youth to develop leadership skills, and actually plan and implement a project designed to improve their own and others’ lives. In addition, six YWLA graduates are selected to return the next year as youth mentors to help lead activities at the YWLA and support youth from the new teams. YWLA impacts not only the youth participants themselves, and the youth who are reached back in each community, but the school and community organizations that participate. These organizations gain the tools and frame to promote safe, positive employment for youth in their own organizations and communities in an ongoing way. Quotes from YWLA youth: We are seeking funding to support two teams and our team of youth mentors (hotel, food, transportation, local project stipend and student stipends), as our current funding only supports four teams. This is the only project of its kind in California—young workers do not learn about workplace issues from other sources, and youth need to lead the way to ensure that they do! The Young Worker Leadership Academy is a collaboration of the Commission on Health and Safety and Workers’ Compensation (CHSWC), the University at California, Berkeley’s Labor Occupational Health Program (LOHP), and the University of California, Los Angeles’ Labor Occupational Safety and Health (LOSH) Program. It is part of the statewide Worker Occupational Safety and Health Training and Education Program (WOSHTEP) administered by CHSWC. The YWLA receives base funding from the Commission on Health and Safety and Workers’ Compensation (CHSWC), but in order to host all of our teams at the YWLA we rely on generous donors! Funds will be going toward the following: Please make your gift today!
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Cal in the Capital:Creating Opportunities for Future Leaders 2022
By UC Berkeley
Cal in the Capital helps students get internship opportunities in Washington, D.C, through professional development and leadership building workshops.
Cal in the Capital helps students get internship opportunities in Washington, D.C, through professional development and leadership building workshops. Supporting Scholarships for CITC Interns The 2022 directors and cohort of Cal in the Capital Interns For more than 50 years, Cal in the Capital has launched Berkeley students into challenging summer internships in the nation’s capital, and trained the next generation of leaders and public servants. This summer, over 75 talented interns will face a radically changed political landscape in Washington, D.C. Their experiences and perspectives, their energy and idealism, are needed now more than ever before. Housed at the Public Service Center, Cal in the Capital (CITC) is a student-run internship program that takes place during the summer in Washington, DC. Each year, we prepare more than 70 Berkeley students for these challenging internships. With a reputation for excellence, our interns are in high demand and most students work full-time. To date over 3800 interns have served 1,633,689 hours of service in hundreds of different settings — including Congressional offices, federal and other government agencies, think tanks, nonprofit organizations, media centers, private corporations, and research institutions. Students from all majors, backgrounds, and interests participate in this program, which impacts not only their lives, but society as a whole. Your Support Provides Transformative Summer Experience Very few summer internships are paid, so the transformative experience of Cal in the Capital is out of reach for most Berkeley students. Our interns currently pay their way by taking on extra jobs during the school year, or through limited scholarships and hard-to-obtain summer financial aid. Even so, the current cost of $6,000 — which includes housing at the UCDC Washington Center, travel, and basic living expenses for the 10-week program — is too much of a stretch. Help us make this transformative experience possible for Berkeley students. How funds are distributed: Funds raised through this campaign will provide students' scholarships, which are distributed based on need. An average of 25 to 30 students receive partial scholarships ranging in size from $300 to $800 for the summer. Estimated budget for financing a summer in D.C.: Housing and Utility: $4000 Food: $1000 Air Transit: $500 Local Transit: $200 Other personal expenses (travel, etc.): $500 Suggested budget per intern: ~$6,000 Why Support Cal in the Capital? Congress Woman Barbara Lee | Alumni | Former CITC Intern "I remember my time as an intern fondly, and can tell you without hesitation that this program changed my life, as it has for so many others. Because of my experience with the program, I have always enjoyed having the privilege of hosting Cal in the Capital interns in my congressional office. The passion and dedication that these student leaders display toward serving their country, their communities, and those whose voices too often go unheard is an inspiration to all." Meg Stern | CITC Alumni and Employer Outreach Director 2021-2022 "Cal in the Capital helped me gain incredible insight into what type of career I want to pursue once I graduate from Berkeley. I had an amazing time working for the Plastic Pollution Coalition, which revealed to me how much I value environmental preservation and policy, and how much I enjoy working for non-profits. This program also pushed me to develop my time-management, communication, and networking skills, which will all be invaluable for any other leadership position I take on in the future. Cal in the Capital is a fantastic stepping stone toward careers and lives oriented around public service." Neha Palvai | CITC Intern and Director 2019-2020 "Cal in the Capital gave me a community and a home in DC. The connections I made were truly invaluable, be it with peers in my cohort (who are still my close friends till date) or the network I built (through the events in DC and my role as Alumni & Employer Outreach Director). I got my start in DC and the program supported me as a young freshman eager to begin working in the public sector. I loved every second of the program and have made sure ALL my friends have joined the same!" Victoria Brademan | Donor and Alumni | CITC Intern and Student Director 1972-1973 "CITC did so much for me. How could I not stay involved and give back? CITC remains one of the most well regarded summer internship programs in Washington, D.C. It's time for alumni to come to the rescue in a big way! If you are a former CITC intern, my fondest hope is that you will reconnect with this program and contribute financially to its continued success on a yearly basis. It needs your help to survive and thrive." Dr. Michael McGinnis | Donor and Alumni | CITC Founding Member 1965 "I can't image a more valuable cause to donate to. You're donating to the University of California Berkeley, your alma mater. You're donating to the generation of future leaders for the nation. And you're enriching the Washington environment because the contribution of students when they're on the scene is a contribution that is not just expressed in terms of the work they do, but also in terms of the spirit they bring." The 2017 cohort of Cal in the Capital interns Please visit: https://publicservice.berkeley.edu/programs/citc/ Or, for more information, please contact: Emily Adsit Cal in the Capital Program Director and Manager Public Service Center University of California, Berkeley Email: emilyadsit@berkeley.edu
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Berkeley Hyperloop to SpaceX Pod Competition
By Berkeley Hyperloop
We are a team of UC Berkeley students aiming to win the international SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition by building a pod that reaches 300 MPH in a mile
We are a team of UC Berkeley students aiming to win the international SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition by building a pod that reaches 300 MPH in a mile Berkeley Hyperloop We are Berkeley Hyperloop, a UC Berkeley student project team that represents Cal at an international scale at the SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition. Our highly diverse team of 40 undergraduate and graduate Berkeley students designs, tests, and manufactures a high-speed pod, learning and growing in our journey. Please join us in our efforts to raise $10,000 so that we can achieve our speed goal of 300 mph and make Cal proud. Imagine a world where you could go from San Francisco to Los Angeles in 30 minutes. That is the innovative vision behind Elon Musk's original Hyperloop Alpha concept, and is also the driving force behind the Hyperloop Pod Competition, where teams from around the world strive for speed in the 1 kilometer-long vacuum tube test track at the SpaceX HQ in Hawthorne, California. Our Goal We seek to solve novel technological paradigms to win the SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition, while simultaneously equipping Berkeley students with the skills needed to evolve into inventors and innovators. Berkeley Hyperloop provides a unique opportunity on campus as we design and build a high-speed land vehicle that operates in a vacuum—an engineering problem found nowhere else. In the process of solving this unique problem, our team of dedicated students gains unparalleled experience. We proudly celebrate a culture of problem-solving, radical open-mindedness, first principles reasoning, safety, and innovation. When you support Berkeley Hyperloop, you are giving young engineers the opportunity to develop and apply their skills to a completely new engineering problem. 2018-19 Pod Our Story In a modest underground library in the summer of 2015, five UC Berkeley students passionate about technology decided to compete the inaugural SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition. They would go on to design, build, and test two unique pods that both qualified as finalists for the competitions in 2017 and 2018. Now, we begin our design cycle for Summer 2020 with our eyes set on winning it all. To reach the speeds necessary for winning the competition, our pod will require high performance components that are as powerful as they are lightweight. Efficient electric motors will be driven by high voltage power systems, controlled by high precision sensors in our navigation system, and fixed to a lightweight structural carbon fiber chassis. If we meet our goal on this campaign, we will make this pod dream a reality. How do we use our resources? Our highly specialized components and testing are extremely resource intensive. We design, manufacture and test a majority of the pod in-house helping us maximize our learning and part customization whilst minimizing costs. However, achieving the lofty goal of making an extremely lightweight and high-speed pod requires expensive materials such as carbon fiber and titanium. Passing SpaceX safety requirements is also one of our biggest challenges and warrants us to build expensive testing equipment that guarantees the safety of our vehicle. Berkeley Hyperloop is in this for the long term and we will keep working towards the development of sustainable and efficient transportation technology. Being a student team, we make sure that the next generation of Berkeley Hyperloop engineers will have the resources to continue working on technological and engineering breakthroughs. We thank the following companies for providing our team with engineering software, expertise, job opportunities, and other key resources. Visit our website to learn more about the team! Conlon Meek, Project Manager - conlonmeek@berkeley.edu William Vassetizadeh, Crowdfunding Director - williamvasseti@berkeley.edu
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Resistance School @ Berkeley
By Resistance School @ Berkeley
Offering practical tools that fuel progressive social change.
Offering practical tools that fuel progressive social change. Resistance School @ Berkeley Onward Together Resistance School @ Berkeley empowers organizers and activists from underrepresented communities to better influence policies that impact them, by offering free online training videos and an online collaborative platform that enhance their social and political change work. Ultimately, through a stronger collective civic engagement, these connected communities will be able to exercise and sustain real democratic power to achieve a more equitable society. We are a network of students and organizers, so we rely on donations in order to provide tools to those doing the hard work on the ground every day. Your support of us allows us to empower them. In its pilot semester this past Fall, Resistance School @ Berkeley has seen much success: its four published training videos, led by UC Berkeley professors and professional practitioners around the theme of effective communication, have garnered over 90,000 views. Facebook posts have totaled 17,252 likes, and the website has had 7,782 visits from 3,668 unique users from 47 countries across six continents. Its resources have been featured in more than ten articles, including HuffPost, France’s Le Monde, the Daily Cal, and on the front page of UC Berkeley’s website. Organizers from as far away from Germany and Austria have reached out to say that the Resistance School @ Berkeley model and content is informing their own social change work. Team members have also initiated partnerships with Bay Area organizing groups, including Wall-of-Us and Debug Politics. In Spring 2018, Resistance School @ Berkeley is working to produce three new training sessions and enhance its current digital viewing platform, with the goal of better supporting the work of organizers and activists. For information about the project, visit www.resistanceschoolberkeley.org! Session 2: Cross-Cutting Messaging in a Tough Political Environment with former U.S. Secretary of Labor and current UC Berkeley professor, Robert Reich. Our fundraising goal We need your help to produce high-quality content that will be useful and accessible to our audience. ALL $3,500 of the raised funds will go towards producing this second semester of training sessions and maintaining our digital presence. With additional support, we can begin the next round of planning for sessions and expand the engagement platforms of Resistance School @ Berkeley to host a conference, create bonus content, expand our web presence, and more! A bit more background Recent events have made the work of long-time organizers and activists even more vital, and people who have never organized before suddenly feel a need to take action. In spring 2017, students at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government founded Resistance School to meet this growing demand for organizing training and skills. Over 10,000 people watched the first semester, and their efforts garnered national attention from places like the New York Times and CNN. In recognition of the continued need to empower progressive organizers, we founded Resistance School @ Berkeley, the first partner institution of Resistance School. Spencer Platt/Getty Images As students at a leading public University, we believe that connecting the skills we’re learning with the people who are fighting to enact sustained social change is one of the most important applications of our education. Resistance School @ Berkeley seeks to empower people and organizations working to advance just and equitable policies in our country. Throughout the semester, we will be soliciting feedback from our stakeholders and audience members via surveys and interviews and will use digital metrics in planning efforts for future semesters. Pitching Resistance School @ Berkeley to other students: building the team! Our location in the middle of the Bay Area’s vibrant organizing community and connection to the nationwide Resistance School network gives us a unique opportunity to bridge local, state, and national efforts, and to allow groups to fill gaps and connect with each other. Organizing is inherently a collaborative process, and we recognize that groups working tirelessly to support and defend their communities don't always have the time or space for this collaboration. In addition to providing online tools, Resistance School @ Berkeley also seeks to serve as a hub for action and messaging coordination. If you have any questions or concerns please contact us at donate@resistanceschoolberkeley.org! Follow us on social media! Facebook @ResistanceSchoolBerkeley Twitter @RS_Berkeley
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PHC: Housed.
By Sneha Ramesh
Housing insecurity is a pressing issue within Cal's student body. Cal PHC wants to alleviate this by providing financial support to house our members
Housing insecurity is a pressing issue within Cal's student body. Cal PHC wants to alleviate this by providing financial support to house our members You have come to the right place. The Panhellenic Community at Cal prides itself on the strides it takes to alleviate the barriers surrounding entry and retention in Greek life. From eliminating recruitment fees to offering need-based scholarships, our community has a vested interest in ensuring that students from all backgrounds are able to join, able to remain, and most importantly, have as robust a sorority experience as possible. That nearly always involves spending time in the chapter houses--the cornerstones of the Panhellenic experience. Chapter Houses function as a central hub for community, giving Panhellenic women an opportunity to bond in an organic way, poising them to develop live-long relationships that give rise to the unique advantages of sorority membership throughout one’s life. Panhellenic housemates become best friends, study buddies, business partners, and more. They hold open doors for each other, empowering each other in an active student and alumnae community that begins at home, at one of the 13 chapter houses in Berkeley, CA.Our members giving back to the community! Moreover, with housing in Berkeley reaching almost inaccessible price points for most college students, the sorority housing experience offers a competitively low rent that enables Panhellenic members to “live-in” with fewer costs than living elsewhere. Fundraising for housing dues thus enables us to keep this process alive. Housing accessibility is a priority for us, even more so with the knowledge that chapter housing encourages lifelong sisterhood connection, communities of support, increased safety, and the professional and post-graduate opportunities endemic to any sorority experience. Your donation will help our members focus on their academics and extracurriculars without having to worry about having a roof above their heads!
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Intranational International Boulevard: A Street's Atlas
By Darin Jensen
An atlas project of experiential learning, mapping the communities of International Boulevard at a hyper-local scale.
An atlas project of experiential learning, mapping the communities of International Boulevard at a hyper-local scale. This project has ended, but you can still support amazing Berkeley initiatives by visiting give.berkeley.edu. Your continued support of our students, faculty and staff will ensure that Berkeley remains the #1 public university. Go Bears! We are the CAGE Lab, UC Berkeley’s Cartography and GIS Education Lab, in the Department of Geography. We’re at it again! Mapping communities at a hyper-local scale and compiling the maps into an atlas. Our last project, Mission Possible: A Neighborhood Atlas, was published in 2012, and can be viewed at missionpossiblesf.org. Our current project is titled Intranational International Boulevard. International Boulevard is a major thoroughfare that spans 107 blocks of Oakland, from downtown to the border of San Leandro and runs through the neighborhoods of Eastlake, San Antonio, The Fruitvale, and East Oakland. The atlas project endeavors to create a holistic picture of place and uncover the alternative narratives that may run counter to the historically uni-dimensional reputation of East Oakland. "Stories matter. Many stories matter. Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign, but stories can also be used to empower and to humanize. Stories can break the dignity of a people, but stories can also repair that broken dignity. When we reject the single story, when we realize that there is never a single story about any place, we regain a kind of paradise." - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie We’ve already created more than twenty maps, including such things as the diversity of churches, the density of public art, the ethnic identity of sweet shops, Taco Trucks of East Oakland, and much more. We’re also mapping some of the more challenging aspects of this community like the abundance of check-cashing businesses and the lack of banks, the value of land and the density of trees with the prevalence of childhood asthma. See the bottom of the page for the current list of maps that are completed and those in production. This is a project of experiential learning—our cartographers go into the field to collect data and to taste the experience of East Oakland. We’re seeking collaboration with community leaders and you, too! You can get involved by supporting the project through your donation. We’ll thank you by adding your name to the book as a contributor and putting you on the contributor’s map—you don’t need to live in Oakland to be mapped—that map will be the scale of our reach. The CAGE Lab will make these maps and compile the atlas even without UC Berkeley’s exciting new crowdfunding platform. But to get it published and printed is where crowdfunding can play an important role. Help us make this project a material artifact that can be shared with the larger community. If we can raise enough money, we will print the atlas in beautiful full-color to create a volume you can hold in your hands. We will make the atlas available for sale at low cost and have planned a special surprise thank you for everyone who contributes. We’re committed to the Oakland community and so we will print and bind it locally. And, the money we raise can pay for more than just the printing. Once we cover the cost of printing, we will provide modest stipends to the cartographers and researchers and the generous videographer who made our video. We have some special perks for those that want to join the mapping effort. We’re looking for people who want to help us locate all the pink houses in these neighborhoods for the Pink Houses Project and people who want to work on the Language of Signage map. This is a map that records the diversity of language used in business signage so that a broad view of the diversity of East Oakland created by the people who live and work in the community can be understood. Besides the exciting fieldwork opportunities and getting your name in the atlas, we have other awesome perks in the works: meet the team and get your purchased copy of the atlas signed, join us on a taco tour, and have atlases donated in your name to schools and libraries. By reaching our goal, we will also be able to make the project more accessible by creating a web interface to host the data and allow mash-ups so you can create your own maps of International Boulevard. And, if we can raise more than our goal, we will be able to print and donate more atlases. The complete atlas team includes: Darin Jensen, Sasha Helton, Cooper Krings, Jake Rosen, Sierra Willems, Zach Loran, Mark Hickok, Bridget Smith, Madison Kausen, Ellie Broadman, Tabitha Hewitt, Lauren Guzman, Annaliese Ng, Maia Wachtel, Daniel Contreras, Julie Sadlier, Jong Lee, Eron Budi, Annaleigh Yahata, Carrie Huang, Kimberly Becerril, Brittany Burson, Marcea Ennamorato, Madeena Siddiqui, Selena Feliciano, Nima Sinclair, and Nica Powell. Let’s make Intranational International Boulevard an incredible atlas together! Current list of maps: International Food Oasis (Culturally-identified groceries and distance to transit) Breathe in International Boulevard (Childhood asthma and the Oakland tree census) The International Language of Sugar (The cultural identity of sweets shops) The Visual Landscape of International Boulevard (Sanctioned and unsanctioned public art) Places to Play (Site suitability analysis for where to build a playground) Trash vs. Cans on International Boulevard (The density of litter and garbage cans) From Creeks to Culverts: The Vanishing Waters AC Bus Stops (Infrastructure and Condition) Road to Remittances (Check-cashing businesses and banks) International Boulevard Automotive Commerce (Automotive-related businesses) The Legal and Illegal Sale of Beauty (Beauty shops and other sales of beauty) The Internationality of Religion (Nineteen categories of houses of worship) Education...Educación… (Public and private schools and percent of population with high school diploma) Neighborhoods of International Boulevard (The City of Oakland’s Neighborhood Map) The Cost of Owning International Boulevard (Property values and median household income) Intranational International Affordable Housing (Affordable Housing and annual median income) List of maps in progress: Mien People (The Mien community) Historical International Boulevard (What was here before) Chain stores and small businesses (densities) Community Health Care (sites and types of services) Diabetes and Retail Food Environment Index) AC Transit’s BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) Plan Pink Houses Taco Trucks of East Oakland
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Legal Pro Bono for Karuk Tribe - Trip to Karuk Country
By Shelby Culver
Support Berkeley Law students working to preserve the natural resources of Northern California and the Karuk Tribe's cultural property.
Support Berkeley Law students working to preserve the natural resources of Northern California and the Karuk Tribe's cultural property. Help support a group of Berkeley Law students in their efforts to provide effective legal assistance to the Karuk Tribe. We operate as a student-led pro bono clinic and work on issues ranging from the Endangered Species Act to protecting the Karuk Tribe's cultural property. Our Mission Awareness of the complicated struggles that many Native American tribes face is typically not at the forefront of Berkeley students’ minds. The legal issues tribes face are very complex and touch on a wide variety of topics, which allows student legal assistance to both help the Tribe and provide valuable learning opportunities for the students. As a response to this great need and opportunity, a group of students at Berkeley Law formed a legal team entitled the Karuk-Berkeley Collaborative (KBC Legal). This student-led clinic contributes to the Karuk Tribe’s ongoing efforts to preserve natural and cultural resources and resolve other legal issues. The Karuk Tribe is a federally-recognized Indian Tribe located along the Klamath and Salmon Rivers in Northern California. Our organization obtains legal work from our supervisor Ms. Fatima Abbas, a Berkeley Law alum and the Chief Legal Officer for the Karuk Tribe. Through our work and events, we build core clinical skills in legal research and writing, client representation, professional conduct, and teamwork while raising awareness of Federal Indian law, environmental, and cultural property issues among Berkeley Law students. Please make a gift to help this year’s Karuk Country trip happen for all of our students! The Project Our students spend the first three quarters of the year communicating with our clients in the Tribe long-distance, while preparing memos, briefs, and other materials the Tribe needs from us. Unfortunately, telephone and email correspondence do not permit us to sufficiently accomplish our task of effectively aiding the Tribe with its numerous legal issues. For the past five years, the Karuk-Berkeley Collaborative has spent 3-4 days in Karuk Country to gather information and perspectives that are not obtained from a distance. During last year’s trip, members of KBC Legal conducted several meetings with our supervising attorney and general counsel to the Karuk Tribe to present our work, strategized with tribal staff and leaders about future projects, and attended a traditional basket weaving event where we met Karuk tribal members and weavers from other nearby communities. Past trips have also included presentations to the full Karuk Tribal Council. KBC Students with the Chairman of the Karuk Council In addition to allowing our group to fully address the Tribe’s legal problems, the trip to Karuk Country also allows our organization to achieve its second goal of spreading awareness of tribal issues. While our members can read about the cultural traditions or natural resources they are working to preserve, the ability to visit the Tribe’s ancestral homeland and speak with tribal members directly is essential to fully understanding the Tribe’s legal issues. The Karuk-Berkeley Collaborative has obtained funding for this trip to Karuk Country for the past five years and many students, including myself, found this trip to be the favorite part of their first year of law school. This trip leaves a lasting imprint in members’ minds. Our organization discusses our personal impressions from the trip publicly at various events throughout the year to spread awareness of the legal issues facing the Karuk Tribe to the greater Berkeley community. The evidence of the strong, positive impact our organization has on members’ legal education is also reflected in the increase in leadership numbers we obtain every year, which allows us to take on even more legal research and writing projects for the Tribe. Our organization is continually growing as other students learn about the valuable legal experience the organization provides in a student’s first year of law school, and the importance their legal service provides to a tribe with only one full time attorney. However, with this growth comes a need for more funding to ensure our entire group can continue to visit our clients face-to-face each year and accomplish our organization’s goals. We urge donors to support an organization working to protect both the natural resources of Northern California and the cultural resources of the Karuk Tribe by supporting our annual trip to Karuk Country. All of the funds donated will be spent 100% on the trip to Karuk Country. These funds will support lodging expenses at local cabins and part of our food expenses. Make your gift today and help us spread the word by sharing this page. Thank you in advance for your support. If you have further questions, please reach out to Shelby Culver at shelby.culver@berkeley.edu.
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Medical Technology at Berkeley - Emerge Learning
By Medical Technology at Berkeley
We are developing an online education platform to help with the training of over 18,000 Emergency Medical Technicians in South Asia.
We are developing an online education platform to help with the training of over 18,000 Emergency Medical Technicians in South Asia. Medical Technology at Berkeley In partnership with Stanford University School of Medicine and GVK EMRI, we, Medical Technology at Berkeley (https://mtab.berkeley.edu), are developing an online platform in South Asia for medical education. Our goal is to create and deliver an online and mobile platform to assess knowledge and help educate an emerging emergency medical service in India of over 18,000 medical technicians and first responders. In the project titled, "Emerge Learning", users are able to increase and assess their medical knowledge through short interactive quizzes, track their statistics, and engage with world class educational content written by university professors and medical experts. Additionally, medical instructors are able to source important data from user performance to better guide medical instruction and focus on the right areas. We have formulated, along with Medical professionals and EMT (Emergency Medical Technician) instructors, that online-education can be an effective medium to reach thousands of people across the varied geographies of India. Additionally, high-quality educational content and assessment can be implemented without the need for in-person resources that are both expensive and difficult to deliver at this scale. Below are images of the current (live) version of the site. The website is intended for both mobile and desktop use. The website is currently in open-beta at emergelearning.org, and will be deployed for initial use on February 17th at SAPCON, the largest EMT conference in India, with eventual roll out to all EMTs in the GVK EMRI emergency medicine system. Your contribution will help us with hosting and server costs associated with deploying a large-scale software application, as well as the transportation costs we need to travel to India and help ensure the reliability and efficacy of the platform among EMTs and medical professionals. We would like to thank you for helping us through this challenging and rewarding project. Thank you for helping us shape the future of medical education and ultimately save lives.
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Read With Me (Spring Foundation)
By UC Berkeley
Read with Me is a monthly online reading program that connects one volunteer to one child in rural China. Funds raised are for books, incentives, and more.
Read with Me is a monthly online reading program that connects one volunteer to one child in rural China. Funds raised are for books, incentives, and more. TL;DR: Read with Me is a 6-8 weeks program where one volunteer accompanies one underprivileged student in rural China to read a book. Through this program, we hope to broaden these students understanding of the world, develop a reading habit and spread our love. The Read with Me project belongs to Spring Foundation, a campus club dedicated to improve the living standard and education accessibilities of underprivileged children in rural China. We have always prided ourselves on the social changes we have been making and would like to invite you to be part of the change! Summer Program Before the pandemic, Spring Foundation has held seven terms of Summer Camp, which is the predecessor of the Read With Me program. The Summer Camp activities cover many remote schools in China including Yunnan, Sichuan, Hebei, Guangdong, etc. Our members designed and successfully taught multiple creative courses including Astronomy, Drama, Computer and Programming, Earth Stories, Creative Art, and Music workshops through the form of project-based study during those camps. COVID & the Online Form of Innovation However, ever since the COVID period, offline teaching has been restricted in many places of China. In Fall 2021, we created RWM, a fully online program, to better adapt to the current situation and continue our work of eliminating the regional education difference and building connections between rural hope schools and the outside world. Pandemic brought difficulties but also opportunities. People were more willing to read books since they spent more time staying at home. Therefore, we are determined to use books as a bridge that connects our volunteers and the rural community. The booklist was decided by both volunteers and school children and was updated every year. We used online orientation and introduction letters as the start of RWM: Online orientation 2021 During the first period of RWM, volunteers designed reading survey and guide manuals for children, shared and discussed weekly through Tencent Meetings and phone calls, and built personalized goals and games together to increase the attractiveness of reading. Children playing games under our guidance We designed awards for children with unique and outstanding performance: We led children to make their bookmarks where they extracted their favorite sentences: Our reading tutoring system is always updating based on regular assessments. Children and parents can fill out the feedback form to change the teaching method or the booklist so as to reach the best teaching result. Regular meetings with the school faculties and volunteers are held on a regular basis to summarize and modify the follow-up implementation plan. During the post period of the RWM program, children need to finish reading reports, gain critical thinking skills, and learn the correct way to extract and record good sentences. Children sharing reports and giving presentations Good Reputation & the Outlook RWM and its former summer camp programs have kept making great impacts and have been widely praised by both the school authorities and program participants. RWM is more than a course, but more like a long term companion and a life guide and inspiration experience. The thank-you notes from the children participated in RWM This semester we picked a primary school in Chongqing China as our partner institution. Let’s make changes together! Budget Breakdown $1000: School faculty & tech improvement: multimedia update in target schools. $1500: Teaching equipment: iPad or ebooks for students studying online. $500: Media promotion: media exposure of target schools for social concern. $200: Fund for bookmarks & awards: raw materials, delivering and distribution. $800: Book & manual budget: paper book purchase and RWM teaching manual. Support Us! Read With Me is excited to bring our passion to improve the living standards and education accessibilities of underprivileged children in rural China. With your help, we as a community can work towards making a difference! If you have any question, please reach out to springfoundation.berkeley@gmail.com or send us a message on our social media platform (WeChat Official Account)! or visit our website https://www.calspringfoundation.org/ !
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IREC Competition and Research Rocketry
By Felipe Cuellar
Support Cal's premier rocketry team as we aim for the stars with research and competitions!
Support Cal's premier rocketry team as we aim for the stars with research and competitions! Space Technologies and Rocketry was founded in Spring 2016 with the goal of building and launching rockets that would someday travel in the void of space. Our aim as a club has been to create and nurture a diverse community of students interested in aerospace at Berkeley. The past 3 years, our group of engineers, physicists, and scientists participated in the NASA Student Launch and Intercollegiate Rocket Engineering Competition (IREC) to hone our rocket-building skills. We developed our primary rockets, Spectre and Arktos, with the aim of honing our teams organizational and design skills with practical experience. This upcoming year, we will be focused on building a new, modular competition rocket. The rocket will also be supplemented by a smaller sub-scale rocket that will test our primary subsystems. The primary goal of this rocket is to compete in IREC. We also aim to use this rocket as a key R&D platform for our more avant-garde projects, such as testing our liquid propellant engine. Ultimately, we hope that this project will strengthen both individual engineering skills and team-wide organizational methodologies. Our participation in IREC next summer will be more than enough reward, as its what was picked up along the way that is of true value. By setting our sights on these goals, we hope to further build STAR up as a pillar of engineering in the Berkeley community. We are also continuing to engage in community outreach events that have been a cornerstone of our organization since its inception, where we aim to inspire the next generation of rocket scientists and astronomers. These involve both engaging with the campus community through workshops, and with the broader Bay Area community through hands-on activities with children from kindergarten through high school. Our efforts this year intend to continue nourishing the flames of innovation at UC Berkeley. We are proud to be the premier aerospace club on campus, and excited to begin preparations for our first launches of the year. Your contribution is a tangible way of continuing the traditions this club has built up in the past 3 years. Please make a gift today, and share this to your friends and family! Your support is greatly appreciated. Best, The STAR family https://stars.berkeley.edu/ ucberkeleystar@gmail.com https://www.facebook.com/ucberkeleystar/ https://www.instagram.com/_calstar/
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Tachyon | CalSol's 9th Generation Vehicle FA ‘17
By UC Berkeley
Tachyon is CalSol's first-ever multi-passenger cruiser class vehicle, and will be racing in the 2018 American Solar Challenge and 2019 World Solar Challenge.
Tachyon is CalSol's first-ever multi-passenger cruiser class vehicle, and will be racing in the 2018 American Solar Challenge and 2019 World Solar Challenge. Our Team CalSol is a team composed of nearly 100 passionate, driven, and hardworking students at UC Berkeley from a wide variety of disciplines. Although we all work on different aspects of the project, and come from a diversity of backgrounds, we share one common mission. CalSol aspires to design, build, test, and race fully solar-powered vehicles at an international level, and in doing so, impart invaluable real-world experience to our members and develop engineers and leaders who will use their skills to improve the world we live in. Our spirit of collaboration, constant learning, and innovation drives our success. Nearly every component on our vehicles is designed in-house by team members, from our suspension system to our circuit boards. In our 27-year history as a fully student-run team, we have developed 8 solar vehicles, all with the aid and generosity of our sponsors and community. More recently, this culminated in our winning the Formula Sun Grand Prix in Austin, Texas this summer - a race in which we were pitted against 17 other teams from around the world. Our Project - Tachyon Tachyon, our 9th-generation solar vehicle, will be unlike any car we’ve ever built. As a cruiser class vehicle, Tachyon features a radical new design that will be able to seat two passengers. Tachyon embraces ideas of the future of clean energy transportation, and is designed with efficiency and practicality in mind. Tachyon is currently entering the manufacturing stage of its development after over a year of concept design and refinement. Manufacturing will be completed by April 2018, and Tachyon will enter its first race, the 2018 American Solar Challenge in July 2018. The race is nearly 2,000 miles long, and stretches from the plains of Nebraska to the coast of Oregon. Your donation will not only go towards making Tachyon a reality, but also directly impact the education of CalSol's future engineers, entrepreneurs, and leaders. Build a brighter tomorrow today. Our Timeline Where Your Donation Goes Follow our team! http://calsol.berkeley.edu/ https://www.facebook.com/BerkeleyCalSol/ https://twitter.com/berkeleycalsol https://www.instagram.com/berkeleycalsol/ Questions? calsol@me.berkeley.edu
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AileyCamp at Cal Performances 2021
By Cal Performances
AileyCamp is a nationally acclaimed summer program that uses dance as a vehicle for developing self-esteem and creative expression in students ages 11–14.
AileyCamp is a nationally acclaimed summer program that uses dance as a vehicle for developing self-esteem and creative expression in students ages 11–14. Cal Performances “AileyCamp changed the way that I thought about what I can do and who I can be.” - Former AileyCamper Ben Schecter AileyCamp is a nationally acclaimed summer program that uses dance as a vehicle for developing self-esteem, creative expression, and critical thinking skills in students ages 11–14. Conceived by Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and run locally by Cal Performances, Berkeley/Oakland AileyCamp combines professional level dance training with personal development activities. Learn more about Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre and their upcoming performance with Cal Performances here. In 2021, Berkeley/Oakland AileyCamp will go virtual! Due to ongoing uncertainties around the pandemic, Cal Performances will be unable to offer an in-person camp this year. And yet, the need for young people to connect with each other and with caring adults, express themselves, and enjoy the transformative power of dance has never been greater than at this moment. In response, our talented staff and teaching artists are developing a Zoom-based, four-week camp that will provide small-group lessons in West African, ballet, Jazz, and modern dance, Creative Communication and Personal Development workshops, mentorship, and an opportunity to showcase their accomplishments with an end-of-camp video. Help give a camper a free and life-changing experience this summer. Your gift will provide daily virtual dance classes, personal development workshops, access to technology, dance clothes, art supplies, and more. . AileyCamp Builds Resilience. AileyCampers spend every day trying new dance moves, learning new skills, and working towards a common goal. In doing so, they learn that it often takes more than one try to be successful and that hard work pays off. AileyCamp Teaches Collaboration. Every day, campers take dance classes and work together in professional development workshops to learn about critical thinking and creative communication. They practice these skills in real time as they learn new choreography and come together to put on a final show for their family and friends. . AileyCamp is Fun! Do you remember going to summer camp as a kid? Many AileyCampers don’t have access to other camps throughout the summer, and AileyCamp provides them with activities that help them learn and grow while dancing and playing with their peers. AileyCamp is Free! AileyCampers come from around the Bay Area with varying levels of access to food, education, and adult guidance. The students receive professional dance training, clothes for dancing, and all the supplies they need for every class. AileyCamp Relies on Your Support! Your contributions to AileyCamp make a lasting impact, not only on the students but also on their parents, their communities and their schools as AileyCampers use and promote the skills they have learned.
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Financial Literacy and Economic Justice Conference
By UC Berkeley
FLEJCON organizes an annual conference centered around financial wellness & economic justice, delivering financial empowerment to the Berkeley community
FLEJCON organizes an annual conference centered around financial wellness & economic justice, delivering financial empowerment to the Berkeley community Personal finance—incredibly important, yet severely under-taught. The Financial Literacy and Economic Justice Conference, known as “Flejcon,” aims to provide financial literacy and economic justice education to the Berkeley student body and community, primarily through our annual, student-organized event drawing together faculty, administrative offices, community partners, and student leaders in a series of workshops. We are a student-founded, student-led organization that puts together this conference each year featuring topics such as budgeting, filing taxes, investing, understanding credit, and navigating housing in Berkeley. Raising these funds will allow us to continue to offer this free conference to hundreds of students and community members each year, helping us pay for conference materials, speaker accommodations, and marketing efforts. With your support, we can keep providing the Berkeley community skills and knowledge essential to achieving financial wellness. Flejcon began as a Big Ideas at Berkeley entry in 2015 that won 1st place in “Improving Student Life". Our founders recognized financial stress as a pervasive socioeconomic and health problem at UC Berkeley that is set to grow in the years ahead. In the 2014 Undergraduate Experience Survey administered at UC Berkeley, 67% of students reported being concerned about paying for their undergraduate education. In response to the rising cost of education, 47% of students have skipped meals, and 88% of students have cut down on personal/recreation spending. Moreover, on campus 65% of students depend upon some form of financial aid to afford their degree. Flejcon began with a purpose to directly reduce financial illiteracy, a major driver of financial stress among college students, and we have been working to expand our impact beyond our student body to the community as well. Due to unexpected cuts to our budget, your help is essential to moving our mission forward. Since 2015, Flejcon has held four conferences, each featuring a diverse range of speakers and topics, and we are looking forward to our 2020 conference. Each year we have accommodated 200-300 attendees at our conference, as well as up to 100 more attendees at our smaller workshops throughout the year, and we hope to broaden our reach this year and in years to come. Your donations will help make this possible. As the first student-organized and student-oriented conference of its kind at UC Berkeley, our goal is to empower individuals to improve the welfare and future of themselves and their communities. Flejcon aims to provide financial literacy training and knowledge of economic disparities for individuals where, currently, there are very few opportunities to develop financial literacy skills and knowledge. We are relying on your support to make our conferences this year and in future years happen! Please give today to support us in providing comprehensive financial literacy and economic empowerment education across our community. Share our page on social media! [insert our crowdfund page link] Learn more about Flejcon and our previous conferences: Website: http://www.berkeleyflejcon.org/ Email: flejcon@gmail.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/flejcon/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/flejcon/
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UC Chamber Chorus | International Tour
By Indu Pereira
The UC Berkeley Chamber Chorus, the university’s top-tier concert choir, is asking for your support to fund need-based scholarships for our international tour!
The UC Berkeley Chamber Chorus, the university’s top-tier concert choir, is asking for your support to fund need-based scholarships for our international tour! Chamber Chorus takes a bow after a successful fall concert. In Summer 2021, UC Chamber Chorus is going abroad for a 7-day international tour and we’re counting on your support to ensure all of our students can embark on this once-in-a-lifetime performance experience! The idea for this tour was born in summer 2019, when Chamber Chorus director Dr. Wei Cheng sat down with our officer team to discuss ways to increase the Chorus’s visibility. We realized that despite our successful concerts and artistic excellence, our choir hasn’t traveled in years and many of our current musicians have never performed outside of Hertz Hall. We aim to make international touring and cultural exchange an integral part of our curriculum and envision our Summer 2021 tour as the first of many. We know the first step lies in creating a financially-inclusive experience for our entire group, regardless of circumstance or background, and we plan to provide partial and full scholarships for our students based on financial need. Our journey to grow the chorus and develop our students as musicians and as leaders starts with this crowdfunding campaign. Consider making a gift today! Who Are We The UC Chamber Chorus is the university’s premier concert choir, consisting of 45 singer-musicians competitively selected from the greater Berkeley community, including undergraduate and graduate students and community members. Directed by Dr. Wei Cheng, the Chamber Chorus is acclaimed for its readings of early and contemporary music and has performed in venues like Grace Cathedral, Walt Disney Hall, and Carnegie Hall. In spring 2019, the Chamber Chorus partnered with Volti and the Philharmonia Orchestra of London under Esa-Pekka Salonen to premiere Dreamers, an oratorio about the stories of undocumented immigrants written by Berkeley alum and award-winning composer Jimmy Lopez. A group of undergraduate and graduate students mix and mingle at our holiday potluck! The strength of our choir comes from the diversity of our musicians. Our members include underrepresented minorities, people of color, and members of the LGBTQ+ community, spanning from graduate students pursuing PhDs in Physics to undergraduates studying Environmental Design to Music majors who plan to turn singing into their career. Our choir is a family, coming together outside of rehearsal at potlucks, retreats, hiking trips, and more. How Your Support Helps Performing on this tour will allow our students to develop their leadership skills, to work diligently on complex repertoire, and to collaborate with international musicians, helping to create unity through cultural exchange. To give you an idea of the expenses, here’s a breakdown of one student’s trip costs: Land Price - $1,600: Coordination and marketing of 3 concerts, 7 nights of accommodation, ground transportation, and the majority of meals. Airfare - $1,000: Round-trip international airfare. Taxes - $400: Air taxes and fuel surcharges. Every dollar from this campaign will go towards funding need-based scholarships for our Summer 2021 tour. Support scholarships for our students by making a gift today! Yazmin Mercado, soprano, sings a solo from Handel's "Messiah" to a sold-out audience. Follow Us on Social Media: Chamber Chorus Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ChamberChorus.UCBerkeley/ UC Berkeley Music Department Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ucbmusicdept/
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Asha for Education Fall ‘19
By Arathi Vinod
We are Asha for Education, a project based in Mumbai that provides a safe space for underprivileged girls to learn and grow emotionally.
We are Asha for Education, a project based in Mumbai that provides a safe space for underprivileged girls to learn and grow emotionally. We are Asha for Education, a non-profit organization with over 50 chapters across the world that raises money for K-12 schools in India. Our mission is to catalyze socioeconomic change in India by lending a helping hand to the education of underprivileged children. As the Berkeley branch of Asha for Education, we raise awareness of the crucial obstacles to Indian social mobility and development by funding seven educational projects across India: Rewards Trust, Mera Sahara, Jamghat, Avantika Vidhya Bhavan, Little Stars, Tihar, and Sakhi for Girls’ Education. With your help, we hope to utilize the funds we raise to specifically aid Sakhi for Girls’ Education. Sakhi for Girls’ Education was originally created by Aarti Naik, a changemaker from Mumbai, and aims to provide a safe space for girls to learn and grow emotionally. About ten years ago, Naik founded Sakhi after experiencing firsthand the disadvantages that young Indian girls face in getting a basic education and in becoming independent, self-reliant adults. By empowering these girls with basic education, vocabulary and numeracy lessons, computer literacy, and other basic life skills, Sakhi for Girls’ Education strengthens the confidence of hundreds of girls in India. Through supportive methods that encourage a love for learning, Sakhi educates young girls about their rights and helps them build their confidence as well as their knowledge, inspiring them to become future leaders. Our duty as Asha for Education is to help fund for Sakhi’s needs. With an overall goal of $5800, we hope to fund for Sakhi’s educational materials, extracurriculars, and salaries for teachers and trainers. Budget Breakdown (Budget breakdown amounts listed are estimates of Indian rupees converted into US dollars) By donating through the Berkeley Crowdfunding Program, you can help reduce gender inequalities and directly make an impact on youth in impoverished areas. Every penny earned goes toward helping a young girl in India educate herself and find success in her life. Contact Us! Email: berkeley@ashanet.org Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ashaberkeley/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/asha_berkeley/
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Cal Sailing Team | 2019
By UC Berkeley
The Cal Sailing Team is a self-run team, sustained only by dues and your help. We ask for your generous donation to help us stay competitive and active.
The Cal Sailing Team is a self-run team, sustained only by dues and your help. We ask for your generous donation to help us stay competitive and active. Thank you for donating to our cause. We are going to continue fundraising until we get to our $70,000 goal! Look here to see our current progress (not the top corner). Amount Fundraised: $41,871 Attention Corporate Donors: Please see our message to you. Click Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PE1JdBqkc8Gh8gngyIINF413MNPMES2h/view?usp=sharing Details on payment options are listed at the end of the description. Our Goal --> CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS. Help the Cal Sailing fundraise for a one time purchase of a new (used) fleet of boats! Benefits of Donating to Cal Sailing: Creates real word experience for Cal Sailors: “Cal Sailing has taught me more about working toward long-term improvement, both on a personal and a collaborative level, than any class I’ve had in all four of my college years.” - Nicolai Sponholtz ‘22 Nurtures a connection with the ocean and weather which fosters a strong relationship of respect and love for mother nature. Develops strong friendships and many important values in sailors such as good sportsmanship, honor, preparedness, integrity, common sense and teamwork to name a few. Wants to grow. With your help, more boats allow for a larger team, a larger overall impact of Cal Sailing. A larger team also means a more competitive team, as a larger membership guarantees a larger variety of backgrounds and diversity, which strengthens a team. Lastly, a larger team helps us fundraise in the future and will help Cal Sailing develop for years to come. What has Cal Sailing always been? Founded in 1922 as the second oldest club sport at Cal, Cal Sailing is a 30 members strong, student-run organization. We practice out of the Treasure Island Sailing Center (TISC) four times a week and compete on the weekends. The team is a club team, this means we are funded simply by dues and generous donations from our alumni. ALL DONATIONS ARE TAX DEDUCTIBLE Contact Information is available at the bottom of the project description! What is Cal Sailing Now? The team is a unification of students with a diverse array of sailing backgrounds. For the first time in 22 years, the Cal Sailing Team went to Coed Nationals in Norfolk, Virginia last year. A fantastic finish to a grueling season, the team worked hard through highs and lows to ultimately succeed at the qualifying regatta at the University of Hawaii. The talent and drive of Cal sailors brought us to Nationals, but we need your help to get us to the next level. We are continually looking to expand our team's skills and diversity and continue the Corinthian spirit at Cal. What can Cal Sailing become? An exciting question to ask, for Cal Sailing is wrought with potential. Cal Sailing has the opportunity to represent the west and place extremely competitively at Nationals, with your help. Treasure Island is being refitted to become the US Olympic Sailing Training Facility. As this is our home base, we hope this will attract up and coming sailors and will provide us with some exciting opportunities. With a great year behind us, Cal Sailing also hopes to keep augmenting the competitiveness of Cal Sailing. We need your help to capitalize on our opportunities. How can you help? The Cal Sailing Team is fundraising for a new fleet of secondhand boats to replace our 16-year-old fleet. This would provide much better practice conditions, allowing our team to practice on boats that are equal with our competition, and would also allow the Cal Sailing Team to host larger regattas such as nationals. Help us reach our goal so we can improve Cal Sailing. Here is a snapshot of looming expenses we need your help with: Why help Cal Sailing? Gifts to Cal Sailing support a network of students for generations to come. Supporting Cal sailing is supporting an organization that impacts and develops driven and talented young adults. How to make a gift: Cal Sailing can process your gift through a variety of methods. All gifts are processed through the UC Berkeley Foundation. Credit/Debit Card: This website: https://give.berkeley.edu/egiving/index.cfm?Fund=FU0818000&Org=The%2520Sailing%2520Club%2520Fund Please fill out this form so that we can track your card donation: https://goo.gl/forms/Vd12CczTaBt5AJrD3 Check: Send a check to: Cal Sport Clubs Attn: Katie Fletcher Carlson 2301 Bancroft Way Berkeley, CA 94720-4420 Make the check out to the "UC Regents - Sailing". In the memo put "Cal Sailing Team Fund". Please fill out this form so that we can track your check: https://goo.gl/forms/Vd12CczTaBt5AJrD3 Stocks/Securities: Contact Drake Hayes for more information The TAX ID number for donations to the “UC Berkeley Foundation” is 94-6090626 All donations are tax deductible! If you would like to contact the project leaders you may contact Drake Hayes or Luc LaMontagne, contact information is listed below. Keep Up With Us Follow us on Social Media UC Berkeley Sailing Team Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/CalSailingTeam/ Friends of Cal Sailing Facebook Page (our alumni page): https://www.facebook.com/groups/847655278598578/ Instagram: @calsailingteam To join our mailing list please email Drake Hayes at drake.hayes@berkeley.edu Calsailing.org Contact Information: Drake Hayes 21’ (Co-Alumni Chair) Email: drake.hayes@berkeley.edu Luc LaMontagne 22’ (Co-Alumni Chair) Email: luc.lamontagne@berkeley.edu GO BEARS!!! Thank you for all your support! Please share our page and help us reach our goal!
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Helix @ Berkeley
By Kaveh Boostanpour
Helix aims to reduce educational barriers for marginalized, economically disadvantaged high school students and advance diversity in the health workforce.
Helix aims to reduce educational barriers for marginalized, economically disadvantaged high school students and advance diversity in the health workforce. Kaveh Boostanpour Jeff poses for the camera as he introduces the Helix Symposium Helix was built on the premise of breaking educational barriers for marginalized and socioeconomically disadvantaged high school students to diversify the healthcare workforce. This goal culminates into a free 4 summer medical program that allows matriculants to gain a medical foundation through our core curriculum and clinical site visits that allow students explore health in a hospital, pre-hospital, and clinical setting. To build off our summer program from the past summer, which featured a 2 week didactic portion followed by a year long opportunity to shadow an assigned mentor-physician at Kaiser Permanente, we are enacting a more comprehensive curriculum and allowing our cohort to shadow a broader, more specialized set of medical professions. Consequently, through crowdfunding, Helix intends for any financial contributions it receives to build a foundation for talented high school students lacking such educational resources to become the next generation of promising clinicians. Students Savannah Wong and Emmeline De Asis presenting their research project at the Kaiser Oakland Medical Center Our curriculum budget totals to $3400, consisting of the actual laboratory material during the 1 week core curriculum and transportation costs for students to get to their assigned hospital sites during the 3 week site visits. The curriculum portion begins with three health modules that broaden the scope of a health problem from a microscopic pathology standpoint to a socioeconomic and political standpoint. Combined, these activities cost $385, including materials such as blood pressure kits, sheep hearts, pig feet, and hand soap. Miscellaneous labs, which include medical imaging, emergency medical skills, and mouse dissections, complement the health modules with hands-on experimentation to replicate basic scientific research, totaling to $1940 for supplies. The last component of the didactic portion includes the Helix symposium held at the School of Public Health, where students present their research on a public health issue to our program’s network of clinicians and mentors, totaling to $575 for room reservations and poster board costs. Finally, transportations ensures that all 20 of our matriculants receive 5 bart tickets to arrive at their designated hospital, pre-hospital, and clinical sites, which primarily reside between downtown Kaiser Permanente, UCSF and the Bay Area Fire Departments. Each bart ticket will be valued at $5, equating to $500 for 100 total bart tickets. Your generous contributions support purchasing the materials for the core curriculum and the means of transportation for student shadowing opportunities. By generating money for the curriculum, Helix alleviates the burdens and stressors that come with a lack of educational opportunities. Minimizing the emphasis on lecture-heavy classes in lower division college courses and high schools, Helix presents its modules in a collaborative manner that empowers students to discuss socioeconomic and health problems they’ve observed in their community and acquire skills and knowledge to address and alleviate these societal issues through pursuing health, medical, and biological research professions. Secondly, by accumulating transportation funding, Helix will reduce the difficulty parents have of driving students to remote locations away from their work, allowing students to arrive promptly and immerse themselves in the full experience of exploring different health occupations. Work with us to promote equal representation in the healthcare workforce one gift at a time and consider donating today! For more information about our program and mission statement, visit our website https://www.thehelixgroup.org/. Thank you for your support as without you, Helix would cease to proceed past an optimistic dream of transforming the medical workforce. The Helix team Are you thinking what we're thinking? Equal representation in healthcare? We thought so!
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Solar Spring Break 2020
By UC Berkeley
Support the Solar Spring Break to bring renewable energy to communities in-need and help train students with hands-on experience.
Support the Solar Spring Break to bring renewable energy to communities in-need and help train students with hands-on experience. ** After this page closes on 3/3/2020, we will continue fundraising on this site ** This year’s spring break, two groups of 12 UC Berkeley students will be traveling to areas around Oakland and Sacramento to install solar panels for low-income households. This is the 7th year that UC Berkeley students are participating in Solar Spring Break, a program hosted by the nonprofit organization GRID Alternatives. Solar Spring Break is supported on the UC Berkeley campus by the Student Environmental Resource Center (SERC), and is comprised of a week-long trip over spring break for training and installation of solar panels, and a semester-long DeCal (student-taught class) on the topics of solar energy and environmental justice in California. Figure 1: Oakland team during SSB 2019 Most residential areas today are powered by energy from fossil fuels, which are nonrenewable, polluting, and contribute to climate change. Furthermore, according to the EIA (US Energy Information Administration), the US residential sector makes up for about 40% of the total MWh (megawatt-hours) of electricity used in 2018. So in order to decarbonize our energy system, it is essential to increase renewables in the residential electricity mix. However, the upfront cost of rooftop solar systems is a major barrier that deters many homeowners from switching to solar. By installing solar panels on qualifying homes in underrepresented communities, our team seeks to provide needed financial savings for residents while lowering greenhouse gas emissions. We believe that renewable energy and utility savings should not be reserved just for those with the means to afford solar panel installations. People struggling to make ends meet are the ones who would benefit the most from stabilized and reduced electricity bills, and that is why we focus on this demographic. Figure 2: Salinas team during SSB 2018 In addition to advocating for environmental justice in underrepresented communities, participants of Solar Spring Break will also acquire the technical skills needed to install solar panels. This hands-on learning experience will actively enrich participants’ knowledge and understanding of solar energy and prepare for a career in the field of renewable energy. Crowdfunding: Solar energy is a renewable and carbon neutral source of energy. Once set up, it involves minimal maintenance and running costs, while providing a reliable electricity output. However, the initial installation costs of an average sized home solar panel system (5 kilowatts) can cost about $12,900-$16,500 in California mainly due to the prohibitively high costs of photovoltaic systems, as well as the labor and electronic components required. Thus, even with subsidized rates and incentives provided by utility companies, most low income communities still cannot afford these facilities. GRID Alternatives aims to overcome this cost barrier and make solar power accessible to all. This will improve the financial well-being and living standards of impoverished communities. Budget breakdown: One participating team of 12 people costs us about $5,000, and since we are participating two teams in two different areas this year, we need to raise around $10,000 to cover our costs to install on four homes in total. Here is a more detailed budget breakdown: Program Fees (Staff time, solar panels, programming): $8,200 Meals/Food for both groups for a week: $800 Transportation to/around Sacramento and Oakland (BART, rideshare, gas, etc.): $400 Misc./Activities: $100 Grand Total: $9,500 Money raised through this crowdfunding will directly bring the environmental and economic benefits of solar power to under-served households in Oakland and Sacramento. Please make a gift today to help us reach our goal so we can bring renewable, affordable energy to those households and give students hands-on experience with solar technology! For more information about the program, do not hesitate to contact Jesica or Ashley at jesica.sutandi@berkeley.edu and ashleycowell@berkeley.edu.
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5K for Autism
By Connor V Dietz
Annually, the Spectrum club has hosted a 5K where students and citizens alike can participate.
Annually, the Spectrum club has hosted a 5K where students and citizens alike can participate. Here in Spectrum: Autism at Cal we work year-round to promote the acceptance, awareness, and belonging of neurodiverse individuals and those that are on the Autism Spectrum. The annual 5k/3k is our biggest fundraiser where we invite members of UC Berkeley, the citizens of Berkeley, and any other individuals who are interested in participating. Not only does this fundraiser allow our student-ran organization to function and buy supplies for ourselves, but it also helps us make an impact in our community and spread awareness beyond UC Berkeley. However, this fundraiser is expensive to run so our club is asking you for any help you may be able to provide. Additionally, our budget breakdown is as follows: Supplies: $400 Decorations/Performances: $1000 Other Supplies/Events: $300 Contact Info: Spectrum: Autism at Cal - spectrumatcal@gmail.com @spectrum_at_cal (instagram) - Spectrum: Autism at Cal (Facebook) Connor Dietz - connordietz@berkeley.edu Esperanza Padilla - pranza.dia@berkeley.edu Judy Xu - junjia.xu@berkeley.edu Tory Benson - tgbenson@berkeley.edu
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Help Berkeley Fastpitch Purchase Equipment!
By UC Berkeley
UC Berkeley currently has no club softball team. We are trying to start a team to allow college girls to continue playing or learn to play this sport!
UC Berkeley currently has no club softball team. We are trying to start a team to allow college girls to continue playing or learn to play this sport! We would like your support in starting a club softball team here at UC Berkeley! Many sports are represented in Berkeley's club teams, which offer a lower time commitment than a division team would, but unfortunately, there is neither a club softball team nor an intramural fastpitch softball league that is available to students. It is nearly impossible to play fastpitch softball without having the skills to make the school’s division team, and this means that many players must give up the sport they love when they get to college. We all really miss playing softball and are recruiting as many new members as we can! We are currently in the process of joining our regional softball league and applying for club sport status from the university, having just become a Registered Student Organization (RSO). Our budget can be broken down as follows: Bucket of Softballs (2): $220.00 Team bat: $200.00 Team glove: $50.00 Field Costs (~10 practices, for one semester): $840.00 Team Uniforms:$200.00 Transportation:$300 Total: $1810.00 Starting any sort of team is never easy, but softball is especially hard due to the heavy front costs of equipment. We hope that starting a club for this sport will make softball more accessible for everyone. If you have any questions, you can contact us at berkeleyclubsoftball@gmail.com or contact anyone on our leadership team: Captain: Emily Ramey, emily_ramey@berkeley.edu President: Mikayla Blair, mikaylablair@berkeley.edu Vice President: Lianne Wong, liwong10@berkeley.edu Secretary: Ryann McDowell, ryannmcdowell@berkeley.edu Treasurer: Amanda Tai, amandahltai@berkeley.edu Fundraising chair: Nicole Chew, nicole.chew@berkeley.edu You can also follow us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/calclubsoftball/ We all really would like to play softball again, and we hope that you will consider donating to help us reach our goal. Please share our page with all your friends and family! Thank you so much for stopping by our page! - Emily, Mikayla, Lianne, Nicole, and Ryann
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RoboMaster @ Berkeley
By Yibin Li
Robomaster at Berkeley is a club that provides a robotics sports community to Cal students and competes with other universities in the Robomaster AI Challenge.
Robomaster at Berkeley is a club that provides a robotics sports community to Cal students and competes with other universities in the Robomaster AI Challenge. ICRA 2019 DJI RoboMaster AI Challenge The ICRA 2019 DJI RoboMaster AI Challenge is jointly organized by the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation and the DJI RoboMaster Organizing Committee. The challenge serves as an innovative platform for exceptional engineers and robot enthusiasts. The RoboMaster AI Challenge requires robots to drive and launch projectiles using artificial intelligence related technologies. Each team is required to build TWO autonomous AI robots to compete in a 5m × 8m arena filled with various obstacles. To win, a team must defeat TWO AI robots presented by the RoboMaster Organizing Committee. Robomaster at Berkeley Founded in Fall 2018, RoboMaster at Berkeley is a club that provides a robotics sports community to Cal students, encouraging students to learn robotics in a novel and exhilarating way. We raise fund to purchase RoboMaster robot research platforms to enrich students hands-on experience in robotics and develop advanced knowledge through practice. Students will have an opportunity to learn and test algorithms in the simulation first, and then implement those models to the robot research platform. We aim at creating a robotics sports community. Robotics can be very cool and fun to play, just like any exciting sports. We will try to let as many people as possible to get involved in our community, and bridge the gap between limited hands-on experience in the theory side of robotics and the vast interests and talents student robotics enthusiasts have. Outside of class, students can get some hand on experience building robots and feel the charm of technology through our platform. By doing this we hope to make the nerdy knowledge in computer science and math become cool things. Berkeley robotics enthusiasts will drive our robot in libraries, in classes, everywhere in campus to inspire more people. We will provide training as well as hands-on experience to those who are interested in learning more about the field of robotics and thus help them develop advanced knowledge through practice. Even students with other interests or non-tech majors can also be a part of our project, as our project welcome people from all backgrounds and offer roles related to Finance, Public Relations, Logistics and so on. Moreover, we are aiming at creating a robotics sports community here in Cal and encourage more projects like our own. We will compete with other universities in the 2019 RoboMaster AI Challenge; it will be the first time for Cal to participate in this competition. We will spend money to purchase the necessary hardware to get into the competition. Please support us to boost Cal's robotics development with a big step. Contact us at robomasteratberkeley@gmail.com (PS: donations to RoboMaster @ Berkeley are tax-deductible!)
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Funding Free Speech: The Berkeley Forum Spring 2022 Crowdfunding
By Meriem Cherif
The Berkeley Forum brings engaging talks, debates, and panels to campus and fundraising for livestream tech, marketing, and speaker transportation and outreach.
The Berkeley Forum brings engaging talks, debates, and panels to campus and fundraising for livestream tech, marketing, and speaker transportation and outreach. Who We Are The Berkeley Forum is a non-partisan, student-run organization at the University of California, Berkeley. Founded in 2012, the Forum hosts debates, panels, and talks by leading experts in a wide variety of fields. The Berkeley Forum plays an important role in the community by providing unique opportunities for students, faculty, and community members to come together and engage in the discussion and presentation of a diversity of relevant and important topics and issues. The unique platform the Forum hosts allows experts to share their passions with an engaged, excited audience, but also allows the audience to interact and grapple with the ideas being posed to them. The Berkeley Forum has a long history of hosting events with a range of distinguished speakers. In the past, we have hosted basketball player, Jaylen Brown, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the Chief Medical Advisor to the President, Anthony Fauci, US Senator Rand Paul, ACLU President Susan Herman, Olympic Swimmer Natalie Coughlin, 88Rising Founder Sean Miyashiro, and many more. How Your Support Helps The Berkeley Forum was founded on the principles that its events ought to be open and accessible. We consistently strive to improve the quality of experience and discourse we foster, but these goals come with a significant financial burden. Unfortunately, the funding we are provided from the university covers just a limited fraction of our overall costs. Frequently, Forum members, who are all undergraduate students, are required to pay out of their own pockets for our events. Thus, we are hoping to receive support from the Berkeley community that will help us continue putting on our events. Our current semester includes a total of 13 debates, panels, and talks. We hope to expand accessibility by booking larger venues, and accommodate for more speakers in our debates and panels, which calls for greater funding to achieve. As our organization strives to stay true to its founding values, our financial limitations as a prominent student-run organization have begun to inhibit our abilities to achieve our goals. With your support, we hope to overcome these issues in three areas: 1) $1750 to increase the number of debates and panels. As opposed to our talks, which only feature one speaker, our debates and panels often feature 2-4 speakers which can multiply the costs of an event significantly. For instance, flying one speaker out from the East Coast can cost $450, but flying two speakers costs $900. As a result, we limit the number of debates and panels we can put on. $1750 of this crowdfunding campaign will be used for organizing more debates and panels and, thus, diversifying our platform even more. 2) $1250 to host more high-profile speakers. High-profile speakers often cost the Forum more money because of higher venue costs (bigger venues cost more money), higher transport and accommodation costs (many high-profile speakers are not based in the Bay Area), and higher security fees. We hope to allocate $1250 towards accommodating such speakers and exposing the Berkeley community to more well-known speakers. Hosting just one high-profile speaker includes costs such as transport ($350 flight), accommodation ($100 hotel/night), security ($250), marketing ($50), and venue ($500), totaling $1250. 3) $1500 to host more events at off-campus venues. Recently, we have not been able to use many of the venues we used to get for free (especially in the Haas School of Business) because of changes in administrative rules. As a result, we will end up having to spend more money on venue rentals. To compensate for this, we would like to allocate $1000 towards increased venue costs as well as towards hosting more events in venues that are off-campus to make them more accessible.
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Face Value: A Film Production
By Regina Pigsley
Delta Kappa Alpha, UC Berkeley's professional cinema fraternity, presents our latest film project: Face Value.
Delta Kappa Alpha, UC Berkeley's professional cinema fraternity, presents our latest film project: Face Value. WHO WE ARE Hello everybody! This is Akhila, Carson, Diane, and Regina speaking to you on behalf of the Face Value team. All people working on this film are in Delta Kappa Alpha, UC Berkeley’s professional cinema fraternity. Everyone in DKA is extremely passionate about film - some want to go into the film industry as a career, while some love film as a hobby (like Diane, who's pre-med!). In all, the crew will consist of about 25 students doing jobs such as sound, script supervising, lighting, and much more. In addition to making narrative films, we also make commercials for clients, raise money for SeriousFun Children's network, run an annual film festival, and host industry education panels. Feel free to check out our website and find out more about who we are and what we do! www.caldka.org THE FILM Face Value paints a society where people can tell how “good” or “bad” a person is simply by looking at them. If a person has a good character, they have flawless skin, whereas if a person has a flawed character, they develop character scars on various parts of their bodies. The catch, however, is that people can also get physical scars from getting cut, or being burned, so naturally, the ambiguity of the scars creates discrimination in the society. The story follows Mason, a morally ambiguous woman with half her face raked in scars, as she witnesses first hand accounts of discrimination, but also commits acts of violence. WHY DONATE? This project is important for 2 major reasons. First, it gives UC Berkeley students the opportunity to work and gain experience on a film set. Contributions will help us run the set professionally, and make the film look realistic as possible, through equipment, props, location rentals, etc. Secondly, the film alludes to problems faced in today’s society, such as racial profiling and gender inequality. A metaphorical piece, this dystopia hopes to portray these issues in a unique light to urge people to question appearances and judgments. WHERE IS THE MONEY GOING? TIMELINE Pre-production: April 9 - Filming locations confirmed; April 10 - Actors cast; April 14 - Shot list due; April 15 - All props ordered; April 22 - All props tested, all stunts practiced; April 23 - Acting rehearsal; May 13 - Camera tests, rehearsal Production: Filming dates: May 15-22 (4 days within that window) Post-Production: August 1 - Rough cut Sept 1 - Picture lock October 1 - Final cut, with original score October 15 - Film sent out to donors January 1 - Submissions to film festivals (on a rolling basis) THANK YOU We would love you all to be part of this project! Please consider making a contribution, and giving us a share :) If you have any questions, feel free to email facevaluethefilm@gmail.com. Also be sure to like and follow our facebook page! It'll be a fun experience :) https://www.facebook.com/facevaluedka/
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The Music Connection
By Stephanie Huang
The Music Connection (TMC) is UC Berkeley's premier music tutoring organization. Help us expand our reach!
The Music Connection (TMC) is UC Berkeley's premier music tutoring organization. Help us expand our reach! Hi and welcome to the The Music Connection! The Music Connection (TMC), in collaboration with the Berkeley and Oakland Unified School District, aims to provide free, supplemental music tutoring for young musicians in both individual and group settings. By doing so, TMC will provide young students with a strong foundation in music, which will help them develop teamwork and self-confidence. We are an organization that currently has about 75 tutors and continues to grow through our success within UC Berkeley and the surrounding communities. We provide free music lessons to students in the Berkeley community in many different forms. Our tutors are UC Berkeley students from a variety of academic backgrounds, but all with extensive musical experience. TMC is a way for students at Berkeley to become involved in the surrounding community through connecting with their students and sharing the expressive and creative gift that is music. Tutors are given the opportunity to connect with the community, practice music, and hone valuable teaching skills. Our programs include In-Class Tutoring, After School Tutoring, and Private Piano/Vocal Tutoring. We emphasize tutoring qualifying or low-income students who may not have ready access to music lessons. TMC student conducts the UC Berkeley Symphony Orchestra during one of our College Music Days of Fall 2018. In addition to our three main tutoring programs, we also host free events for the local Berkeley community. Our three main events outside of our end-of-semester TMC Recital are College Music Days, Spring Music Festival, and Instrument Petting Zoo. For our College Music Days, we invite BUSD/OUSD students to visit a rehearsal of the UC Berkeley Symphony Orchestra or UC Berkeley Wind Ensemble and play along. Every April, we host a Spring Music Festival, during which students can perform a piece for UC Berkeley Music Department faculty and receive feedback. On Cal Day, we lead an Instrument Petting Zoo, during which children may try out different instruments. One of our TMC students performing with his tutor Ashley at our Fall 2018 Private Piano/Vocal Recital. We Need You! We hope to expand our reach and provide free private tutoring for instruments other than piano and vocal. We are also raising money to purchase more resources such as sheet music/music books to build a shared music library, and electric keyboards to rent to tutors. In addition, we hope to provide transportation (such as Uber and Lyft rides) for tutors to reach schools that are far from bus routes or not within a reasonable walking distance. Your money will go towards providing our students both resources and access to communities that desire music education. Music education is currently a privilege, and not available to everyone. Oftentimes, music lessons can be very expensive and unaffordable for families and our goal is to bridge that gap to provide music to everyone. Music is a universal language. It has the power to bring people together and instill global change. It allows us to feel and make sense of the emotions we cannot necessarily describe with words. We in TMC have all personally experienced just how deeply music can impact one’s life. Our ultimate goal through TMC is to be able to share something that means so much to us, with the younger generation and the local community. Join us on our mission and help us bridge the socioeconomic gap in music education by making a gift today! Thank you for your support! You can learn more about us at tmcberkeley.com and follow us on social media at https://www.facebook.com/UCBTheMusicConnection/ The 2018-2019 TMC Executive Board!
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Puerto Rico Rises | Spring Break 2019
By Alt Breaks Puerto Rico
A 10-year commitment, by students traveling in annual spring-break brigades supporting grass roots rebuilding efforts across the Island of Puerto Rico.
A 10-year commitment, by students traveling in annual spring-break brigades supporting grass roots rebuilding efforts across the Island of Puerto Rico. Alt Breaks Puerto Rico Nearly two years since being devastated by the island’s worst natural disaster on record; some areas of Puerto Rico still look like hurricane Maria struck land yesterday. On September 20, 2017, Hurricane Maria pummeled Puerto Rico and seriously compounded historical socio-political challenges. Puerto Rico is geographically and politically isolated, and those who hold power over resources that could pose impactful solutions, like the U.S. Congress and FEMA, have consistently failed to respond to the ongoing crisis in meaningful ways. Most Americans remain unaware that Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens, and that the island is a U.S. territory. This is particularly true here on the west coast and explains in part why the recovery efforts of the federal government in Puerto Rico lagged far behind those in Florida and Texas, where U.S. citizens were devastated by the same 2017 wave of hurricanes. Puerto Rico needs our support. Many communities remain distressed, disconnected and in search of partners and collaborators. With your support and investment, The University of California at Berkeley seeks to lend people power, volunteers and partnership to resilient organizations looking to activate local and rural communities. Through people-to-people connections between one of the most prestigious college campuses in the U.S. and some of the most impacted rural towns of Puerto Rico - we aim to contribute to accomplishing ambitious goals of solar energy and agricultural self-sufficiency while shining a light on the needs of some of our most marginalized people in the US. We aspire to learn and bring back from the courageous and creative resilience of those on the front lines of climate change. With your funding, we hope to launch and sustain annual weeks of service-learning trips to Puerto Rico led by a student brigade of 14 undergraduate UC Berkley students. Through a spring DeCal our student brigade will explore the history of Puerto Rico, the effects of Hurricanes Irma and Maria as well as a general overview of Puerto Rican culture and values. Our public report backs will keep the long term recovery of Puerto Rico in the spotlight on the Berkeley campus. This month, we will initiate our support of ambitious long term partnerships on the ground in Puerto Rico with community Camp Tabonuco and Casa Pueblo. Casa Pueblo, located in the mountainous region of Adjuntas, Puerto Rico, is a winner of the Goldman Environmental prize currently providing leadership in the field of solar energy. Our team will support Casa Pueblo’s grassroots initiatives to expand solar energy in Adjuntas and across the mountainous center of the Island. Camp Tabonuco, nestled in the mountains of Jayuya, Puerto Rico, leads groundbreaking initiatives to connect rural youth in Puerto Rico to agroecology efforts. Our team will work to share time and people power towards bold sustainable and self-sufficient agriculture for the region. Your investment will enable us to foster and grow at least a decade of partnership with our sister organizations in Puerto Rico. We are a collective of students with roots in the Caribbean region, now on the frontlines of climate change, and we hope to act as a bridge between the university and communities we remain rooted in and connected too. We are asking for your support to stand in solidarity and partnership with the people of Puerto Rico. Your contribution will fund travel to Puerto Rico, meaningful service projects, and knowledge and experiences that we can share to expand our mutual understanding of climate change, sustainable energy and grassroots social collaboration. Please make a gift today and follow us on FB: https://www.facebook.com/AlternativeBreaksPuertoRico/ Total Yearly Budget: $11,750 *Partner Fees are paid directly to our grass roots partners in Puerto Rico hosting our service project. We are proud to report this is our largest line item. Contact Information: Co-Lead Rosa Enriquez rosaleeenriquez@berkeley.edu Co-Lead Pablo Paredes Burgos pablopare@gmail.com Group Email: puertorico.altbreaks@gmail.com
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CalSLAM
By Yujane Chen
CalSLAM is sending a team of students to CUPSI 2019, the national collegiate poetry slam, which is hosted in Houston, TX. Please support us today!
CalSLAM is sending a team of students to CUPSI 2019, the national collegiate poetry slam, which is hosted in Houston, TX. Please support us today! Established in 2001, CalSLAM hosts poetry workshops, open mics, and slam competitions open to the campus community and greater Bay Area community. Our mission is to create a safe space for students and community members to explore and share themselves, their experiences and their world through words. We are the longest running and only student-run spoken word poetry organization on campus. Each year, CalSLAM sponsors a team of 5 students and 2 coaches to represent UC Berkeley at the College Unions Poetry Slam Invitation (Hosted by ACUI, a national nonprofit that brings together college union and student activities professionals from hundreds of schools in seven countries), which is a national competition where 70+ colleges from around the world compete for top honors and share their distinct artistry and voices through spoken word. CalSLAM has had a long history at this competition, placing 1st twice in the past, and making it to finals stage on several occasions. This year's competition is hosted at the University of Houston in Texas, and CalSLAM needs your help in getting our poets and students there. Please make a gift today to help us compete. As an organization that is rooted in writing and giving space to our community’s truths, CalSLAM understands and have made it our mission to create spaces in which those who are the most marginalized on campus can come and have their stories given a platform that serves to elevate them. We strive to construct the spaces we create as spaces that focus on giving these students a place to write and reclaim their struggles and victories while also giving them a stage to do so. The students chosen for the team reflect our values and are creating some of the most urgent, necessary poetry and art that speak to their lived experiences that deserve the scope of a national stage. By donating to our campaign you’ll be able to help support Cal’s next generation of spoken word poets, performers, artists, and organizers by funding their costs for CUPSI 2019, which include transportation to Houston, lodging, registration, and compensating our coaches. We’re seeking to raise at least $6,000 to cover the costs of this effort. To learn more about us, please visit our Facebook Page: Facebook.com/CalSLAM or email us at calslamdirectors@gmail.com!
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Cultivating the Set and Setting of the Psychedelic Revival
By Noah Saso
The Psychedelic Revival is here. Help grow and empower our value-oriented community to leverage this moment for individual and social transformation.
The Psychedelic Revival is here. Help grow and empower our value-oriented community to leverage this moment for individual and social transformation. PsySci@Cal is a democratic undergrad-led faculty-sponsored student organization with more than 280 members in the UC Berkeley college community. PsySci's mission is to foster a vibrant and diverse community that catalyses understanding on how to channel the profound power of psychedelics to engender individual and social transformation so as to manifest greater well-being and flourishing in our ailing world. Our two main avenues to do so has been via education and empowerment — the DeCal and the Student Fund. Our credited, student-run class 'Introduction to Psychedelic Science' (DeCal) has enriched the education of more than 150 students over the past three semesters and has featured guest lectures by leading pioneers in the psychedelic field like Robin Carthart-Harris, Rick Strassman, and the Mithoefers as well as vocal speakers and community activists from underrepresented backgrounds like Ayize Jama-Everett and Kufikiri Imara. The first two semesters were over Zoom and the lectures are openly-accessible on our website. The class is currently in its fourth iteration and has expanded to two sections comprising of a cohort of 80 students and includes a separate discussion component. Money raised will be used to support DeCal activities, specially honorariums for indigenous speakers, to ensure reciprocity in our community relations. Our Student Fund is a recently launched financial resource intended to support research, artistic, and community projects proposed by members of our student community. Past projects our members have been involved in include Entheoscope (psychedelic magazine), honors thesis research on Wim Hof breathing and college psychedelic experiences, and psychedelic NFTs. The Fund is stewarded by the PsySci Board with decisions being arrived at democratically via elected board members. Money raised will also go towards supplementing University given funds to allow for a greater degree of support and scope to projects funded. Our other activities include weekly general meetings, bi-weekly journal clubs led by student-scientists and monthly townhalls. We are also working with the University on changing archaic 'War on Drugs' reminiscent campus delivered drug information towards modern evidence-based data. Another project in the works is an attempt to understand the structures and incentives of current psychedelic scientific practices that are unfavourable to open-science practices and the creation of a clearinghouse of open-source psychedelic brain imaging data. Some of our horizon aspirations are - hosting an annual Psychedelic Science conference, creating an student-led psychedelic-consciousness research lab, transforming PsySci to a DAO and ultimately the growth of our mycelial network to extend beyond the Berkeley community. Budget Breakdown The money raised will be split between our Decal and our Student Fund. DeCal money will primarily go towards honorariums for speakers from indigenous and under-represented backgrounds to ensure non-Western centric voices remain an important perspective in our curricula as well as building reciprocal relationships. Student Fund projects will go towards innovative research, community and artistic projects that emphasize broader value and upliftment. Additional funds will go towards actualizing our horizon aspirations like the Psychedelic Science Conference and the Undergrad Psychedelic Laboratory. Contact Info: Website - https://psychedelicscience.berkeley.edu/ Email - ucbpsychedelics[at]gmail[dot]com Student Fund Application - https://forms.gle/nPCzNJ2NcAZVPj8Y9 - Youtube (DeCal Material) - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1JadK-KD1xV5D4CRBYcTP2oa0dSGPAvh
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Azaad
By UC Berkeley
The team is based on dedication, passion, energy, and the goal of creating productions that entertain and motivate audiences to connect with Bollywood culture.
The team is based on dedication, passion, energy, and the goal of creating productions that entertain and motivate audiences to connect with Bollywood culture. Eleven years ago, a group of Berkeley students assembled and took notice of the lack of cultural knowledge around the South Asian community. It was then that Azaad was born. Azaad is a student dance group that prides itself on spreading cultural knowledge through its innovative choreography. We perform on numerous occasions at Berkeley, as well as at hired performances, and dance competitions. In all of our performances, we hold the “Azaad Standard” of professionalism and presentation. You will never see an Azaad performance where a single count hasn’t been fine-tuned over a hundred runs. We put our heart and soul into every performance and always leave our audience impacted and inspired. One of our choreography directors, Divya, performing the Southie routine Azaad, meaning "independence" or "freedom", is UC Berkeley's premier Hindi Film dance team. We're a team based on dedication, passion, and energy, with the primary goal of creating productions that entertain and motivate audiences to connect with the Bollywood culture. After eleven years of collegiate competitions, Azaad has been extremely successful in entertaining audiences and placing in competitions nationwide. All our performances are centered on storylines such as empowering women, promoting equality, and overcoming disabilities, as we use our national platform to showcase inspiring narratives. Combining Indian classical, folk, and modern styles of dance, we take pride in our creative choreography and production elements, as we hope to set the bar higher and higher each year. The intro song to our routine last year! From costumes to lighting, everything is planned in advance In addition, we showcase the evolving South Asian culture through our choreography which aims to fuse styles not only from India but from all around the world. As an organization, we push for creative fusion. We don’t just do hip-hop or just perform Hindi-Film dance. We push ourselves to explore and fuse together lindy-hop, paso doble, hip-hop, contemporary, classical, bollywood, swing, and many other styles of dance. We then synthesize all of our distinct dance forms to convey a social message. Our primary source of fundraising is competing at and winning national Bollywood competitions. Most competition rubrics weigh heavily towards the quality of the team’s costumes and production. Unfortunately, our costumes and production equipment have gone through 11 years of wear and tear and are no longer adequate to use on stage. We are hoping to replace our outfits and production elements so that we can continue to spread Indian culture and represent Cal around the US. Currently, we do not have the funds necessary to replace our costumes and production equipment. Therefore, with the support of this campaign, we hope to raise the $4,000 necessary to become competition-ready. This will get us 22 new costumes, stage risers, a large production backdrop, as well as timed stage lights! Any and all donations are greatly appreciated. The whole team at last year's photoshoot! Make sure to check us out on social media to get more updates about the team: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ucbazaad/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ucbazaad/
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Smart Woman Securities
By UC Berkeley
We educate women in finance and investing and send members to national competitions and conferences. We need your support to make our academic goals a reality!
We educate women in finance and investing and send members to national competitions and conferences. We need your support to make our academic goals a reality! What is Smart Woman Securities? We are Smart Woman Securities, a non-profit organization that introduces undergraduate women to finance, investments, and banking. We believe that SWS can succeed in creating a new generation of smart women leaders in finance, and we are dedicated to making this happen. In the fall, we host a weekly seminar to introduce all interested female students in: accounting, the stock market, valuations, and how to pitch a stock. This foundation prepares us to compete in the spring as Market Analysts. Some events we are looking forward to this year include: the yearly National Stock Pitch competition hosted by SWS National, Invitational Competitions, and flying out to meet with investors like Warren Buffet. Since its launch in 2006, Smart Woman Securities has spread to distinguished college campuses on the east coast. We are the first branch to bring Smart Woman Securities to the west coast. How we're making a difference: SWS is unique in that we streamline the whole educational and professional process of becoming familiar with the Stock Market. We emphasize teamwork and mentorship between the board and analysts in order to provide work we're proud to submit to SWS National Headquarters. As a team, our Investment Board coaches all Analysts on how to valuate companies, make stock recommendations, and compile an Industry Report. We want to help all members become well rounded. Throughout the year, we offer: mentorship opportunities with industry professionals workshops for public speaking resume critiques mock interviews for internships and full time jobs lessons on Excel and other practical skills personal finance workshops We want all women to have sovereignty to make smart financial decisions for themselves, and we're proud of our growing community. Why we need funding: This year, we need your help in order to represent UC Berkeley at all of these conferences. All of these trips are funded from within the club, and without your generous donations we will not be able to have our team compete this year. We're passionate about learning by doing, but we need your help to take these opportunities. Please help SWS continue to be such a successful program by making a gift today. This year, our budget breakdown looks like this: We hope you will support us in making our educational journey a success.
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Cal Goalball Team (First College Team for Blind Students)
By Matthew Grigorieff
Support the first competitive college team for blind students: the Cal Goalball Team
Support the first competitive college team for blind students: the Cal Goalball Team This project has ended, but you can still support amazing Berkeley initiatives by visiting give.berkeley.edu. Your continued support of our students, faculty and staff will ensure that Berkeley remains the #1 public university. Go Bears! UC Berkeley students recently created the first college sport team students with visual impairments: the Cal Goalball team. Your donation will support the Cal Goalball team invitational tournament with Portland University (the only one in the nation) that will be open to all colleges that create goalball teams of their own; four colleges have already created teams in the last year alone. This tournament will provide one of the first opportunities in the nation for students with visual impairments to play sports in a way that mirrors the competitive varsity student experience. Our student aspiration is to spread this model of inclusion across the country. Scholars consider the inclusion of student athletes with disabilities to be the next social justice issue for the 21st Century that mirrors the integration of Black and female athletes into college sports. The Goalball Story & Background Visually impaired students from the Disabled Students Union at Cal came together with sighted students to develop the first competitive team (sighted players wear blindfolds and compete side-by-side) at UC Berkeley. In partnership with the Bay Area and Outreach Recreation Program (BORP), Chancellor Dirks Community Partnership Grant, Graduate School of Education, Rec Sorts Department, and other campus partners the team aims to set a new precedent of social inclusion for other institutions such as the NCAA (‘Big Time’ College), the field of college recreations sports, and high schools across the country. Your donation is making this future inclusion possible! GO BEARS!!!
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embARC Summer Design Academy Diversity Scholarships
By UC Berkeley
embARC brings together aspiring young architects, planners and designers from around the world to pursue their passion. Help us make embARC accessible to all!
embARC brings together aspiring young architects, planners and designers from around the world to pursue their passion. Help us make embARC accessible to all! Who We Are: The College of Environmental Design's embARC Summer Design Academy brings together aspiring young architects, sustainable city planners and designers/builders from high schools all over the world to Wurster Hall to spend an immersive month in July following their passion. embARC has been wildly successful since its 2012 launch. The embARC Class of 2017 will have twice as many students as we had when the program began. As we send more and more embARC graduates on to degrees and jobs in the field of environmental design, it is important to us that our alumni represent a diversity of backgrounds, especially those from underrepresented communities. What We Do: embARC introduces high school students to the principles and practices of architecture, urban planning and landscape architecture, and empowers them to envision and enact strategies for positive change in their built environment. embARC teaches young women and men that they can manage a construction project, master principles of design and digital fabrication, and handle power tools with confidence. embARC demystifies the college application process and the college campus experience for students whose high schools lack the funds for adequate college guidance and counseling. How You Can Help: In the summer of 2017, we want to amplify our ability to bring students from the Bay Area's underrepresented communities to the UC Berkeley campus. To do that, we are seeking outside support to double the amount of full-ride scholarships we are able to offer to low-income students. YOUR SUPPORT COULD CHANGE THE COURSE OF A YOUNG PERSON'S EDUCATIONAL AND PROFESSIONAL CAREER. Our long-term goal is that every qualified student with an interest in environmental design would be able to attend embARC, regardless of their family's ability to pay. A successful campaign in 2017 would bring us three students closer to that goal. Approximate embARC Scholarship Student Budget: $2070 UC Berkeley tuition and fees $100 course materials $150 one month of public transportation $150 one month of lunches That's $2470 total per student. The embARC Ripple Effect True to UC Berkeley's public mission, embARC incorporates an overall theme of civic responsibility by partnering with a local community organization on a Design Build project that addresses an authentic community improvement issue. Through this partnership, students employ the tools they learn in studios, workshops and lectures to make a difference in real-world community development and design issues. A donation in support of embARC also supports embARC community partners! 2017 DESIGN BUILD COMMUNITY CLIENT: UC BERKELEY FOOD PANTRY This summer, embARC students will be building for the UC Berkeley Food Pantry, an emergency relief food supply for all UC Berkeley undergraduate and graduate students. The Food Pantry serves food insecure students who need core food support. 2016 DESIGN BUILD COMMUNITY CLIENT: URBAN TILTH UC Berkeley's 2016 embARC Summer Design Academy partnered with the renowned Urban Tilth, a non-profit organization based in Richmond that promotes equal access to healthy food. In their words: "We farm, feed, forage, teach, train, build community, employ, and give back." The 2016 embARC Design Build project - overseen by CED Fabrication Shop Mechanicians Tonia Sing Chi and Elizabeth Thorp - donated a storage shelter and rainwater catchment system to the Verde Elementary School Partnership Garden, a hub of the North Richmond community upon which a range of local residents depend for fresh food. The structures incorporated sustainable materials into a contemporary form, giving embARC students a real-world example of the necessity of environmental responsibility in all aspects of the design and fabrication process. THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT! embARC@berkeley.edu
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Men's Water Polo Club | Spring 2019
By UC Berkeley
Cal Men's Club Waterpolo is a competitive team hoping to take home a national championship next season. Any aid is greatly appreciated!
Cal Men's Club Waterpolo is a competitive team hoping to take home a national championship next season. Any aid is greatly appreciated! Cal Men’s Water Polo Club is a competitive team here at Cal comprised of current undergraduate students. Our goal is to provide a team for students who might not have the ability or time to play for the varsity team but still want to continue to play water polo in competitive environment. Our club has become a big part of college life for many of the students who play on our team, as our team often gets together outside of the pool. Heres the team at a wonderful dinner hosted by Senior Noah Feingold's grandparents during last years nationals! Our team has finished in the top 10 at nationals five years in a row now including two second place finishes and two third place finishes. We have never lost our regional championships, which is composed of six different teams from the Pacific Northwest, continue the trend. If we do finish first in our region again this year, we will travel to the National tournament and compete for first place. To prepare for nationals, we have dedicated 5 nights in the pool to practices and are always getting together on non-practice days to lift, swim, or engage in team bonding activities. Heres our own Matt Klein during our Pie a Polo Player Sproul plaza event! Any donations we receive will go directly towards assisting our team in our goal to win a national championship and thus come together as scholar athletes and teammates. After coming so close to bringing home the title so many years in a row, we are more motivated than ever and will not let anything get in our way. Because of the fact that we are a club team, most of our expenses, including gear, tournament fees, and travel, are paid for out of pocket. This means that whatever amount you can afford to donate to our team will be greatly appreciated and will help us pay for more water polo balls to practice with, weight belts to train with, and hotel rooms to sleep in while we are competing away from home. We are hoping that our dedication coupled with whatever support that you can provide will give us that final push we need to propel us past these third and second place finishes and finally bring home the title. Please feel free to contact us through our facebook page! https://www.facebook.com/CalClubWaterPolo/ Our Budget allocations for all donations will be as follows - 60% will go towards league fees - 30% towards new gear such as caps and balls - 10% towards travel fees and expenses Thank you all in advance, we truly appreciate any and all support!
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Cal Boxing
By Kipper Berven
Cal Boxing, the oldest continuous collegiate boxing program in the nation, represents the University of California, Berkeley in national competitions.
Cal Boxing, the oldest continuous collegiate boxing program in the nation, represents the University of California, Berkeley in national competitions. Cal Boxing is the oldest continuous collegiate boxing program in the nation. Since 1916, we have welcomed committed, hard-working student-athletes with levels of boxing experience varying from lifelong boxers to total newcomers. Our organization inspires confidence, builds tenacity, and hones leadership skills of all participants. as these traits are necessary to be successful both in the ring, and in other aspects of their academic career or general life. Our Fall semester team, standing in our practice ring that we are hoping to renovate with your donations! As a premier athletic program open to the entire Berkeley community, we strive to develop these traits both in and out of the ring, in order to foster the next generation of passionate, dedicated Berkeley leaders. Money from donations will primarily go towards renovating our gym to enable our small space to be able to accommodate as many students as possible, and allow for the highest possible degree of training. Renovations include improved bag stands, new speed bags, and, if possible, a new ring to practice in! The space we train in has such a meaningful impact on our ability to hone our skills to the max, and push ourselves to the limit. With your help we can take the next BIG step in becoming the best group of boxers we can be. An estimated budget breakdown of how we allocate our club funds to maximize the impact of each dollar! Additionally, we rely on funding for a number of other important things, including: 1) Purchasing gear and uniforms for individuals to use in competition, as well as to provide to members who may not be able to afford boxing gear on their own. Safety is our top priority, so we require that all members use appropriate, up-to-date protective equipment for all drills and exercises. We want to encourage a community where everyone is able to participate, regardless of financial circumstances, so your donations will directly impact our ability to provide gear for our members to train with. 2) Putting on our annual Berkeley home bout, where many of our new members get a chance to compete for the very first time. It takes a lot of organization and capital investment to make this major event happen, especially since we hope to have hundreds of friends, family, and community members in attendance this year! Friends, family, and students from all over come cheer on our boxers as we compete in our annual Home Invitational Boxing Matches 3) Finally, we require some funding to send as many of our boxers as possible to compete in regional and national tournaments. Last year Cal Boxing had one national champion, and our women's team won third place overall. We'd like to keep bringing home these titles for Cal, and that all happens with excellent training (see point #1) and being able to send our competitive members to the necessary tournaments. Some of our boxers after competing in the National Championship Tournament in Westpoint, New York. We won 1 national championship, and our women placed 3rd place overall (the only schools that beat us were military institutions)! Donating to the Cal Boxing crowdfunding campaign is beneficial in two major ways. Firstly, donors help to provide future members of Cal Boxing with the same life-changing opportunities as so many in the past have already experienced. Secondly, donors are participating in continuing a Berkeley tradition deeply rooted in the history of the university, and in perpetuating our teams outstanding successes on the national stage. At the end of every semester, we hold our banquet, where we get dressed up and hang out without the goal of punching each other! Support the dedicated student-athletes by making a donation today! Thanks so much for helping our team, and our family, thrive! GO BEARS! Facebook: @CalBoxing Website: calboxing.weebly.com Email: calboxingclub@gmail.com
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Azaad - Changing the World through Dance
By Abhinav Pottabathula
A nationally competing Bollywood Fusion Dance team, trying to spread messages of social positivity and Indian culture throughout the world. Join the family!
A nationally competing Bollywood Fusion Dance team, trying to spread messages of social positivity and Indian culture throughout the world. Join the family! Click here to see a full production by Azaad at the National Level! In a pitch black room, you see a screen illuminated with a crippled woman going through physical therapy, a patient suffering from bipolar disorder yelling at his terrified wife, a cancer remission patient eagerly waiting to learn of her fate. The showlights dawn on the vast stage, and with a bang the stage bursts into music and dance. The production actively engages the audience with a social message, that everyone has stories and insights worth sharing, in an effort to combat the growingly polarized world. Azaad is a Bollywood fusion dance team at UC Berkeley that raises awareness of impending social issues through performances all across the country. We train our members to be leaders for not only others, but also themselves. Dancers learn to overcome hardship, think creatively, and take responsibility for their own actions. Azaad, in particular, is an extremely competitive group, having placed highly in local and national competitions, and members are required to put in at least 9 hours of scheduled practice a week, sometimes extending to 30 hours a week. This teaches time management, discipline, and dedication, which are vital traits to be successful. By granting this funding to the team, you would be helping a minority student population achieve a brighter future. Please make a gift today! The benefits of our organization reach beyond the direct development of our members, impacting the communities we reach out to. Azaad strives to serve as a beacon of cultural awareness for the South Asian community and its allies. Our dancers, no matter what race, color, creed, or class, understand the cultural misrepresentations of the South Asian community pervasive in our world. Our dancers are committed to sharing their spark of hope with the world, and we are more than humbled to be a part of their journey. We perform at several large competitions with viewership of over 3000 people at each of our 6 performances. In addition, through social media outreach we expand our viewership by about 50,000 people. We dance to share a message and have a positive impact on Berkeley and the world, but we need financial assistance to do so. Our projected expenses sum to $18,855, and if we are not able to raise enough money we are forced to charge our dancers or will have to forfeit from competitions. Thus, it is vital for us to raise funds to cover costs such as for our stage props, costumes, and transportation. Every dollar helps Azaad achieve its goal of spreading a message to the world, and being the number one dance team in the circuit. Thank you for showing interest in Azaad! Please donate to help us reach our goal today! Check us out on social media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ucbazaad/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ucbazaad/
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BridgeUSA
By Sarah Ampalloor
BridgeUSA at Berkeley is a multipartisan political organization dedicated to bridging the political divide through constructive, responsible discourse.
BridgeUSA at Berkeley is a multipartisan political organization dedicated to bridging the political divide through constructive, responsible discourse. Share the BridgeUSA Movement BridgeUSA is a multipartisan political organization that is dedicated to bringing people together through constructive discourse. It was first founded in Berkeley after the Milo Yiannopoulos riots which caused $100,000 damages to campus and and harmed bystanders. Our founders saw the intense anger and tension that pervaded our campus and community, and knew that we needed to find a way to understand each other before physical and mental damage could not be repaired. Now more than ever, we need to understand each others viewpoints and find ways to work together for a productive, healthy community and country. We are current and emerging leaders. We have a responsibility to ourselves and our community to create policy, vote, elect officials and act in a way that helps us grow and create change. Through inviting speakers, having moderated discussions, and more, BridgeUSA is able to create political reform at Berkeley and around the country. As elections come closer, it is more important than ever for our campus and country to fix the political divide which so deeply impacts every aspect of our lives. We need your help to be able to host events that maximize democracy and fix national governance. After hosting many successful events last year, we began to think about events that will further our Bridge movement, and decided on the idea of a debate with high profile speakers who are or were involved in the presidential elections. Since debates allow a wide spectrum of viewpoints to be shared and for a larger attendance than smaller discussions, we believe that it will be highly effective in illustrating the BridgeUSA vision and goal. Our goal for this event is roughly $4000, which contributes to audio/visuals, speaker fees, travel, venue, advertisements, and more. BridgeUSA hopes that this event will leave attendees challenging their own beliefs, pondering diverging viewpoints, and empathizing with those who have differing perspectives. Please make a gift today to help us build a Bridge community at Berkeley! You can learn more about our organization at www.bridgeusa.org. Thank you for your support!
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Palestine Trek
By Palestine Trek
After an empowering trip last year, we're organizing a 2nd trip to Palestine! With your help, people won’t have to choose between politics and their wallet.
After an empowering trip last year, we're organizing a 2nd trip to Palestine! With your help, people won’t have to choose between politics and their wallet. Palestine Trek After a successful and empowering first trip last year, Berkeley is organizing our second Spring Break trip to Palestine! The trip is open to UC Berkeley students. The purpose of Palestine Trek is to introduce trekkers to Palestinian heritage, history, people, and culture, to expose the reality of life under military occupation, and to elevate the Palestinian narrative. Palestine Trek will contribute to changing the discourse on the Israel/Palestine conflict by critically engaging graduate students through a robust week-long trip to Palestine. In the current political climate, this goal is more important than ever. During the trek, students will meet activists, artists, business people, and politicians, and visit heritage and religious sites. Thanks to our fundraising efforts, last year’s trip was only $350 for students needing financial assistance. With your help, people won’t have to choose between their politics and their wallet. Old City Jerusalem market Mission: Pal-Trek’s mission is to build a network of future leaders and advocates in the United States who learn the Palestinian narrative through an immersive educational trip to Palestine. The trip will consist of a robust week-long trip through 10+ cities in historical Palestine and will include 20+ speakers from political, business, and human rights organizations. Lunch with students from Birzeit University How the trip works: 1. Build awareness: By building firsthand awareness, Palestine Trek will help to generate excitement for justice for Palestine on campuses across the U.S. and beyond! Before the Trek, the team will organize historical & political learning sessions to further awareness and situate trekkers in the historical, political, cultural, and social context of the Trek 2. Promote on-the-ground learning: This year's Trek will feature 8 jam-packed days moving through 10+ cities in historical Palestine Palestine Trek will feature meetings and talks with 20+ speakers 3. Meet with leaders across human rights, business, politics, and more: Movement leaders and human rights organizations High-level public officials Business leaders Journalists 4. Engage individuals, campuses, and communities after the Trek: After the Trek, the team will organize debrief sessions & readouts to the public By trekking alongside Pal Trek contingents from various campuses, students will join a network of trip participants across top academic institutions in the U.S. Destroyed Palestinian village of Lifta We cannot do this alone. We hope you will support this important cause. We truly thank you for your contributions to this once-in-a-lifetime experience. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us at: trekberkeley@gmail.com!
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Resistance School @ Berkeley | Semester 2
By Kori Anderson
Raising funds for empowering progress.
Raising funds for empowering progress. Onward together Resistance School @ Berkeley empowers organizers and activists from underrepresented communities to better influence policies that impact them, by offering free online training videos and an online collaborative platform that enhance their social and political change work. Ultimately, through a stronger collective civic engagement, these connected communities will be able to exercise and sustain real democratic power to achieve a more equitable society. We are a network of students and organizers, so we rely on donations in order to provide tools to those doing the hard work on the ground every day. Your support of us allows us to empower them. In its pilot semester this past Fall, Resistance School @ Berkeley has seen much success: its four published training videos, led by UC Berkeley professors and professional practitioners around the theme of effective communication, have garnered over 90,000 views. Facebook posts have totaled 17,252 likes, and the website has had 7,782 visits from 3,668 unique users from 47 countries across six continents. Its resources have been featured in more than ten articles, including HuffPost, France’s Le Monde, the Daily Cal, and on the front page of UC Berkeley’s website. Organizers from as far away from Germany and Austria have reached out to say that the Resistance School @ Berkeley model and content is informing their own social change work. Team members have also initiated partnerships with Bay Area organizing groups, including Wall-of-Us and Debug Politics. In Spring 2018, Resistance School @ Berkeley is working to produce three new training sessions and enhance its current digital viewing platform, with the goal of better supporting the work of organizers and activists. For information about project, visit www.resistanceschoolberkeley.org! Resistance School @ Berkeley, Session 2: Cross-Cutting Messaging in a Tough Political Environment, with former U.S. Secretary of Labor and current UC Berkeley professor, Robert Reich. Our fundraising goal We need your help to produce high-quality content that will be useful and accessible to our audience. ALL $3,500 of the raised funds will go towards producing the second semester of training sessions and maintaining our digital presence. With additional support, we can begin the next round of planning for sessions and expand the engagement platforms of Resistance School @ Berkeley to host a conference, create bonus content, expand our web presence, and more! A bit more background Recent events have made the work of long-time organizers and activists even more vital, and people who have never organized before suddenly feel a need to take action. In spring 2017, students at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government founded Resistance School to meet this growing demand for organizing training and skills. Over 10,000 people watched the first semester, and their efforts garnered national attention from places like the New York Times and CNN. In recognition of the continued need to empower progressive organizers, we founded Resistance School @ Berkeley, the first partner institution of Resistance School. Spencer Platt/Getty Images As students at a leading public University, we believe that connecting the skills we’re learning with the people who are fighting to enact sustained social change is one of the most important applications of our education. Resistance School @ Berkeley seeks to empower people and organizations working to advance just and equitable policies in our country. Throughout the semester, we will be soliciting feedback from our stakeholders and audience members via surveys and interviews and will use digital metrics in planning efforts for future semesters. Pitching Resistance School @ Berkeley to other students: building the team! Our location in the middle of the Bay Area’s vibrant organizing community and connection to the nationwide Resistance School network gives us a unique opportunity to bridge local, state, and national efforts, and to allow groups to fill gaps and connect with each other. Organizing is inherently a collaborative process, and we recognize that groups working tirelessly to support and defend their communities don't always have the time or space for this collaboration. In addition to providing online tools, Resistance School @ Berkeley also seeks to serve as a hub for action and messaging coordination. If you have any questions or concerns please contact us at donate@resistanceschoolberkeley.org! Follow us on social media! Facebook @ResistanceSchoolBerkeley Twitter @RS_Berkeley
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Enactus
By UC Berkeley
Enactus is a social entrepreneurship club that aims to improve the community by launching business ventures that solve relevant social issues.
Enactus is a social entrepreneurship club that aims to improve the community by launching business ventures that solve relevant social issues. WHO WE ARE: Enactus is a social entrepreneurship club that aims to improve the community by launching business ventures that solve relevant social issues. Our team is committed to making a difference, thus we have launched multiple projects that we know will make an impact. At this point in time one particular project we have is at the point of needing funding, and your donation will be integral to its success. OSKI LIST: The typical UC Berkeley student struggles with high costs of living, increased tuition, as well as food and textbook expenses. Our group of UC Berkeley students is working to create a platform to help students find and advertise as tutors. Our solution, Oski List, is a structured platform for Berkeley students to exchange tutoring services. The current Facebook platform, is filled with clutter which leads to lost opportunity.This semester our team brainstormed revenue possibilities, created a web design, and created a list of desired features. Together Oski List, strives to ensure that untapped opportunities and potential income do not go unrealized. We are currently marketing our platform to students across the UC Berkeley campus, by reaching out to different organizations and tutors. There are many tutoring opportunities that go unnoticed, and by reaching out to a broad range of Berkeley students we hope to increase the amount of connections out there. In order to effectively reach the audience we would like we will need funding for marketing via flyers, advertisements, etc. Without your donations our project will remain stagnant and will not be able to reach the potential it could have. OSKI LIST BUDGET: COMPETITION: In addition to creating businesses, another integral aspect of the club is that of the competition. Every year our chapter at UC Berkeley puts together a competition team and works to compete in the national competition. The competition consists of Enactus teams from around the country presenting their work from the previous year in front of a panel of judges that grade based off the presentation, content, and project work. For our team this entails months of preparation, involving organizing a presentation and perfecting the speaking parts. The national competition takes place in Kansas City this year, and the cost of traveling and staying there for three nights adds up. In order for our team to compete in this competition and share our work with other schools we will need a significant amount of funding to cover flight and hotel expenses; without donations, funding will need to come out of the pocket of the members traveling, or we may not even attend the competition at all. Attending the national conference in Kansas City will allow our entrepreneurs to share their hard work and commitment to solving current social issues on a national stage. Your gift can ensure that they have the means to get there. NATIONAL COMPETITION BUDGET: MEDIA LINKS: To keep up to date with our projects you can visit our website at https://enactus.berkeley.edu/ or follow our Facebook page titled “Enactus at Berkeley”. If you have any questions you can contact calenactusvpf@gmail.com. Thank you for your time and consideration; your contribution means a lot to us and we are very excited to continue building our projects with your support.
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Project SMILE Spring 2022
By Joyce Hong
Project SMILE is offering academic & emotional guidance to middle schoolers and are fundraising for educational materials, field trips, and outreach costs.
Project SMILE is offering academic & emotional guidance to middle schoolers and are fundraising for educational materials, field trips, and outreach costs. What is Project SMILE? Project S.M.I.L.E stands for Project Spreading Multiculturalism and Inspiring Leadership through Education. Through our program, Berkeley students have the opportunity to be mentors to students at two local middle schools, Longfellow and Willard Middle School. Our mentors are role models for the students and form strong relationships with them through weekly mentoring and special weekend events. Our mission is to provide mentees and mentors with an opportunity to develop relationships built on respect, trust, and support. Through one-on-one match-ups with students from the two middle schools, Project S.M.I.L.E. seeks to promote and instill values such as the appreciation of diversity, leadership abilities, educational awareness, and a proactive sense of community. We hope to enhance the experience of both the mentees and mentors by creating a generation of motivated and inspirational leaders who are academically enlightened and socially adept. Help us support our community! Can you tell me more about Project SMILE? During the school week, our mentors assist the students with homework help or any after-school activities. In addition to assisting in after-school activities, our mentors also lead themed workshops and enrichment activities to fulfill our mission. Such workshops include educating mentees about Black History Month or Women’s History Month to spread the ideals of inclusion and diversity. Some of the most exciting activities that our organization hosts are weekend field trips to promote bonding between our mentors and mentees. Each year, we go on a camping field trip together and engage in team-building activities! Project SMILE has been a mentoring organization at UC Berkeley for over 20 years and is still going strong with new mentors and mentees joining each year! In response to the pandemic, we are operating virtually and we are eagerly waiting for the day when we can continue our normal activities again. Since we are a non-profit, we are counting on you to help us continue our services. The funds we raise will be distributed according to the graphic below, and we would truly appreciate it if you could donate or spread the word to your networks! Help us give to our community! Make a gift today to support our work! Keep up to date with Project SMILE through these platforms! Website: https://www.berkeleyprojectsmile.org/ Email: psmileinfo@gmail.com Instagram: @ucbpsmile Facebook: Project SMILE (@CALProjectSMILE) *For any questions, comments, or concerns in regard to Project SMILE, please direct your emails towards psmileinfo@gmail.com or directly to the fundraising coordinator joycehong@berkeley.edu
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SAO: Student-centered Casework & Advocacy
By Katia Price
The Student Advocate Office wants to fund caseworker stipends to increase office diversity & accessibility, & provide the best free, confidential services!
The Student Advocate Office wants to fund caseworker stipends to increase office diversity & accessibility, & provide the best free, confidential services! Help support caseworkers who advocate for fellow students! The Student Advocate’s Office (SAO) is an executive, non-partisan office of the ASUC. We offer free, confidential casework services and resources to any student(s) navigating issues with the University, including academic, conduct, financial aid, and grievance concerns. All support is centered around students and aims for an equity-based approach. Our Academic Division handles scholastic issues including, but not limited to, grade changes, personal withdrawals, CalCentral issues, and disputes with faculty. Our Financial Aid Division handles monetary issues including, but not limited to, financial aid dispersal, student employees, emergency housing, tuition, and California residency. Our Conduct Division handles conduct issues for students accused of violating the Student Code of Conduct for actions including, but not limited to, alleged cheating, destruction of property, and assault. Our Grievance Division handles all other student grievances, including, but not limited to, DSP accommodations, discrimination, sexual violence, and non-traditional student concerns. Our case trends inform office policy projects that push for more just campus policies and resources that prioritize and protect students’ rights and general welfare. These casework and policy initiatives support any and all student(s): current undergraduate and graduate students, withdrawn students, non-traditional students, incoming students, and recent graduates! This year, we are raising funds to contribute to our caseworker stipends, an initiative that aims to increase the accessibility and economic diversity of our office. Our goal is to financially empower our caseworkers to be a part of a community inclusive of all backgrounds and circumstances, by addressing any barriers to entry one might face regarding involvement and time dedication to SAO. All of our stipend funding is garnered through the compassion and generosity of our donors through fundraising events such as these, and we are able to allocate the rest towards our outreach projects to make our office well-known to folks who are in need of our services. Our caseworkers are the heart and soul of SAO, and they truly care about their clients and the assistance they are able to offer them! We'd greatly appreciate any consideration for your donations, as those are what make it possible for our office to run as successfully as it has! If you have any questions, please contact katia@berkeleysao.org and miranda@berkeleysao.org!
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ChemE Car: Energy Storage Research and Competition Preparation
By Anukta Jain
ChemE Car builds a shoebox-sized car powered by chemical reactions for an annual competition, and provides wet lab research experience to our members.
ChemE Car builds a shoebox-sized car powered by chemical reactions for an annual competition, and provides wet lab research experience to our members. Have you ever wanted to know what goes in a battery? What kinds of batteries will be used in electric cars in 20 years? How can a spacecraft produce electricity from excess heat? In this club and DeCal (student-facilitated course), students will discover the answers to these questions through a biweekly lecture series accompanied by weekly lab work sessions. Students in this club and course will advance their scientific and engineering knowledge while developing communication and laboratory skills. ChemE Car at Berkeley was founded in 2013 to compete in the annual Chemical Engineering Car competition sponsored by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. Historically, UC Berkeley's ChemE Car team has always done very well at the Western Regional Conference, winning several prizes across various events. We are offering the DeCal course to integrate the theory of our projects into the student experience using a lecture format. We have developed a curriculum that covers a novel research topic in electric vehicles and energy storage, as well as the theory and practical applications of each of our projects. The goal of ChemE Car at UC Berkeley is to provide battery training and wet lab experience to the next generation of scientists and engineers, especially since many have been deprived of such opportunities due to the Covid-19 pandemic. To achieve this goal in a structured manner, club members compete in a competition to design and build a functional car the size of a shoebox. The catch? Our chapter strives to integrate next-generation battery technologies into our cars each year. In doing so we also observe the benefits and weaknesses of each battery type and consider how that would affect policy and consumer opinion of each technology to create a cohesive multidisciplinary understanding of how science and technology fit into society. Currently, our club has five battery teams (Zinc-Air, Magnesium-Air, Supercapacitor, Hydrogen Fuel Cell, and Lead Acid), three clock teams (Vitamin C, Enzymatic, and Electrochemical), and an Electrical, as well as a Mechanical project team. While we strive for competitive success and hope to qualify for nationals, we want to do so in a way that maximizes how much each member can get out of the experience. To accomplish this, we need funds to experiment and build the car, as well as perform any repairs or maintenance that could not happen during the past semesters of remote instruction. We also need to purchase all of our chemical and chassis-related equipment, so that our cars move seamlessly, and our member's hard work comes to fruition. We hope you will consider donating! ~Contact Information~ Website: chemecar.berkeley.edu Email: berkeley.chemecar@gmail.com Facebook: facebook.com/berkeley.chemecar/ Instagram: instagram.com/calchemecar/
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Restorative Justice Center Student Leaders Program
By RJ Student Leaders
Training students to provide restorative processes for peers who have experienced conflict or harm in their communities.
Training students to provide restorative processes for peers who have experienced conflict or harm in their communities. This project has ended, but you can still support amazing Berkeley initiatives by visiting give.berkeley.edu. Your continued support of our students, faculty and staff will ensure that Berkeley remains the #1 public university. Go Bears! The more power you have, the more people will listen respectfully to your story. Consequently, listening to someone’s story is a way of recognizing their power, of validating their intrinsic worth as a human being. —Kay Pranis Restorative Justice at UC Berkeley At UC Berkeley, students from many different cultures and gender identities find themselves living, learning and working together. College is also a space for students to explore their identities, test out theories ideas new to them, and learn about their histories. These dynamics inevitably lead to conflicts. When left unaddressed, conflicts can spin out of control, divide communities, and cause acute stress, mental, emotional and even physical harm. Peer-peer conflict resolution, community building and harm reduction The RJ Student Leaders team was formed in the fall of 2015 to provide peer-to- peer training and services in conflict resolution, restorative practices (community building and other circles) and restorative justice (responding to harm). This program is unique in its goals to train students in the arts of restorative justice and conflict resolution on campus. Currently 5 student leaders are trained and practicing RP and RJ across campus in dorms, cooperative student housing (the co-ops), theme floors, sororities, student government, and classrooms. RJSL Coordinator Johanna Romero, a December 2015 graduate and former student leader, organizes our efforts. We now have so many requests for our services, we are working to build our capacity. Please support us so we can continue our work and increase our capacity in all areas of campus! Responsiveness and Accountability On campus, conflicts and harms generally arise from: simple miscommunications insensitive speech arguments over beliefs and ideologies harassment and bullying. The RJ Student leaders offer the following: Restorative circles that bring students together to create intentional communities based on shared values and agreements for communication and relationships. Restorative conferences, where people who have harmed others are given a safe space to express accountability for their actions and work with those they harmed and their communities to make things right and restore relationships. This year alone, the RJ student leaders have trained hundreds of students in the basics of restorative circle practice, guided dozens of students through restorative processes to address harms, resolve conflicts and restore relationships and empowered students with skills and techniques to address harms and resolve conflicts in their communities. Developing Skills for Life, Work and Healthy Relationships The RJ Student Leaders program prepares students with key skills for everyday life, for careers, and for healthy relationships. What better time than college to learn skills in empathic listening, conflict resolution, building and strengthening communities, focused conversations, and using time-tested processes for inviting accountability and reconciliation in response to harm? Cal graduates who trained through the RJ Center have also found meaningful jobs in the RJ field in schools, prisons, and in the juvenile justice system. RJ and the Goals of the RJ Center at UC Berkeley Restorative Justice is… a revival of community-based justice, engaging people in inclusive and collaborative decision-making about responses to harm and conflict. RJ Programs… offer alternatives to conventional models of discipline and punishment, by focusing on the harm done and the needs of everyone involved. RJ Processes… emphasize accountability and repair, the dignity of people who harm, and the empowerment of those who have been harmed. Our objectives at the RJ Center are to: develop awareness among students of behaviors that exclude create safe/brave spaces for students to tell their stories, and hear each others’ stories, building empathic relationships provide students with the skills and processes to work through conflicts, transform conflicts into opportunities for greater understanding. If you have any questions or would like to reach out, please contact us at the RJ Center: email: rjcenterberkeley@gmail.com website: rjcenterberkeley.org
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Pioneers in Engineering Sp ’20
By UC Berkeley
PiE promotes STEM education through an exciting, mentorship-based process. We strongly believe no student should be denied a quality educational experience.
PiE promotes STEM education through an exciting, mentorship-based process. We strongly believe no student should be denied a quality educational experience. Our efforts center on enabling underrepresented students, especially in lower-income areas, to learn more about STEM through mentorship and friendly competitions. The cost of entry, often exceeding $10,000 in large-scale robotics competitions, is a known barrier, and we have made it our goal to provide students who cannot afford these opportunities a way to thrive in an educational, competitive, and exciting environment. An overwhelming 70% of high schools we support do not offer any other robotics-related extracurricular activities, which gives PiE a greater responsibility to incorporate STEM into their education. Our project reaches an annual average of 300 students in the Bay Area, and aims to create a lasting impact on each of those students’ lives. With 1 in 3 of our students’ parents lacking a degree higher than a high school education, PiE strives to provide an encouraging environment to support them in their pursuit of higher education. Our staff creates the competition from scratch so schools only have to pay $100. This involves designing the game, building the IDE, manufacturing electronics, constructing mechanical parts, and hosting workshops. Additionally, PiE teaches college students, with or without engineering experience, to build robots and mentor students in STEM. All this has the has a budget breakdown of the following: Any support from you will go towards making an impact in the lives of our student participants. Many have been admitted to UC Berkeley and other top-tier universities. Former participants and staff have also given back to the organization through mentoring, leadership, and pioneering new programs within the organization, including the scholarship and alumni mentoring program. Any support would be significantly help expand our program to better support the community. If you would like more information, or would like to contact us, please visit us at https://pioneers.berkeley.edu/
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Pilipino Undergraduate Medical Mission Program
By Trinity Pauline Rico
Donate to PAHC’s campaign to help send our student volunteers on a medical mission to the Philippines!
Donate to PAHC’s campaign to help send our student volunteers on a medical mission to the Philippines! The mission statement of the Pilipino Association for Health Careers, to act as a support group for pre-health students and to educate communities about the health issues relative to the Pilipino community, rings clear with the intent of all of its programs. This is especially true with the Medical Mission. The immediate impact is that thousands of Pilipino citizens receive health treatment for a variety of conditions that would’ve been difficult to procure otherwise. It provides UC Berkeley students, both those with the privilege of attending firsthand as well as those who learn more about the nuances of the mission through intensive project planning, with an educational experience that highlights the disparities in the Philippine healthcare system. Given that a majority of participants in this semester-long project are to some capacity pre-health students, this specific project consequently helps shape their worldview relative to healthcare and service.One of our most recent volunteers, Trinity Rico, indeed has found that her participation in the medical mission has reinforced her desire to serve underserved populations as a physician and has given her a clearer window into interpersonal patient interactions. We request for help from donors because the mission’s success is entirely contingent upon the amount of money that we can obtain to pay for medical supplies that immediately go to patient care. The support that we garner through manpower at our events and fundraisers, although incredibly important, isn’t enough for us to provide a quality of care that the people in the Philippines deserve. The funds that we will raise from donor support will be broken down as follows: You can continue to follow our progress by emailing us (pahc.finance@gmail.com) and following our Instagram account (@ucbpahc)!
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Cal Club Tennis
By Cal Club Tennis
We are a competitive coed club tennis team. Your support will help us prepare for the season and travel all over Northern CA and a few times to AR to compete.
We are a competitive coed club tennis team. Your support will help us prepare for the season and travel all over Northern CA and a few times to AR to compete. Cal Club Tennis Who Are We? The Cal Club tennis team is a tight-knit community of students brought together by our love and passion for tennis. Our diverse team of almost 60 members consists of undergraduate and graduate students in a variety of majors from a wide range of backgrounds. We compete year round in tournaments all over Northern California, Arizona, and more. We are a highly competitive team in the National USTA Tennis on Campus league and are a dominant team in the Northern California club tennis circuit. After competing in the Northern California Sectionals Championship this past weekend, we’ve secured a 9-year champion streak. We are also highly competitive in the National Tennis on Campus leagues, taking second place out of 64 teams at the National Championships this past spring! Our Goal Our main goal in this upcoming season is to continue cultivating our team culture through frequent practice and tournament participation. In the spring we hope to claim the National Championship title. Budget Breakdown Our success is dependent on making it possible for all of our members to be able to travel to competitive tournaments. This not only helps us in training to be the best club team in the country but is also a great bonding experience for our team. Most of our expenses as a club come from our travel and housing for invitational tournaments in Arizona as well as to the National Championships. We also need funds to help us get basic equipment for our practices. This includes balls, ball hoppers, and new strings for members of the team. These expenses can add up and we want them to be one less thing our members need to worry about. The remainder of our budget will go towards helping pay for our uniforms. Ensuring that all members can have coherent team attire boosts our team spirit and sense of community at competitions. By donating to the Cal Club tennis team, you will be supporting passionate student-athletes on our journey to continue improving and playing the sport we love! Check us out on our websitde: https://californiaclubtennis.com/ Facebook: @Cal Club Tennis Instagram: @calclubtennis
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Social Entrepreneurship – Enactus at Berkeley
By Kayla Williams
Enactus is committed to making a tangible difference in our community, thus we have launched 3 non-profit business ventures to serve the community.
Enactus is committed to making a tangible difference in our community, thus we have launched 3 non-profit business ventures to serve the community. Enactus is a social entrepreneurship club that aims to improve the community by launching business ventures that solve relevant social issues. Our team is committed to making a difference, thus we have launched 3 projects that we know will make an impact. Please make a gift today to help us launch the following initiatives: 1) Wheely's Cafe: When Enactus at Cal was still just a dream in the makings, Wheely’s Cafe, an international bicycle coffee cart chain, donated an older model of their cart to our club for use in one of our future projects.After noticing the high rates of homelessness both in our community of Berkeley and around the Bay Area, we decided to use the cart as a transitional job opportunity for those struggling to find employment. This opportunity will allow people in transition to gain experience and build resumes before finding more permanent and sustainable jobs. The Enactus students spent the fall semester devising this plan and formulating a business proposal, then at the beginning of this year found a transitional home to partner with and implement the business. We intend to sell coffee and pastries from local cafes, thereby performing a marketing service and an additional source of revenue. 2) Project Produce: Food scarcity is a huge issue both in the Bay Area and among University of California students statewide. 48% of University of California undergraduates are food insecure and 39% of UC Berkeley students are food insecure. In the fall of 2016, Cal Enactus members noticed that the lack of affordable, healthy food options within close proximity to campus is an issue that seriously impacts the UC Berkeley community. While our campus has a food pantry specifically geared towards food-insecure students, the produce and healthy food selection is limited. In order to combat this issue, Enactus students have been working towards partnering with a local grocery store to sell would-be-waste produce at our school’s food pantry and on stands at our actual campus. Through research, we discovered that companies receive a large tax benefit by donating excess produce to charity. We intend to take a portion of this tax benefit in exchange for transporting the extra produce. In order to implement this service, we plan to create a work-study job. This job will entail the transportation of the produce from our source store to the pantry, therefore elevating the income of students and increasing their ability to purchase healthy food; combating food insecurity on two levels. 3) Compostable Cups: In February of 2017, new Enactus students noticed the extreme amounts of non-recyclable cups being used at social events held at fraternities and sororities. They thought of a way to lessen the environmental burden by replacing traditional plastic cups with compostable cups. The students working on this project are in the process of partnering with the company that provides compostable cups to our university or with a student- run startup to provide cups to the Greek houses. They are also looking into creating a dishwashing service for actually sustainable cups, and would create a business in the process. Compostable cups have specific requirements for disposal, and as such need to be transported to a specific composting site that is not handled by the city of Berkeley. Another possibility would be to employ students to remove and transport the compostable cups from all the Greek houses to the disposal site. Another issue these Enactus members hope to tackle is that of sexual assault on college campuses. In future years, the students working on this project hope to work with Berkeley engineers to develop a drug detection model to implement in the compostable cups. All donations will be split evenly between the 3 projects. Rest assured though, if you have a particular project you are passionate about you are welcome to reach out to our team and share your thoughts or ideas. We encourage any outside help we can get! Around the world, Enactus chapters are helping create a better world. At UC Berkeley, we’re instilling sustainable change to better our community. We are a social entrepreneurship organization that’s dedicated to solving social, financial, and environmental issues in the world around us by launching business ventures. We are a group of highly motivated students from diverse backgrounds that collectively build projects to solve the problems we see every day in the world around us. Last semester, we participated in the Enactus National Competition, winning the regional round. Although we’re incredibly proud of the projects we have been able to start, we are lacking the necessary funding to give our projects the push they need. With your generous help, we will be able to ensure our projects can continue to create sustainable change. If you'd like to learn more about our organization follow this link!
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African American Student Development Retreat
By Tashya Jones
The CommUNITY retreat allows students to come together for career development and identity exploration.
The CommUNITY retreat allows students to come together for career development and identity exploration. In 2006, the African American Student Development Office implemented their CommUNITY Retreat, a biennial excursion trip taking over 50 Black students to engage with faculty, staff and community members around campus. The CommUNITY Retreat serves as a space for black students to understand their impact on the black community at UC Berkeley and recognize personal abilities to create change and develop legacies on campus and beyond. For the first time, the retreat will include graduate students. As a team of 4 students, we plan to expand the size of the retreat from 50 to 90 students to accommodate the new demographic of students that are included in the retreat’s perspective audience. At the African American Student Development Office, we use inclusionary practices to help black students feel more comfortable on campus. Black students at Cal experience a plethora of barriers to their overall success and thriving on the campus. This is clearly explained in a recent USC study rating UC Berkeley as one of the worst school for black students in the state. More information here:https://race.usc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Black-Students-at-Public-Colleges-and-Universities-A-50-State-Report-Card-Harper-and-Simmons-1-9-26.pdf The CommUNITY Retreat is an excellent and extremely needed opportunity for greater community development and leadership training through workshops and team building activities. So often, students do not fully know each other because of the busy schedules that Berkeley commands . This is an opportunity to learn more about one another, how to work together, and increase the strength of our community at Cal. In addition to leadership and community building, the retreat will focus on personal and community wellness. This year marks our 7th CommUNITY Retreat, and will take place during Black History Month, from February 22-24th. We intend on taking 90 students to the Black Mountain Retreat Center in Cazadero, CA. On Friday the 22th, we intend to host a on campus mixer with black alumni, staff, and faculty, as a way for students to acquaint themselves with these figures. The people who are registered are required to be at this event. Saturday will be a a full day at the retreat location; with interactive workshops centered around career development, health and wellness, and identity exploration. Sunday will be a day of reflection as we wrap up our time at the Black Mountain Retreat Center and march during the second annual Black Joy Parade in Oakland,CA. Donating to the AASD CommUNITY Retreat will assist the futures of black students on the campus of UC Berkeley. Through past retreats, students mention how the CommUNITY Retreat helps them navigate campus on an intersectional level.Not only that but alumni have mentioned the program’s potential impact on increasing the population of black students at UC Berkeley.Because this program requires an extreme amount of fundraising, we are only able to have it every other year.Donating to AASD will allow us to not only bring more students, but increase the occurrence of the retreat. The purpose of this retreat is to build a sense of community and interdependence amongst the black students on campus and staying true to the AASD theme and mission for 2018-2019. The funds we receive will also help us subsidize the retreat cost for students in attendance. The $5000 we raise will allow us to bring 50 more students on the retreat. For each student that attends the retreat, cost us approximately $100 to supply all their necessities for that weekend. Students will have all their food provided by the site and some snacks from us--anything else will be up to that individual. The registrants are not required to bring their own bedding nor cover their own means of transportation. Please make a gift today to help us bring this retreat into reality. Thank you for your support. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns please contact us through email at aasdsocialmedia@gmail.com .
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Food Pantry
By Sammy Mehtar
The UC Berkeley Food Pantry provides emergency relief for students facing food insecurity.
The UC Berkeley Food Pantry provides emergency relief for students facing food insecurity. This project has ended, but you can still support amazing Berkeley initiatives by visiting give.berkeley.edu. Your continued support of our students, faculty and staff will ensure that Berkeley remains the #1 public university. Go Bears! The UC Berkeley Food Pantry is a direct response to the need among the student population for more resources to fight food insecurity—the lack of nutritious food. With rising fees, textbook costs, and living expenses, it has become increasingly difficult for students to juggle the costs of living with the costs of obtaining a university degree, and thus many students are finding themselves choosing between essentials such as food and the costs of college. The UC Berkeley Food Pantry was established to provide emergency relief to help students continue on to successfully complete and obtain their degrees from the University of California. It is a part of the campus-wide food security efforts. Since 2010, one in five Cal students have self-reported having to “skip meals in order to save money” in the UC Undergraduate Experience Survey (UCUES). As data was released about the prevalence across various degrees of food and nutrition insecurity, our campus community has been proactive about building a comprehensive institutional food security model. By the Spring of 2014, UC Berkeley established the first-of-its-kind institutional Food Security Committee, with leadership representation across students, professional staff, faculty, and executive administrators. The UC Berkeley Food Pantry serves as the model’s holistic emergency support service. All current undergraduate and graduate students with emergency food needs are welcomed and encouraged to utilize our food pantry. Since the opening of the food pantry in the Spring of 2014, the pantry has exceeded 2,500 visits. The pantry operates through an equitable service model that provides five multi-meal food items that provide supplemental nutrition support for eight to ten days. Students are welcomed to utilize the pantry twice a month. Our model adjusts to the needs of each student, which includes supporting the dependents of our students and need-based usage beyond the two visits per month. Despite the short time our UC Berkeley Food Pantry has been in operation, it is already recognized as a national model that institutions are actively seeking to replicate. We believe that upon admission and enrollment into UC Berkeley, it is our duty to ensure that each student has the support they need in order to thrive at and beyond Cal. In order for students to succeed, they must have their basic needs met. Our food access and security work allows us to provide foundation of holistic support services that students need in order to thrive personally, in turn, they will be able to perform to their best of their abilities academically. As students thrive personally, perform their best academically, we believe they will then go on to be the shapers and leaders of our world. Your contribution will help us fight hunger on campus. Thank you, The Food Pantry Team Email: foodpantry@berkeley.edu Website: pantry.berkeley.edu Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ucberkeleyfoodpantry
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Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers
By IISE
We advance the academic, social and professional welfare of students within IEOR, ORMS, and any other interest student for their current and future success
We advance the academic, social and professional welfare of students within IEOR, ORMS, and any other interest student for their current and future success IISE The Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers at Berkeley aims to advance declared and prospective industrial engineering and operations research majors in professional, academic, and social development. Our goal is to raise $5000 so we can provide more professional and academic resources for students and build a larger community within the major. By supporting IISE, you are helping connect students with social, academic, and professional development opportunities in their field. What is IISE? IISE is the world's largest professional society dedicated soley to the support of industrial engineering and individuals involved with improving quality and productivity. Founded in 1948, IISE is an international, nonprofit association that provides leadership for the application, education, training, research, and development of industrial engineering. The UC Berkeley chapter was founded in 2007. We aim to provide knowledge, training, networking opportunities and recognition to enhance the skills and effectiveness of the IEOR profession. Our chapter serves the UC Berkeley community of IEOR and ORMS and any student who is interested in pursuing either of these majors. We want to give each student the skills and experience to achieve their career aspirations, make meaningful social connections, and thrive academically. Our goal is to advance, promote, and unite UC Berkeley students interested in improving quality and productivity! What is our goal? As students at such a large public university, we know it can be difficult for students to find their community and ask for help. Throughout the semester, we hold events in three main categories: professional development, academics, and community building/outreach. What do we do? Professionally, we work with students who come to each of our events (usually 30-40 students) to help them develop better resumes/cover letters and give them advice on how to navigate the recruitment process for IEOR roles, such as business operations or supply chain. We also help host an array of company info-sessions and recruitment opportunities. In our annual "What is IEOR?" event, we guide students through successfully navigating the major at Berkeley, and dive into specific jobs such as logistics/supply chain, manufacturing, or financial engineering, informing them about past paths alumni have taken and their potential futures in the major. We help ground IEOR students professionally by preparing them for securing an internship, informing them of the major and their potential jobs, and networking them through info-sessions, industry tours/field trips, alumni speakers, and graduate student panels. One of our goals for the coming year is to host an industrial engineering specific career fair to provide the most opportunities for anyone interested in supply chain/IEOR related jobs. Academically, we organize monthly student-faculty lunches to bring the students and staff of the IEOR department closer together. Every month, we pay for the lunches of small groups of 4-5 students and an IEOR professor. The goal of these lunches is for both parties to learn more about what’s working in class, what research the professor is doing, and career/academic advice in a more casual, open setting. At the end of every semester we also host a banquet to bring together all the students, staff, and faculty of the IEOR department together one last time. Going forward we plan to implement IEOR study breaks and a textbook exchange. With these programs we will be able coordinate study time while providing snacks and a space for students to collaborate and learn from each other. We also need funds to start a textbook exchange for IEOR class requirements and lower division classes so that students can communally borrow the books or pdfs they need for class. Socially, we aim to build connections and community for IEOR majors. We aim to host at least one social every month, ranging from movie nights, ice cream on the glade, to game night. In the beginning of the year, we launch a mentor mentee program to connect lowerclassmen with experienced upperclassmen who can provide guidance, advice, and help in school, recruiting, and general life. We foster these relationships throughout the semester with mentor/mentee socials and general socials. We try to subsidize these events or provide free food so that any student can attend. In order to give back the community, we also inform younger students from middle to high school about our major through volunteering in events such as Engineering for Kids day. As our community grows, we hope to expand our reach by hosting more events to connect with and inform younger students about our major. Through every event we host, we hope to help students grow professionally, academically, and socially. In just one semester, one can craft a stellar resume, delve into what IEOR really is, talk to professors in the department about their research, attend a trek tour at Tesla, teach elementary school students what IEOR is, and attend the end of semester fall banquet with other students and faculty in the IEOR department. To continue host these events and add more, we need support so that we can afford to book rooms, provide dinner/refreshments, and be able to travel. We would like to raise funds so we can provide food at our events, continue to subsidize costs for socials, create IEOR merchandise for alumni and students, manage our growing community, and provide more resources for students. Help support industrial engineering/operations research students by making a gift today! Contact Us: iise@berkeley.edu https://iise.berkeley.edu/ https://www.facebook.com/iiseatcal/
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Raas Ramzat Fundraising
By UC Berkeley
Raas Ramzat is a competitive Indian folk dance team that aims to spread awareness of this beautiful and intricate art form.
Raas Ramzat is a competitive Indian folk dance team that aims to spread awareness of this beautiful and intricate art form. Our group, Raas Ramzat, is a competitive Indian folk dance team that aims to spread awareness of this beautiful and intricate art form in two ways: hosting workshops open to the public, and traveling around the country to perform and compete in events dedicated to celebrating our passion for dance. As a relatively new dance team, we have worked to establish ourselves in Berkeley’s South Asian community. We regularly perform at cultural and special events held by other UC Berkeley student organizations, as well as at gigs locally in the Bay Area. Additionally, we have questioned the status quo by dancing at and winning competitions around the country despite being an all-female dance team - a feat that is almost unheard of in the national intercollegiate Raas circuit. Raas Ramzat 2021-22 at our annual photoshoot Our team members come from unique backgrounds and have varying levels of dance experience. However, very few of our dancers had done Raas before joining the team. By fostering a culture of constant learning and performing, we teach Raas to those outside our community while giving all the dancers on our team the opportunity to expand their repertoire of dance styles. Our takeaways from Raas Ramzat are more than just dance, however; our practice and performance schedule teaches us how to manage time properly, communicate effectively with other organization leaders, and develop our own leadership skills. Finally, not only are we a dance team, we are a tightly-knit community. Through hours of practice, socials, and travel, we have become a family. Raas Ramzat 2018-19 competing in North Carolina This year, we are participating in three competitions in the Midwest, East Coast, and the South. Despite almost a year and a half of virtual classes, our team has been practicing throughout the pandemic and in the fall semester of this year to perfect our set and create a visually stunning production. We are very excited to finally show our family and friends what we've been working on! Raas Ramzat 2019-20 at our annual photoshoot With crowdfunding, we hope to raise money to use for this competitive season. Our group would use these funds to purchase and create costumes and props that are necessary for the visual appeal of our performances. The larger and more detailed we make our props, the better they will integrate with our performance theme. We also need money to pay for our competition applications, registration fees, and team gear. Additionally, we would use the money to host more publicly accessible workshops to spread cultural awareness of Raas. Here is a breakdown of how we would use the money we raise: $1,000: hotels for our overnight stays at competitions in the East Coast and Midwest $400: team t-shirts for us to wear to competitions $200: rental of practice space on the Berkeley campus $400: supplies to build backdrop and handheld props We sincerely thank you for any contribution you are able to make to our team! You can also follow our progress this semester on our Instagram account (@ucb.raasramzat). If you have any questions or want to learn more, please contact Sneha Sridhar (snehasridhar@berkeley.edu). Gig performance for Sahaara at Berkeley in 2020
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Help Beyond Academia provide career resources to PhDs!
By Diya Das
Beyond Academia is a student organization that works to expose PhDs to diverse career opportunities. Your gift helps us bring speakers to our annual conference.
Beyond Academia is a student organization that works to expose PhDs to diverse career opportunities. Your gift helps us bring speakers to our annual conference. Are you a PhD working outside academia? Or are you someone who hires PhDs? Read on -- we need your help! The Issue: Today, more careers require individuals with the innovative and research-based skill sets gained during the course of a PhD. Though job placements in academia are becoming more limited, plenty of career options exist beyond the ivory tower. Unfortunately, the career-related support we receive in graduate school has not fully adjusted to this new reality. Many institutions still continue to focus on training individuals for tenure-track professorships, a career path which only 10% of students will achieve, rather than serving the 90% of students who pursue careers beyond a tenure-track position. Our Solution: Beyond Academia is a grassroots student organization that helps PhD students and postdocs find careers outside of the traditional tenure-track, founded by UC Berkeley students. We offer free seminars and heavily subsidized conferences to help our fellow graduate students learn about rewarding careers where their skills are needed and appreciated. We help to bridge the gap between the between graduate students and postdocs and the career opportunities that exist for them in various fields. We host an annual Beyond Academia conference to facilitate career exploration and education by highlighting the various career trajectories that are possible, and helping attendees prepare for those jobs. We also offer targeted seminars and workshops to address the need of professional development and offer tools to help attendees identify and apply their transferable skills for a broad range of positions that align with their passions. In all of our events, we also emphasize the networking aspect in order for attendees to maximize the resources and make connections for future opportunities. How You Can Help: We need your help to increase the representation of diverse career paths at our annual conference. Our speakers and panelists who generously donate their time to speak to the Berkeley community are mostly based in the Bay Area. In the future, we hope to be able to invite more speakers who can address opportunities for PhDs beyond the Bay Area, such as careers in policy, government and international organizations that are predominantly based out of the East Coast. However, our funds are limited, with average travel costs for out-of-town panelists costing around $650/person. $5000 would cover full reimbursement for 7 panelists or partial reimbursement for 10 panelists, which would allow Beyond Academia to showcase the full spectrum of their future career options. Please chip in any dollar amount to provide a high quality and extremely useful conference for PhDs exploring their non-academic career options. If you were one of us, or want to hire us, please consider making a donation and sharing our page! If you’re a company who’d like to partner with us, or sponsor events in a bigger way, please send a note to info@beyondacademia.org. Thank you, from the 2017 Beyond Academia Team
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NSA Presents: Cultural Advancement of Africa in the Diaspora
By Nigerian Student Association
NSA is devoted to promoting multiculturalism and celebrating Nigerian heritage at Cal! Help us spread cultural consciousness and embrace diversity at Berkeley!
NSA is devoted to promoting multiculturalism and celebrating Nigerian heritage at Cal! Help us spread cultural consciousness and embrace diversity at Berkeley! Nigerian Student Association Our Story The Nigerian Student Association at Cal (NSA) is a student-led campus organization that aims to promote cultural diversity and celebrate Nigerian heritage at the University of California, Berkeley. Our organization strives to promote the advancement of Nigerian and other African cultures within the African diaspora nearly 8000 miles away from our home continent. Through the multitude of culturally inspired events and activities organized by our organization, NSA continues to diversify the Cal community by showcasing vibrant ethnic traditions, customs, and values as well as challenging common misconceptions about Africa typically broadcasted in today’s media outlets. The NSA serves as a home away from home to many Nigerian students on the campus of UC Berkeley. We symbolize the history and beauty of Nigerian culture through our unique harmony of diverse perspectives. Please support the NSA by making a gift today! Our Mission NSA projects serve to accomplish the following: Foster a welcoming environment to students from Africa by helping familiarize and acclimate them to the University and surrounding environment Place special emphasis on Nigerian heritage, culture, and community while continuing to promote solidarity and a positive learning atmosphere for students across different cultures Uphold academic excellence among members of our community; and Bridge the gap between students of all ethnic groups so that we can embrace our similarities rather than focus on our differences. Why Support You can directly support multiculturalism on the campus of UC Berkeley through initiatives which promote cross-cultural awareness, celebrate diversity, and unify students of all backgrounds at the University should sponsor our organization. Our events and activities spread messages of inclusivity, recognition and respect for cultural heritage in the community. Impact & Importance The many cultural activities, events, and programs that NSA organizes for the surrounding community are instrumental both in sharing the essence of Nigerian culture with other ethnic groups at UC Berkeley and in educating the community on who we are as Nigerians, as Africans, and as a people. In so doing, we create a space on campus for promoting ethnic diversity and cultural consciousness. How YOU Can Help Join us in keeping the spirit of rich, colorful, cultural pride alive on the campus of UC Berkeley! Proceeds raised through our Crowdfunding campaign will directly pay for costs for NSA events happening this school year, including our big annual cultural show production. Your gifts will ensure that our organization stays true to our heritage, our mission, and our custom traditions by providing the best quality cultural events, activities, and performances that our students and campus community can cherish and take pride in! Help Cal bears embrace cultural expression, and add flavor to a student’s college experience! Any and all contributions are welcomed and are very much appreciated. ☺ Our Enterprises The “Nigerian Student Association: Cultural Advancement of Africa in the Diaspora” project is a series of initiatives established by NSA to support the organization’s mission of cultural advancement at the University of California, Berkeley. We are fundraising as a means of acquiring financial support for the many enterprises we have planned for the year, of which include: The annual NSA Cultural Show production The first annual “State of Africa” Case Study Competition Nigerian Independence Day celebration UC Berkeley World Food Fair participation Cultural dance performances Collaborative events uniting fellow African student organizations and other multicultural student groups Interactive educational programs Other campus-wide community events & festivities Itemized Budget Breakdown Please make your gift today to help the NSA! Thank you for your support! Contact & Follow Us! Email: nsa.ucb@gmail.com Website: https://ucberkeleynsa.wixsite.com/home Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NSACAL/ Instagram: @ucberkeleynsa
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The Fiat Lux Torch
By UC Berkeley
In 1901, Rally Committee was created and tasked with controlling the fire. Today, we are taking that to a new level with the Fiat Lux Torch.
In 1901, Rally Committee was created and tasked with controlling the fire. Today, we are taking that to a new level with the Fiat Lux Torch. Have you heard about a new project the UC Rally Committee has undertaken, one that will continue to fuel Spirit on our campus, as well as ignite a new Tradition? The Fiat Lux Torch. Towering at 10 feet tall, propane-fueled, hand-designed especially for us by Sheet Metal Alchemist Inc., and in conjunction with our Cannoneers and Vice Chair of Rallies, this torch will redefine our annual Big Game Bonfire Rally. In 1901, the Rally Committee (read more about the Rally Committee below!) was created and tasked with controlling the fire. 115 years later, we are still fulfilling this duty, and if there is one thing that we have learned over the course of this century, it is that Spirit is not set in stone and adapting to an ever-changing student body is necessary. So today, we have found an additional outlet for that fire - one that will add another element to our annual Big Game Bonfire Rally. The Fiat Lux Torch was first unveiled at the 119th Big Game Bonfire Rally this past November. In front of thousands of people, the flame was ignited and the Spirit of California burned throughout the Rally, giving light to the Axe chant, the speakers, the freshmen heaving pallets onto the dying flames - the Torch even lit the Bonfire itself. In order to complete this project, we need your help. Our current fundraising goal is $13,000. These donations guarantee the future of the Fiat Lux Torch while also allowing for changes and alterations that will allow the Fiat Lux Torch to continue to adapt to changing times. The Fiat Lux Torch is not intended to remain stagnant, rather, it is intended to represent the students and the campus at any given time. In order to do that, it must be able to evolve - an evolution greatly aided by your contribution. Any amount is greatly appreciated. With your help, we can make history. Please make a gift today and help us spread the word! Fiat Lux – let there be light. Each of the millions of Cal Bears who have passed through UC Berkeley have embodied this motto with passion and intelligence, perseverance and leadership. The Fiat Lux Torch will do more than burn before thousands chanting for the Axe for decades to come. Students and alumni alike will unite in witnessing the light come to life, just as our education and experience at UC Berkeley give us the tools to bring light to California and the world. With your help, we will continue to ignite this new tradition, and bring the next generation of Cal students a Big Game Bonfire Rally that is bigger and brighter than ever before. Make your gift today! Please do not hesitate to reach out with any questions or concerns! Additionally, the Daily Californian published an article regarding the Fiat Lux Torch which we have included here: http://www.dailycal.org/2016/10/04/uc-rally-committee-creates-strong-sense-community-campus/ Learn more about the UC Rally Committee! The University of California Rally Committee’s members are the official guardians of Cal Spirit and Traditions. They serve as the ambassadors of the University, and as such, are students who loyally dedicate themselves to the furthering of the Spirit of California. The Committee has much to offer to its members. Whether you enjoy yelling your heart out for the Golden Bears, learning about the University’s fascinating history, or coordinating some of the largest and most successful events on campus, the Rally Committee enables you to preserve and promote the California Spirit. Members receive neither monetary reward nor academic credit for committee participation. Instead, members receive the satisfaction of knowing they are a part of something great – something that makes a difference in the campus community and in other students’ lives. The Rally Committee promotes and protects the spirit that sets the University of California Berkeley apart from any other school in the country. (Read more at https://ucrc.berkeley.edu) Follow us! Facebook: UC Rally Committee Twitter: @rallycomm Instagram: @rallycomm Snapchat: @rallycomm
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UCB MEDLIFE
By UCB MEDLIFE
Help the UCB MEDIFE chapter send students to work alongside the community to bring mobile clinics and development projects into the asentamientos of Lima, Peru!
Help the UCB MEDIFE chapter send students to work alongside the community to bring mobile clinics and development projects into the asentamientos of Lima, Peru! UCB MEDLIFE MEDLIFE is a non-profit that works with the community to organize mobile health clinics and fund community development projects in the asentamientos of Lima, Peru. UCB MEDLIFE is a branch of the bigger non-profit that is based in UC Berkeley and we work providing MEDLIFE with culturally sensitive volunteers by requiring that our students take a course prior to their volunteer trip in Peru. We have been an established chapter for 8 years on the UC Berkeley chapter. Each year we aim to send 20-30 students on a two week long service trip to el Cono Sur de Lima, Peru. We have recognized that two weeks is no sustainable; however, something that makes our chapter different from many other MEDLIFE chapters and global brigades chapters in general is our consistent presence in Lima. We hold a class that meets once a week to guide our students to be culturally sensitive when entering marginalized spaces, we also discuss global health issues prevalent in Lima, and teach them basic conversations and medical Spanish. This is unique to our chapter as we believe that in order to achieve sustainable solutions to combat global poverty, we must have well-informed, open minded individuals enter the space; and we continue to go to Lima, Peru ever year to combat the label of being a 'voluntourist'. The volunteers have to pay a program fee. The breakdown of the program fee is around 30% goes to the volunteer’s living accommodations while they are in Lima and the other 70% goes to fund the clinics and community development projects. In the past MEDLIFE has raised funds to build a wawawasi (daycare center) in the community of Union Santa Fe, a water pylon and many staircases in the hills of Pamplona Alta. Will you support UCB MEDLIFE and help us send students to peru by making a gift today? On top of paying for the program fee, the students must also pay for their own travel. We as a chapter like to send students who are motivated and passionate about serving the underserved but most of the time these individuals come from margnalized communities themselves and do not have the financial means to afford both the program fee and the trip. Therefore, we are looking to fundraise enough money to help cover the cost of a few 4-5 student’s travel expenses students on these trips that they would otherwise not be able to attend. Can we count on your support today? Thank you for reading! If you would like to know more about us please feel free to message us at ucbmedlife@gmail.com, follow us on FB or visit our website ucbmedlife.org!
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React! - The Organic Chemistry Game
By React!™
React!™ is a board game that makes learning organic chemistry fun.
React!™ is a board game that makes learning organic chemistry fun. React!™ All donations are tax deductible Contact Us Follow and share us at: Website Facebook Instagram Email: ochemboardgame@gmail.com Background Organic chemistry is a leading reason students avoid STEM careers – from medicine to bioengineering to genetics. In fact, at UC Berkeley, organic chemistry has twice the fail rate compared to other courses. This problem especially impacts underrepresented minority and low-income students who may not be able to afford textbooks or tutors. It is no wonder underrepresented minority students are 25% more likely to fail chemistry at UC Berkeley. Many students have difficulty memorizing confusing molecules and organic chemistry reactions. Solution As UC Berkeley chemistry tutors, we have helped many confused students by approaching chemistry problem-solving as a game. Since then, we’ve seen hundreds of students gain confidence as they solve organic chemistry problems. That is why we created React!™. React!™ is a revolutionary multiplayer game that can help anyone learn college-level organic chemistry. It is made for students, by students. Players buy and trade chemicals, discover and perform reactions, and create special molecules. React!™ makes learning organic chemistry fun by turning it into a challenging, yet rewarding puzzle instead of having to memorize confusing facts. The game helps level the academic playing field and empowers students to think critically about organic chemistry by making it hands-on, easy-to-understand and entertaining. Goal Our mission is to provide high-quality, affordable education to all students. Your gift will make a tangible difference for hundreds of local students. Like every reaction, there is a barrier to get started. Ours is manufacturing costs. Our goal is to donate 200 React!™ games to universities and high schools across California. With your help, we can get these games out to students at large. Your contribution will enable us to make high-quality education accessible, affordable, and fun! Please make your tax-deductible donation here. Thank you for supporting our mission! Accolades Out of 320 international submissions, business leaders chose React!™ as one of three winners for Improving Student Life in the Big Ideas 2017 startup competition, UC Berkeley’s global entrepreneurship contest. Our marketing video was voted first place in the Big Ideas 2017 People’s Choice Video Contest. React!™ has also had national media attention, including Chemical & Engineering News, local Bay Area ABC7 News, and American Chemical Society magazines. In our successful Kickstarter campaign, we sold nearly 400 games in over 20 countries and 30 states. We receive hundreds of emails from high school and university students all over the world eager to learn more about React!™. The response is overwhelming. Our Facebook and Instagram pages have hundreds of subscribers and continue to grow. A UC Davis student even said that “playing React!™ was the first time [she] felt excited about organic chemistry!” Our game is also endorsed by UC Berkeley Chemistry professors and faculty: Director of Undergraduate Chemistry, Dr. Anne Baranger; and Organic Chemistry professors, Drs. Pete Marsden and MaryAnn Robak. Budget Breakdown: $10,200 goal React!™ Games to Donate: $9,000 200 React!™ games assembled, manufactured and shipped to California schools ($45 per game) Outreach: $700 Print and online advertisements in education journals, video production, professional website and social media maintenance, hiring consultants to gather data about React!™'s educational impact Legal: $500 React!™ trademark, copyright, and LLC forms Thank you for your support!
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Space Technologies at Cal (STAC) - Spring 2021 Fundraising
By UC Berkeley
We are creating a collaborative student space platform, incorporating multiple research labs and industry partners, to enable research projects.
We are creating a collaborative student space platform, incorporating multiple research labs and industry partners, to enable research projects. Space Technologies at Cal (STAC) is a student-run engineering organization at the University of California, Berkeley with 60+ highly motivated undergraduate and graduate students focused on developing innovative space technologies and research. We are creating a collaborative student space platform, incorporating multiple research labs and industry partners, to enable research projects such as a modular High Altitude Balloon platform, Microgravity Experiments, a CubeSat qualifying and testing a quantum gyroscope, and an Autonomous Lunar Rover project. Check out the bios under 'Project Owners' for more detailed descriptions of our projects! As student researchers, scientists, and engineers, we aim to push the frontier of space innovation with each of our projects in order to bring humanity incrementally closer to becoming an inter-planetary society. With three High Altitude Balloon launches in 2018, a Micro-gravity Experiment launch with Blue Origin in 2019 and another planned for later this year, and a CubeSat launch that will be fully funded by NASA in 2021, STAC is eager to advance space research send UC Berkeley to space and beyond! In addition to innovating and working on cool projects, STAC is committed to energizing the UC Berkeley aerospace community. In 2019 we hosted the second Space Tech Symposium @ Berkeley, with over 200 attendees from all corners of the Bay Area space community. Our events' past speakers have included CEOs and Co-founders of companies like Astranis and IRIS Automation, NASA and UC Berkeley researchers, and investors from venture capital firms. But most of all, STAC is a tight-knit community of space nerds who love to dream, innovate, get things done, and have a good time doing it. Every year, we go on retreats and other get-togethers to welcome new members and form lifelong friendships. STAC would not be what it is today if it wasn't for the comradery that holds us together through the all-nighters before launches and the countless hours we put in week after week to bring these projects to life.
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Help Raas Ramzat Compete Nationally!
By UC Berkeley
Raas Ramzat is UC Berkeley's premier, competitive Raas/Garba team. Help our team compete nationally so that we can spread our love for dance and Cal pride!
Raas Ramzat is UC Berkeley's premier, competitive Raas/Garba team. Help our team compete nationally so that we can spread our love for dance and Cal pride! Our Mission UC Berkeley Raas Ramzat has newly restarted as of 2017. Since the beginning of the organization it has grown from a non competing to a nationally competing team. Raas Ramzat is UC Berkeley's premier, competitive Raas/Garba team. We seek to help students on campus enjoy, learn and immerse themselves in Raas dancing through our folk-style performances. Our dancers range from various dance backgrounds like Bharatanatyam, Raas, Bollywood, Hiphop, Bhangra, and more. Why We Need Funding Because we are a student based organization, our funding comes from the community that helped build Raas Ramzat into what it is today. We appreciate and love any donation that will help us compete in more competitions. As we continue to grow our organization and compete in more competitions around the nation, our Berkeley pride travels with us. Help our team compete nationally so that we can spread our love for dance and Cal pride around the country! Where Your Funding Will Go Any funding will help our team immensely! Funds will go directly into transportation to and from competitions, performance wear like blouses, skirts, pants, and sari material for girl dancers along with stage props like dandiyas, and our stage set. Other funding will go towards registration fees and other competition expenses for competitions. Budget Breakdown Transportation costs roughly = $480 Blouses (Sari Material)/Boys Costume for all dancers = $2,850.00 Dramatic makeup for higher quality performance presence = $190.00Props Props- $45.00 Props- Dandiya ESSENTIAL= $380.00 Speaker = $45.00 Our Team Stay connected with us! Instagram: @ucb.raasramzat Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/calraas/ Email: ucb.raasramzat@gmail.com
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Immigrant Liberation Bond Fund
By Berkeley Immigration Group
The Immigrant Liberation Bond Fund will post bond for people currently incarcerated in immigration detention because they are unable to afford their bond.
The Immigrant Liberation Bond Fund will post bond for people currently incarcerated in immigration detention because they are unable to afford their bond. We need YOUR help to reach our $10,000 fundraising goal to help bond out individuals currently incarcerated in immigration detention! Berkeley Immigration Group OUR MISSION Immigration is one of the most pressing issues of our time in an era when families are getting separated at the border, DACA is being reconsidered, and racist bans on immigration are being put into place. Berkeley Immigration Group (BIG)--a student-led services group at Berkeley Law--is giving you a chance to take action with their bond fund project. The Immigrant Liberation Bond Fund (ILBF) was started as a response to the significant need to fund bonds to further strengthen BIG’s immigration-related advocacy efforts, and is the newest addition to BIG. In addition to the bond fund, BIG’s projects include court observations, detention center outreach, and know-your-rights presentations. The purpose of the Immigrant Liberation Bond Fund is to post bond on behalf of indigent individuals currently incarcerated at immigration detention centers. Oftentimes, these individuals have no means of paying their bonds. As a result, they stay incarcerated in detention for weeks, months, and even years. We prioritize detainees who suffer disproportionately from being detained, including those who are queer, disabled, or have medical conditions. HOW WILL YOUR DONATION MAKE AN IMPACT? As immigrants in detention await their removal hearing, they may lose their jobs, housing, or even custody of their children. Individuals who are incarcerated in immigration detention face extreme difficulty in securing proper legal counsel. Represented immigrants who are bonded out are 8x more likely to win their case than unrepresented detainees. Immigration bonds, if offered, range from $1,500 to $250,000. The median immigration bond set by the San Francisco Immigration Court in 2018 was $14,000. IMMIGRANT LIBERATION BOND FUND’S FIRST YEAR In the Immigrant Liberation Bond Fund’s first year, we raised over $11,000, which was used this past summer to pay the bond of Mr. Hamid and effectively free him from detention. Hamid is a 17-year-old refugee from Afghanistan fleeing ISIS and the Taliban who was held in adult detention for over five months in Mesa Verde detention facility. He received an astronomical bond of $25,000, but the ILBF and community -- including folks at Pangea Legal Services, Faith in Action, and 415 Unidos for Freedom, a group of high school students at June Jordan School for Equity -- worked tirelessly to secure Hamid's release. Feel free to read more about his case here. Hamid's case is not an isolated incident. This happens to many family members and loved ones across the country, and it highlights: the Trump administration's Islamophobia and scapegoating of immigrants, unrealistic ICE bonds, and the inhumane immigration detention conditions that community members are subjected to. This crowdfunding initiative would support and supplement our existing fundraising efforts for ILBF. 100% of the proceeds go directly to reuniting families. High school students from the June Jordan School for Equity at a rally in front of U.S. Senator Kamala Harris’ office to put pressure on leaders to make ICE lower the amount of Hamid's bond. LETTER FROM HAMID On October 22, 2018, we received a letter update from Hamid. The following are his words: "I am feeling so good and so happy. I appreciate everyone from the community who helped pay for my bond. I will never forget the people that helped me get out. I am so glad for the help and support. After I got out of detention, I came to live in San Francisco. I have great friends in San Francisco now. We go to movies, the beach, parties, restaurants. I am in high school now, too. I'm taking math, English, history, biology, P.E., all the classes I'm supposed to take. There are a lot of new people in my life, and I'm so happy. I also have Afghan friends that I met here through an interpreter that helped me when I was freed. They invite me to come to barbeques and other dinners they are having, and we eat Afghan food together. I think of these friends as my older brothers. They tell me not to worry about anything; they always tell me they will help me if I need anything. I will never forget this kind of help, and all the help I have received. I am happy here. I am free." PAST FUNDRAISING EFFORTS In the past school year, our fundraising efforts have included: stand-alone fundraisers, such as Turkeygrams and bake sales, along with bigger fundraising campaigns, like our “BIG Week,” a week-long fundraising effort that included tabling for Day-of-Pay pledges, coffee auctions with Professors, and informational lunch sessions and panels that brought together community partners and previously detained individuals to share their stories and advocacy efforts with law students. WITH YOUR HELP, WE CAN RAISE OUR EXISTING FUNDRAISING TO THE NEXT LEVEL, SO THAT TOGETHER, WE CAN POST BOND FOR MANY OTHERS, LIKE HAMID, WHO ARE CURRENTLY INCARCERATED IN IMMIGRATION DETENTION. As part of BIG Week, community members shared their harrowing experiences being previously incarcerated in an immigration detention center and separated from their family and young children. Contact us at berkeleyimmigrationgroup@gmail.com Check out our website at https://berkeleyimmigrationgroup.org/
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Sponsor SUPERBFEST
By UC Berkeley
ASUC SUPERB provides students with free, on-campus entertainment. In 2017, we are launching SUPERBFEST and need your support to put on this festival.
ASUC SUPERB provides students with free, on-campus entertainment. In 2017, we are launching SUPERBFEST and need your support to put on this festival. This project has ended, but you can still support amazing Berkeley initiatives by visiting give.berkeley.edu. Your continued support of our students, faculty and staff will ensure that Berkeley remains the #1 public university. Go Bears! Since 1964, ASUC SUPERB has provided students, as well as the greater Berkeley community, with free entertainment in the form of comedy shows, concerts, film screenings, and game nights. In the past year, we have hosted events with acclaimed acts including Toro y Moi, A$AP Ferg, Thundercat, Nathan Fielder and Tig Notaro. With our 50+ years of experience, we are constantly looking for ways to expand our offerings and improve entertainment programming for students at Cal. Our latest project is to bring a one-day entertainment festival to the Cal campus called SUPERBFEST. We are launching the inaugural SUPERBFEST in the spring of 2017, and hope that it will become a Cal tradition for many years to come. Since this will be the first time we plan to have it, we are looking to raise external funds in addition to our current budget to help launch this event. Our vision for SUPERBFEST is to create an all-day celebration of on-campus entertainment. We hope to provide multiple musical acts and comedic performances, a film screening, and games. We hope to create an atmosphere like a music festival or carnival. If we raise our goal amount of $10,000, we could create an amazing day of diverse entertainment for the Berkeley community. The funding we collect would directly fund necessities for the events, such as additional sound equipment/technicians, security staffing, and space rental. With our 110+ members and 50+ years of experience in creating entertainment events, SUPERB can make SUPERBFEST a full-day event utilizing every department of SUPERB that could become a longstanding tradition and would be an annual opportunity for students and community members alike to gather and enjoy a day of entertainment. Thank you for checking out our project and we appreciate your support! For more information about our organization, check out: Web: superb.berkeley.edu Twitter: @ASUCSUPERB Facebook: Superb Productions Instagram: @asucsuperb
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UC Berkeley Alternative Breaks
By UC Berkeley
Support Alternative Breaks in providing stipends for program participants! This year, we have 2 winter trips and 8 spring trips.
Support Alternative Breaks in providing stipends for program participants! This year, we have 2 winter trips and 8 spring trips. About Us Alternative Breaks is a service-learning program for students to explore social issues through meaningful service, education, and reflection during their academic breaks. The Alternative Breaks (AB) program aims to: train Break Leaders with the knowledge and skills to lead their peers in memorable, safe, and fun breaks; strengthen partnerships with communities where breaks take place; sustain service education in DeCals (seminars facilitated by trip leaders) and apply the justice lens of the service trip social issues to local (Bay Area) contexts; and create trips are open to students from all income levels. This student-led program offers the opportunity for growth from Participant to Break Leader to Director. As trip participants, students take a semester-long DeCal to learn about their trip's issues before embarking on the trip. Break leaders are past participants that return to the program to facilitate the DeCal, and plan and lead the trip. The student directors manage program-wide projects, such as finances, to ensure that the Decals and trips are safe, fun, and successful. This unique feature provides students with the foundation to continue on a pathway of peace and service-work after the trips end. Please make a gift to make this experience as affordable as possible for all of our students! Budget Breakdown All donations will go towards student and trip leader stipends to make our trip fees accessible to students from all backgrounds. Please make a gift today to ensure that we can send as many students as possible on these life-changing trips. We currently are able to offer a few student stipends, but are at our limit and cannot meet the financial needs of many of our participants. Our trips currently cost $200/student with a $150 fundraising requirement that is meant to hone students' skills in asking for donations and spreading awareness as well as lessen trip fees that need to be paid out of pocket. This covers food, housing , and transportation for an entire week. Our Impact The work of our program directly impacts the perspectives and actions of our students and the communities we serve. Each year, we have about 180 student participants across our spring and winter break trips, many of whom Alternative Breaks marks their first experience of what working in social justice entails. For this upcoming year, the program offers 2 winter break trips and 8 spring break trips. During these weeklong trips, students contribute at least 40 hours of service to their community. It is our vision that their experience will empower and inspire them to continue working in social justice and serve these communities in a long-term, authentic way. Make a gift today to help Alternative Breaks ensure that our students are able to participate - and please help us spread the word by sharing. Trips offered this year: Magnolia Project - New Orleans (winter) Food Justice - Bay Area (winter) Animal Welfare - Oregon (spring) Homelessness and Poverty - Bay Area (spring) Immigration - Arizona (spring) Immigration - San Diego (spring) Native American Rights - San Diego (spring) Central Valley Issues - Central Valley (spring) Environmental Justice - Bay Area (spring) Urban Pathways Project - Los Angeles (spring)
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Engineers Without Borders
By Ritvick Bhalla
Engineers Without Borders envisions a future where basic human needs are met across the world through implementing sustainable solutions.
Engineers Without Borders envisions a future where basic human needs are met across the world through implementing sustainable solutions. Engineers Without Borders USA (EWB-USA) is a nonprofit humanitarian organization dedicated to developing and implementing long-term sustainable engineering solutions in communities that lack access to basic needs. Chapters work in partnership with the community and local NGOs to identify the most appropriate solution that can be sustained long term by the community. We exist to bring together talented students – both engineers and non-engineers – to work towards a common goal of philanthropic engineering abroad. We strive for sustainability in all of its forms: ensuring our projects utilize materials from the community, and guaranteeing that the necessary infrastructure and community acceptance is present to sustain the project after its implementation. Please make a gift today to support our efforts! THE UC BERKELEY CHAPTER OF ENGINEERS WITHOUT BORDERS WORKS WITH DIVERSE COMMUNITIES TO DEVELOP SUSTAINABLE ENGINEERING SOLUTIONS THAT MEET BASIC HEALTH AND SANITATION NEEDS. BY PROVIDING STUDENTS OF ALL BACKGROUNDS WITH HANDS-ON EXPERIENCE, WE BRIDGE OUR COMMUNITY WITH OTHERS AROUND THE GLOBE, FOSTERING CULTURAL AWARENESS THROUGH SOCIAL AND TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION. We currently have 4 active projects: Nicaragua Sanitation: The Nicaragua Sanitation Program is focused on designing and building latrines for the community of Cuyali in the Madriz department of Nicaragua. The community reached out to EWB as their latrines, which have been used for longer than their intended lifespan, have been breaking down, resulting in families sharing latrines. Furthermore, the river near where the community lives constantly floods the community, including areas where the latrines are situated. As a result, people in the community have been getting sick due to poor hygiene.This semester we are looking forward to put the final details on our first construction plans and proceed with the implementation to build the first 5 composting latrines later in the semester. This has been the longest and most challenging phase of the project so far, and will present more challenges as we work with contractors to implement remotely. Nicaragua Sanitation Nicaragua Water Nicaragua Water: This project will plan to implement a data processor system to collect data from the water well such as water flow rates, chlorinator systems, and water level information. Moreover, the group has panned out ideas to construct solar photovoltaic systems to use solar energy as an energy source for the water pumping systems for the community. Lastly, the team has initiated efforts to describe and write manuals in Spanish and English for the community for installation procedures. With this in mind, we would also like to study the cultural aspects of the community and country to form relationships with the people and learn different manners to best help El Llanito during our implementation trips and meetings. CEC: This project is a CECorps project working with the Church of the Nazarene in Vallejo. We will be configuring the utilities for mobile homes on the church’s property. Two families already live on the property and are relying on garden hoses for water, generators for electricity, and open carrying buckets for sanitary waste. Our workplan includes adding 5 more TinyHomes, which has been approved by the client. We have finished preliminary designs for the sewer, water, and electric utilities for the new homes, and will be submitting them for review by the city in the first few months of 2022! We are looking forward to a productive semester! Project 4: This semester, Project 4 is continuing the process of trying to adopt a project. We are excited to be working with the ASUC to figure out whether potential projects are fiscally suitable for our club, and we can't wait to jump straight into work once a project has been successfully adopted! To learn more about our projects and team members check out our website at https://ewb.berkeley.edu/, Instagram: @ewb.ucb, and like us on facebook at https://www.facebook.com/EWB.UCB/. Thank you! Thank you for your support! When our generous supporters, skilled members and motivated community members join forces, we change lives.
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UC Museum of Paleontology | See-through Dinosaur Skull
By UC Berkeley
Support the UC Museum of Paleontology in making the first-ever See-through Dinosaur Skull!
Support the UC Museum of Paleontology in making the first-ever See-through Dinosaur Skull! Help us make the first ever See-Through Dinosaur Skull Dinosaur paleobiologists now use a variety of modern tools in their research that help reveal the inner, neurovascular anatomy of dinosaurs in ways we have never seen before. Combining high resolution computed tomography (HRCT) scanning and 3D printing, we now have an opportunity to bring to life for the first time the inner workings of the interior of the smallest and youngest Triceratops yet known from the UCMP collections. This 3D printed “see-through” skull, which we intend to put on display with the current Triceratops growth series in the Marian Koshland Bioscience and Natural Resources Library of the Valley Life Sciences Building, will be the first “see-through” dinosaur skull anywhere! You can help UCMP make this happen by supporting our project With community support we will create a “see-through” 3D printed cast of UCMP’s baby Triceratops skull to go alongside UCMP’s Triceratops family on display in the Valley Life Sciences Building. The UCMP successfully employed this technology to print the very first see-through Triceratops rostral or “beak” from CT scans of a subadult skull showing a robust network of blood vessels that in life nourished the bone. This may be evidence of a neurovascular network that allowed Triceratops to sense subtle changes in its environment related to feeding and other behaviors. What the baby Triceratops skull will reveal is unknown but the fossils will be CT scanned, then volume rendered using medical imaging software, followed by 3D printing. The 3D plastic casts of the individual skull bones will be assembled into our reconstructed “see-through” skull! If we are fortunate to surpass our fundraising goal, additional Triceratops and other dinosaurs in the UCMP collections, such as the “dome-headed” Pachycephalosaurus, will be CT scanned, imaged and 3D printed as part of ongoing studies by Dr. Goodwin and his team to understand how dinosaur skulls grow. These high-resolution CT scans provide an extraordinary look at how the skull bones fit together and variable bone texture as they grow. Your support of this research will directly contribute to an improved understanding of the paleobiology and function of these bizarre horns, bumps and bony domes expressed by these dinosaurs throughout their life history. Photo credit: Dave Strauss Our Mission The mission of the UCMP is to investigate and promote the understanding of the history of life and the diversity of the Earth's biota through research and education. We are one of the largest university-based paleontological research collections in the world and we house specimens collected before the founding of UC Berkeley. Our diverse natural history collection includes dinosaur and other vertebrates but invertebrates, fossils in amber, and plants from every continent. These fossils are the foundation of the UCMP and provide a gateway portal to collection-based research, outreach, and education. Photo credit: Paul Hudson Our budget breakdown:
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Gold Summer
By Isaac Oh
Supporting Gold Summer will help us develop our students into music industry professionals.
Supporting Gold Summer will help us develop our students into music industry professionals. Gold Summer will be UC Berkeley's first ever festival thrown by the students featuring students. Support will help us develop our students into music industry professionals. Total ~ $5575 Our last event, VOLTA, proved to be a huge success. Over 600 tickets were sold out to students. 7 student DJs were featured to a crowd of over 850 people. 12 members of the team gained valuable experience in marketing, promotion, networking, designing, event managing, and artist managing. Electronic music is a genre of music that has won over our generation. According to the Huffington Post, electronic dance music, or EDM, has one of the largest followings on college campuses and one of the largest communities of music listeners. Thus, the presence of EDM cannot be ignored by any university which seeks to maintain or develop relevance to their student body. Golden Records (GR) is a collective of DJ talents, managers, and other personnel related to the electronic music industry. Unlike other musical organizations, Golden Records not only builds up the individual skill-set of a performer, we also showcase the students' talents by hosting events simultaneously preparing them for professional gigs. This is a huge step for the student community, the school's fine arts programs, local small businesses, as well as the charitable organizations we work with. First, GR will be positively impacting students interested in the music industry. One of our goals is to set our aspiring DJs on a path to success. To do this, we have an operations, publications, design, and legal team working with our artists. The team will be composed of UCB students who are passionate about these fields in the music industry. These members will receive invaluable real-life experience as well as developing a resume of skills putting themselves in a position where they are far more prepared to further their aspirations in the music industry. Also, the DJ community in our school will benefit greatly. The lineup, or the members performing at the concerts, is composed of only UCB students. A huge aspect of musical performance IS performance! By performing at concerts in a supportive environment of peers, our DJs will more effectively develop stage presence and crowd reading. Not only does GR give necessary experience, it also addresses the critically difficult issue of networking within the industry. We have members who have performed worldwide, those who have connections with major record labels and promoters, as well as those who have worked with iconic music figures such as Steve Aoki and Major Lazer. Our DJs will have a jumpstart with experience, a team focused on continuous improvement, and a well-established network. The culmination of student photographers, designers, DJs, and artist managers who work to establish the branding of a Golden Records DJ. GR also complements the UC Berkeley fine arts program. Our goals address fundamental needs that has not been currently met by previous courses or organizations even in other schools, allowing us to offer a valuable opportunity for aspiring performance artists unique to UCB. It can be seen as the musical equivalent of Brown's PLME program, which offers an expedited 8-year program for medical students while still giving them advanced competency by exposing students to real-life scenarios, having a specialized staff for members, and an expanded network of mentors. UCB's phenomenal orchestra is testament to the dominance of classical music during previous eras. The introduction of GR is the campus' embracement of modernized music. Lastly, another one of GR's purposes is to continuously inspire and enable musical talent in our community. One way we do this is through charity work where we donate profits from concerts to local charities related to music. Thus, student fraternities, sororities, and organizations focused on service will also be given the opportunity to help us help others whether it is through the promotion of our events or helping as one of the members in the DJs team.
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Bioengineering Honor Society - BioEHSC
By Jeffrey Feng
Fund the fourth annual bioengineering group research design and poster competition at UC Berkeley for high school students in the Bay Area
Fund the fourth annual bioengineering group research design and poster competition at UC Berkeley for high school students in the Bay Area This project has ended, but you can still support amazing Berkeley initiatives by visiting give.berkeley.edu. Your continued support of our students, faculty and staff will ensure that Berkeley remains the #1 public university. Go Bears! The Bioengineering High School Competition (BioEHSC) is an annual group research and design competition at UC Berkeley. To help high school students explore bioengineering, BioEHSC asks contestants to identify a problem in medicine and design a bioengineering solution in six weeks. Contestants will work in groups of four or five, and receive mentorship and advice from a bioengineering undergraduate researcher (student). Afterwards, contestants will create a research poster on their projects and present their findings to a panel of professors and graduate students in a final research symposium. While this is going to be our fourth year running BioEHSC, we are focusing our outreach efforts to schools whose students come from underserved communities in the Bay Area. Next year, we are planning to host at least 30 teams, accounting for 120-150 high school students in the Bay Area in April 2017. By participating in BioEHSC, students can: Learn more about bioengineering, which BLS data show as one of the fastest-growing professions in the United States. Interact with faculty and students at UC Berkeley, the #1 public university and one of the top engineering institutions in the world, with distinguished professors and alumni. Become familiar with the engineering design process, which will help students gain critical thinking and analysis skills important for every profession. In addition, outstanding teams and their respective high schools will receive prizes, ranging from gift cards for winning competitors to scientific equipment donated to the competitors’ high school. With the funds raised from the potential crowdfunding campaign, we would be able to pay for printing of research posters, the cost of materials to create more meaningful educational demo or workshop events during the competition, enough food to feed over 200 attendees (students, their teachers, faculty judges, and volunteers) on the day of the competition, and provide bioengineering-related educational classroom prizes for the winning teams. Furthermore, funds would go into subsidizing or waiving the registration fee for students that demonstrate financial need in future competitions. This would allowing many more students passionate about bioengineering to participate and allow us to consider expanding our program to regions outside the Bay Area. Funds surpassing our $5000 goal would be donated to BioEHS to support general student group activities including academic, professional development, and community service events including educational outreach events similar to BioEHSC. Your gift today would ensure that we would be able to continue educating future generations of bioengineers! For more information, visit: http://bioehs.berkeley.edu/hsc/
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Blood Pressure Project
By Morgan Fones
BPP is a healthcare-oriented club whose mission is to spread heart health awareness by providing free blood pressure screenings to the Berkeley area.
BPP is a healthcare-oriented club whose mission is to spread heart health awareness by providing free blood pressure screenings to the Berkeley area. Blood Pressure Project (BPP) is a public health-oriented club that was started in 2013 by UC Berkeley undergraduates. The club continues to be ran and operated by undergraduates, usually with pre-health goals in mind. BPP's main goal is to spread heart health awareness by providing free blood pressure screenings for underprivileged individuals in the Berkeley community. Also, for uninsured individuals we help to connect them with healthcare providers in order to help improve their health and wellbeing. In order to do this, we go to many community events, such as farmer's markets, and set up booths in order to screen people's blood pressure. The funds raised will help support our club's mission by buying new equipment, merchandise, and care packages that are needed in order to better serve the Berkeley community.
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Granting Armenian Villages Access to Education
By UC Berkeley
Through scholarships and renovation, HRI aspires to eliminate the financial and physical roadblocks between students and educational opportunities in Armenia.
Through scholarships and renovation, HRI aspires to eliminate the financial and physical roadblocks between students and educational opportunities in Armenia. The Hidden Road Initiative at Berkeley aims to provide scholarships to students from underprivileged Armenian villages who are enrolled in a college, university, or vocational program. The purpose of the scholarship program is to have a sustainable impact on the youth we've interacted with through our summer camps and projects, and to ensure that they pursue higher education despite their financial hardships. Each scholarship is $1000, which is sufficient to cover one year's worth of university tuition in Armenia. The Berkeley chapter of our organization hopes to raise enough funds this semester to cover the cost of two students’ tuitions. Additionally, our team members travel to Armenia every summer to host educational summer camps and renovate run-down schools. Students who participate in our summer camps have the opportunity to learn from our experienced volunteers about a variety of subjects, including English, health and hygiene, computer literacy, social issues, environmental science, and more. Students can also develop new friendships while engaging in activities, such as arts and crafts, yoga, soccer, etc. A mere thousand dollars will help us develop camp curriculum and begin restoring kindergartens and other classrooms. Through these methods, we hope to further establish an educational foundation which would support underprivileged students, allowing them to explore and eventually pursue their passions. In the past three years, with the generous donations of contributors from around the world, the headquarters of HRI have been able to provide 30 scholarships to students from the villages of Akhpradzor and Shvanidzor. By becoming a sponsor or donating to the Hidden Road Initiative scholarship fund, you will ensure that these dedicated young students will be able to attain higher education and succeed in their chosen careers. Additionally, you can help us by sharing our mission and project page with your networks. To get more involved, visit our website, follow our Instagram and Facebook pages, or contact us at berkeleyhri@gmail.com.
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Hygiene Heroes: Teaching Health through Interactive Learning
By Hygiene Heroes Team
Over the last 2 years, a team of UC Berkeley students have developed a curriculum to teach preventative health in India.
Over the last 2 years, a team of UC Berkeley students have developed a curriculum to teach preventative health in India. Hygiene Heroes Team Please donate today to help us with this project Our focus is teaching health through songs and games. Over the last 2 years, a team of UC Berkeley students under Haas Professor David Levine have developed a curriculum to teach preventative health in underprivileged regions. In prototyping our materials, we learned the most effective way to change behavior is through interactive styles of learning, such as stories, games, and songs. We now work with students and faculty at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo as well as local experts from Asia, Africa, and South America to improve our materials. The last two summers we piloted our lessons in Chennai, India. The children enjoyed our material and more importantly, adopted healthier habits. We have adapted our curriculum to incorporate the researchers' feedback and suggestions. We have started preliminary development on other health topics, such as Respiratory Infections, and Malaria. We have a team of eight students working on various aspects of the project to teach as much basic health as possible and to also create the best developed educational activities. The money will be used primarily to fund the printing and development of educational supplies as well as to pay a woman in India who does data collection and testing of our product. She is critical to our success as she is the one who gives us feedback on whether our activities are working or not. Thank you very much for reading this and we hope that you will donate to our project. For additional information on our project, visit this link: http://hygieneheroes.berkeley.edu/ -Hygiene Heroes Team
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Free Ventures | Support Cal's Student Entrepreneurs
By Blake LaFayette
UC Berkeley's student-run, non-profit startup launchpad providing funding, mentorship, units, and resources to support student entrepreneurs.
UC Berkeley's student-run, non-profit startup launchpad providing funding, mentorship, units, and resources to support student entrepreneurs. OUR MISSION We believe a university ecosystem is the ideal place to start up, and Cal is one of the best. But there's still a huge need for a strengthened community on campus to bring students together to tackle meaningful challenges. Three years ago we founded Free Ventures with the vision of eliminating students' excuses for not pursuing a project or startup. We gave students course units to work on their startups, provided small amounts of equity-free capital, and brought in alumni entrepreneur mentors to guide them on their way. We supported brilliant students in turning an idea or project into a scalable business, and in doing so sparked venture-backed businesses that would not otherwise exist. Since our founding in 2013, Free Ventures has incubated 40 teams of Cal student entrepreneurs in 7 batches. Collectively they've raised over $25 million from Y Combinator, KPCB, Greylock Partners, and other funds, and gone on to tackle problems in VR, drones, IoT, neuroscience, AI, real estate, and renewable energy -- just to name a few. However, we can't do this alone. As a non-profit organization organization run entirely by students, we need your help to extend our mission and help the next wave of UC Berkeley student entrepreneurs. Please make a gift today and help spread the word. __________ We envision a world where Berkeley students spend less time on class projects and more time on building tools that create a positive impact on people's lives and the world. By connecting students with the right resources, motivation, and support, students can be empowered to build more, and do more. Join us in our quest to build a better community. WE PROVIDE OUR STUDENT FOUNDERS WITH... 2 ACADEMIC UNITS Students receive two units in Computer Science while participating in FreeV, thereby enabling them to invest more time into their company while working toward their degree. We work through Berkeley's DeCal program, and you can view our course page at decal.org. EQUITY-FREE FUNDING We fund our teams to provide student startups with finanical support (up to thousands of dollars on needs-base) for their project. We call them micro grants, made to alleviate students' finanical concerns during the development of their startup with no strings attached. MENTORSHIP Each week we bring in between five and six mentors -- our word for individuals with specific background from either industry or academia -- to sit down with each of our teams for twenty-minute one-on-one sessions. These provide our founders with the opportunity to openly discuss their progress or challenges and receive candid feedback from thought leaders in the Valley, in addition to building their network for future introductions or investments. WORKSHOPS Our workshops are lead by industry or academic experts and are designed to provide information that tracks the development of each team's progress and premptively answers any questions that may arise. Topics range broadly and include design, product managment, funding, and legal incorporation. COMMUNITY Free Ventures provides students access to a variety of contacts from industry, academia, and the student community. This network can be tapped to provide technical expertise, funding advice, legal services, amongst other wisdom and help. Get plugged in to the network you need to succeed. WORKSPACE Students receive access to The House, a dedicated space to meet with their team members and work . For students with needs for specific resourses (e.g. hardware development equipment), Free Ventures works to secure the required resources through collaboration with other university entities or resource partners. WE NEED YOUR SUPPORT As a non-profit organization, we rely on donations from Cal alumni and venture firms to operate our program and support our student founders. Funds go directly towards our batch companies, namely in the form of needs-based, equity-free funding to help their companies scale, and to run our weekly mentor and workshop sessions. Small donations will help to keep our program operating at its current scale, but larger amounts will help us to further advance our mission of supporting student entrepreneurs at Cal by providing more funding for hardware teams -- necessary for prototyping, patent filings, and manufacturing -- improving the quality of our workshops, and enhancing the sense of community and collaboration within our batch. Please consider making a gift and help us spread the word to help us in our mission to empower UC Berkeley students with the resources they need to start up.
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Help Stop California from Burning: A FUEGO Pilot Project
By Carlton R. Pennypacker
California faces grave danger from fires. The FUEGO-Now project will detect and predict fires. Please make a gift today and be sure to share this project!
California faces grave danger from fires. The FUEGO-Now project will detect and predict fires. Please make a gift today and be sure to share this project! FUEGO (Fire Urgency Estimator from Geosynchronous Orbit)-Now will take important steps to develop hardware, and use existing successful software to build a wildland fire early warning system by detection of smoke from the fire. A movie of our software in action is shown at https://youtu.be/-DI-M6ySM6k. We will build, deploy, and test one high-sensitivity remote camera powered by existing automated visual smoke detection software based on machine learning. After testing, we will begin to replicate this system throughout California. Please make a gift today to help us detect fires faster! (http://s.hswstatic.com/gif/wildfire-deer.jpg) California faces grave danger from increasing number of fires over the next fifty years. Areas in mid and northern California are becoming hotter, with drier fuels and damaged timber, and will be much more susceptible to wildfires. Over the next decades will we not only see the tragedy of loss of lives and property, and increased costs for all Californians (every Californian pays about $200 a year, on average, for fire damages in our state) -- we will also see a dramatic climb in our CO2 emissions. At present, our CO2 from wildfires is about 6% of California’s total contribution. As Californians wisely go greener to suppress fossil fuels, Californians will simultaneously witness more fires, and the release of stored up CO2 from tree combustion will become an even larger fraction of the California CO2 contribution. So we are facing grave dangers, and something must be done. http://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/5/10/5173/htm FUEGO-Now pilot project builds on the growing capacity of our team to detect, manage, and predict fire progression. We want to find fires very early. After a period of team capacity building, we have found significant places where UC Berkeley can help California. One of our first opportunities to help, which can be funded within this UCB Crowdfunding initiative, is to develop a prototype system for finding smoke automatically from fire towers. Now fire towers do not have people watching for fires, and a growing number of fire towers have internet-serviced cameras operating. But automated detection of smoke from fires is not implemented in these towers. FUEGO-Now has prototype software that can automatically detect discover smoke from these existing cameras -- now we want to build a prototype hardware system that will be much more effective than these cameras. Upon successful tweaking of the hardware prototype, we will replicate this system and extend to many more sites in California. Please make a gift today to help us with this pilot program - and be sure to share this project! Messages from the FUEGO Team: Tim Ball, President of Fireball (5 minute video) Will, Berkeley BS, Graduate Student (2 minute video) Nathan, University Graduate working at Berkeley (90 second video) Please click to see the budget for these funds.
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The Berkeley Project
By UC Berkeley
For one day each semester, the Berkeley Project hosts a large scale community service event. Help us make this happen!
For one day each semester, the Berkeley Project hosts a large scale community service event. Help us make this happen! As a prestigious university, many people only see UC Berkeley as a place to study and leave once their four years are done. However, The Berkeley Project seeks to utilize these years in which thousands of students matriculate the campus to make a positive impact on the city of Berkeley. Through community service we hope to bridge the the outside community with the campus community. By getting involved in public works like gardening, painting schools, etc. we aspire to redefine how students at Berkeley perceive their presence during the typical four years of their undergraduate experience. This organization seeks to build a relationship between those who call Berkeley their home and the students that come and go. For one day each semester, the Berkeley Project hosts a large scale community service event. We would like to raise $7,500 for this organization because community service should be important to us all. Every year, the Berkeley Project saves the city approximately $200,0000 in maintenance alone. With the funds we would feed the students who participate, purchase shirts for the volunteers and sites which is a vital source of advertising for our organization. The crowdfunding donations would also help us restock on items such as gardening gloves, first aid kits, and plastic bags all essential for neighborhood clean up. As a large scale event that lasts from morning to evening, we would like to provide nutritious lunches for our student volunteers. A donation of $20 could provide two of our students with sandwiches and snacks to energize them for the day. In order to keep this event going, we would love the help of donors in our goal for sustainable funding! Please consider making a gift today to support the Berkeley Project in our next round of volunteer efforts! For more information check us out on: https://www.berkeleyproject.org https://www.facebook.com/berkeleyproject
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FUEGO: Early Detection and Management of Wild Fires
By Carl Pennypacker
FUEGO means Fire Urgency Estimator from Geosynchronous Orbit. FUEGO uses modern technology to discover fires while they are still small.
FUEGO means Fire Urgency Estimator from Geosynchronous Orbit. FUEGO uses modern technology to discover fires while they are still small. This project has ended, but you can still support amazing Berkeley initiatives by visiting give.berkeley.edu. Your continued support of our students, faculty and staff will ensure that Berkeley remains the #1 public university. Go Bears! WILDFIRE EMERGENCY IN NORTHERN CALIFORNIA - YOUR CONTRIBUTION WILL BE PUT TO IMMEDIATE USE! Our Project has been featured in: Fires, if left uncontrolled, will grow rapidly, destroying nearly anything in their path. In the U.S., we spend billions of dollars a year on fire fighting — California alone spends an average of $400 million dollars annually on fire suppression. But the true cost to Californians is much higher; fires are responsible for harming the atmosphere and ecology, destroying property, and in some cases, causing death to those people unfortunate enough to get in their way. FUEGO, the Fire Urgency Estimator from Geosynchronous Orbit, works to alleviate the problem by using modern technology solutions to discover fires while they are still small enough to control. FUEGO was developed by a team of astrophysicists and engineers at the U.C. Berkeley Space Sciences Lab and the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, home of some of the most effective sensor and software systems in the world. The system has a long history; after a firestorm swept through the Oakland hills in 1991, killing 25 people, injuring 150 others, and destroying almost 3,000 homes, Berkeley physicist Carl Pennypacker and colleagues studied the practicality of a satellite for wildfire detection. Ultimately, they decided that the cost of the satellite cost was prohibitive. But now, virtually every part of the satellite system is many times less expensive. In fact, in 2015, the same exact satellite needed for the tool can be built for 1/10th of the price—or even less, if purchased in quantity. In addition, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (known commonly as drones), piloted airplanes, and other sensor platforms have become much less expensive and more accessible to the Berkeley team. Ultimately, we anticipate FUEGO working by gathering data from several different altitudes.We are collaborating with several groups with expertise in this area, including the U.C. San Diego team that built the WiFIRE system. This system is a cyber infrastructure with powerful data ingestion, simulation, and communications tools that could accept FUEGO data, and help fire incident teams make reasonable judgements about the most effective use of resources such as aerial tankers or fire-fighters on the ground. And until the FUEGO satellite is launched, we will utilize a powerful system of alerts from other satellites from around the globe to which we have recently gained access. We’ve also put together a strong team here at Berkeley. Besides our astrophysicists, we have experts in natural resource management, Graphical Information Systems (GIS), and airborne image acquisition and data management. This is a pressing issue: the drought has left California at a greater risk for fires than ever before. The FUEGO team is poised to help, and soon. The first stages of the project will be carefully controlled experiments, where we acquire data and test our systems using airborne infrared cameras either on airplanes or drones. But we need some help: we’re asking you to contribute funds to get these system tests up and running, specifically, $20,000 for the largest and best infrared data acquisition of a fire in progress. Once we prove out the systems, we will share our results with the fire agencies and then become part of their working resources— helping them stop fires right when they start, and make California a safer place to live. Learn more at FUEGO.ssl.berkeley.edu
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CalASA: Women for a Better Tomorrow
By Mohammed Ali Abed
For every five dollars raised, we are able to provide a menstruation hygiene kit to newly arrived Afghan Women in Processing Facilities across the US.
For every five dollars raised, we are able to provide a menstruation hygiene kit to newly arrived Afghan Women in Processing Facilities across the US. Here at UC Berkeley, the Afghan Student Association (simply known as CalASA) is the central hub for connecting Afghan students to life here at UC Berkeley! Our organization works by establishing a space for Afghan students to hold onto their culture as they come from all walks of life. Likewise, ASA also extends Afghan culture to all non-Afghan individuals within the UC Berkeley community. As we continue to advocate for the mental and physical well-being of Afghans at UC Berkeley, we sought to extend our help to Afghans who are not UC Berkeley students. This year, our biggest advocacy is for mental health across Middle Eastern students and women's rights. Our first project this year, Women for a Better Tomorrow works to directly establish a relationship between ASA, Afghan Women, and Women's rights. As a team of first generation Afghan students, we continue to honor our internal promises of advocacy for all! Displaced Families, Fall of Kabul August 2021 Following the fall of Kabul last summer, the United States saw an influx of Afghan refugees coming in with little to no resources during a time of extreme humanitarian crisis. While these refugees are processed within the DHS-hosted facilities, they lack access to necessities for their hygiene and health—making them prone to infections and diseases that can be easily prevented. Our primary interest is helping Afghan women inside these facilities. Due to the negative stigma (induced culturally) these women fear asking for support when it comes to their reproductive and sexual health. Our initiative is to create menstrual kits including necessities and disperse them across the State of California's processing facilities. We intend to include pads, pantyliners, hair ties, dental necessities, and flyers (in English, Persian, and Pashto) explaining the different resources available here in the State of California and the United States for them to access. Given the unstable status of recently arrived Afghan refugees, we need urgent assistance for these groups—especially Afghan women—who are at an additional risk of discrimination due to their marginalization. Supporting us is a step towards fulfilling the American promise to the Afghan people. Afghan Families Arriving to US based air fields, 2021 These Families are taken from airports to various processing facilities that the Department of Homeland Security(DHS) hosts, sometimes families face being separated. Should you have any questions, concerns, or comments, our team is more than happy to help! Please reach out to finance[at]calasa[dot]berkeley[dot]edu; we thank you for your interest and help to tackling period poverty amongst Afghan refugee women! *You can also visit us at www.asaucb.org. Below is the breakdown of the cost we anticipate on achieving. Our ACPU looks at individual item costs per kit, and our breakdown by the number of kits associated to overall achieved funding. By supplying each kit with seven pads, seven pantyliners, a tooth brush, toothpaste, and seven hair ties, our kits will cost less than $5.50. Our kits are designed to tackle period poverty at an affordable price to help those in need. Every five dollars donated will help a refugee woman manage her menstrual health for a month. We will also supply each kit with resources across their local region, as well as resources for both sexual health & violence. These come at no cost to our kit-making process. Our financial operations have estimated that approximately 849 kits can be made with the help of $4,500. Even as low as $1,000 can provide 188 kits, meaning 188 women will have access to a month's worth of supplies. By finding a primal optimized allocation per item, we've been able to offer our help starting with just a few cents! Follow our Instagram: @calasa_ Your help dedicates a future for Afghan women, a future for which they have yearned for. Help us by helping change the outcome for hundreds of Afghan women!
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Berkeley Women in Business
By Karam Barakat
Berkeley Women in Business [BWIB] empowers women in the workforce through professional development and discourse on gender equity.
Berkeley Women in Business [BWIB] empowers women in the workforce through professional development and discourse on gender equity. About Berkeley Women in Business (BWIB) Berkeley Women in Business [BWIB] was founded in 2005 and now is a well established organization on campus that hosts around 50 active members. Berkeley Women in Business empowers women in the workforce through professional development and discourse on gender equity. We strive to develop our members into well-rounded individuals with the skills necessary to succeed in their careers. Yearlong, we host events that assists undergraduates to develop their professional skills as well as learn about women in the workforce. We also host retreats, socials, and mentorship opportunities throughout each semester. Our members develop a sense of belonging and trust within our community that allows for, not only professional development, but personal growth. Our organization is open to all students, all majors, and all genders who are in support of women in the workplace. BWIB Community The BWIB community hosts various professional development events every week. In addition, here at BWIB we have a tight-knit community who support each other. We host retreats, banquets, and other events that bring us together. Women in the Workforce Conference BWIB annually hosts the Women in the Workforce conference for young individuals to meet and listen to powerful leaders in the business industry through workshops and keynote speakers. Through networking and discourse, individuals will learn about women's empowerment in the workplace and engage in conversations with respected industry leaders who are truly changing the world and breaking the status quo. Although improving, the discrimination and inequality women face in the workforce is undeniable. Men hold 62% of manager positions compared to the 38% women hold. 35% of women face some type of sexual harassment in the business field. 29% women feel that their gender is an obstacle to advancement. To break these facts and stereotypes, the Women in the Workforce educates and brings insight to young individuals from respected women in the industry and their stories. The conference had around 100 members attend. Past keynote speakers include Meghana Dhar, Global Head of Brand Partnerships at Snap Inc., and Susan Goss-Brown, SVP and Chief DEI Officer at The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Workshops are also led by industry leaders and women in the workforce. In order to reach out to as many Berkeley individuals (both female and male) to attend this conference, we launch this crowdfunding campaign. BWIB hopes to continue making a change in gender equity in the workforce and we believe the way to do so is to inspire and influence as many people as possible. By donating to our project, we will be able to scale this conference and make a bigger impact in the community and hopefully reach out to more people across colleges all over the USA. Financial Literacy BWIB engages in several projects to enact social change throughout the world. This Crowdfunding campaign will allow us to further scale our impact by funding these projects. Financial literacy is the ability to use knowledge and skills to manage financial resources effectively for a lifetime of financial wellbeing. BWIB has curated content to be distributed among Berkeley students and the youth to have the skills to become financially independent and successful. The funds used from this campaign will go towards developing informational resources that many will be able to take advantage of. Micro-financing involves small loans typically in the range of $100-$25,000 to individuals or groups that may otherwise have little to no access to traditional financial services. BWIB has used the Kiva platform to microfinance for the past year. Thus far, we have lent over $2,000 to women-owned businesses across the world. Kiva allows BWIB to reach women in countries that we may not have the opportunity to help otherwise. Many of the women we lend to support their families through their own businesses. Our loans help them expand and grow their business and help secure their financial futures. We hope to use the funds from this campaign to give loans to more women throughout the world. Budget The budget for our yearly conference is about $3,000, which is allocated towards conference materials, food, gift supplies, marketing, and shipping costs. Learn More About Us Website: http://www.berkeleywomeninbusiness.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BerkeleyWIB/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/berkeleywib/ Email: barakat.karam@berkeley.edu
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CalSol: The Race to Finish Excalibur FA’ 22
By Taeyoung Kang
Currently working on Excalibur, our 10th generation vehicle, and planning on competing in the Formula Sun Grand Prix next summer. Help us get to #1!
Currently working on Excalibur, our 10th generation vehicle, and planning on competing in the Formula Sun Grand Prix next summer. Help us get to #1! Striving for a more sustainable and greener future, CalSol is a team of undergraduate students who design, build, test and race high speed, road-legal, fully solar powered vehicles. Historically composed of over 100 students from a variety of disciplines, we provide our members with hands on experience in engineering, project management, supply chain interactions, teamwork, problem solving, and more. We’ve built a team that welcomes students from all backgrounds and experience levels. This year, we’ve seen the highest turnout of new members in years: more than 100 students have joined the team in the past few weeks. We’re eager to introduce them to the world of cutting-edge solar and renewable energy technology. We have built 9 generations of racing vehicles, enhancing our designs with each generation. Our newest car, Tachyon, has had a long and successful career. We’ve raced Tachyon at the 2019 Circuit of the Americas race in Austin, Texas, coming second for the second year in a row. In the 2019 Bridgestone World Solar Challenge, the world’s most prestigious international solar car race, Tachyon placed 13th. This summer 2022, we raced Zephyr (our 8th generation vehicle) in the Formula Sun Grand Prix and the American Solar Challenge, placing 4th in both. Some of our team at the Richmond Field Station (2022) Currently, we are crowdfunding for the construction of our 10th generation vehicle, Excalibur. Excalibur is set to be the fastest and most efficient vehicle our team has built since its conception, with a unique monochassis and carbon fiber mold. Our $12K goal will primarily go towards paying for molds for its exterior shell. With your contribution, we can provide more opportunities for members to tackle hands-on design and manufacturing work, as well as improve the final quality of the car shell’s outer surface to carry on our legacy of success. Zephyr as it finished 4th in ASC (2022) Will you make a tax-deductible donation today to support CalSol and make it all possible? Your donation will contribute to Excalibur’s manufacturing, as well as the development of solar and renewable energy technology and the education of brilliant engineers. Breakdown of our current expenditure on Excalibur Your contribution means a lot to us and our goal for a better future. Feel free to contact us on our email or social media platforms:Facebook, Instagram, Twitter: @BerkeleyCalsol Email: calsol-me@berkeley.edu Thank you and Go Bears!
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2022 Debate Society of Berkeley Crowdfunding
By Jennifer Yang
Your donation will be used for tournament registration, subsidies for our members and more! Your support will make everything possible!
Your donation will be used for tournament registration, subsidies for our members and more! Your support will make everything possible! The Debate Society of Berkeley is UC Berkeley's largest academic debate team, competing internationally in the American and British Parliamentary styles. Over the years we have grown to be the #1 public university debate team competing in British Parliamentary debate, having our competitors advance to elimination rounds at tournaments such as Yale, Stanford, and the 2017-18 national championship. In order to maintain and improve our position and continue representing UC Berkeley on the international debate circuit, we hope to send students to the most competitive tournaments around the world. While the competition is fierce, the greatest challenge our students face is not strong opponents but rather having to personally pay for expensive flights. This winter, we will send two teams and one judge to represent our school to fly to take part in the 2023 World University Debating Championships in Madrid, Spain. We hope to continue to be able to represent UC Berkeley in the tournaments nationally and globally. However, travel, housing, and registration costs severely limit the number of students we can send to any tournament, especially ones on the other side of the globe. Your donation would make it possible to keep up and excel against the competition. As part of our membership in the national and international circuits for APDA (American Parliamentary Debate) and BP (British Parliamentary Debate), we are a part of a tremendous and diverse group of students from the world’s premier academic institutions. We’re a young team, but we are extremely grateful for the world of debate. As such, we love giving back to the community that inspired us. Every year, we host two tournaments, one for high school students competing in parliamentary debate, and the other for university students from the BP circuit. These tournaments give us the chance to inspire young students to continue their debate journey as well as actively engage our own team members, but hosting these events would simply not be possible without the support of our dearest donors. Here's a breakdown of how your generosity would be put to use for our team! Your donation could help show the international debate community just how strong the Debate Society of Berkeley is, as well as give a debater the opportunity of a lifetime to compete on behalf of their university and enrich their education. The Debate Society of Berkeley is already the most successful British Parliamentary debate team from a public school in the country, your donation will take our success global. Your support makes all these possible. Thank you so much for your generous donations! If you have any questions or would be interested in learning more, please visit our website at https://debate.berkeley.edu/ or get in touch by email at contact@debate.berkeley.edu.
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Game Design and Development Club (Fall 2022)
By UC Berkeley
We are the Game Design and Development Club at Berkeley where we teach how to create games and host industry speaker events and workshops.
We are the Game Design and Development Club at Berkeley where we teach how to create games and host industry speaker events and workshops. Game Design and Development Club at Berkeley The GDD Video Game Showcase, Spring 2022Game Design and Development at Berkeley is a club to help those interested in game design and development understand common tools and work environments that indie and major industry developers work in. We encourage students from all backgrounds to come and join, as game design and development has many facets that people can be involved in: programming, art, music, writing, and project management. Our three goals as an organization are: Creating a space to foster a community for those interested in game design and development Getting more people interested in game design and development Providing support for a pipeline that will enable everyone to work on their own games, including but not limited to industry events, workshops, and game jams The specific programs we run each semester are the following: the party system where a group of students (a party) are led by a staff mentor to learn how to make a game from start to finish in a semester, and the decal which is an entirely student-run course run by facilitators that takes students on a deep dive into the creation of games. The funds will also support game development career building through bringing in speakers to talk about the game development industry as well as other events. There is more information about the club plus links to our past video games on our website! Choosing to support us will help provide critical funds for the Berkeley Game Design and Development Club to allow it to host new industry events as well as teach more students about programming and game design and development through our mentor and decal programs. This will help improve students skills in programming, art, and project management. It will also allow us to host more social events to help create a better community around game design at Berkeley. Events throughout the Semester Sproul tabling Sproul tabling is our main form of recruiting new potential members, where we set up our table on Sproul Plaza, and pass out flyers to interested students as well as going up to and talking about what GDD does as a plan (primarily the party system and the decal system) and navigating them to our club’s discord if they are interested. Internal Social An internal social for executive members where we play various party games on Discord as a way to getting to know each other in a more informal and social environment, as a way to build team-working skills and create a more casual bond amongst the board members. Info session: An info session where current members of GDD talk about what GDD does as a club, and as a decal, where more information regarding how to join, what the party system is, what type of events are planned for the semester, etc are provided to potential members who come to the session. The GDD Game Tournament Fall 2022 Game tournament A social event where current and interested students engage in a casual, fun game tournament. The games primarily consist of 1v1 video games, hosted at UC Berkeley’s own Esports LAN Center, and is done via bracket. It is a fun and laid-back way of members interacting with each other and getting to know each other. General meeting GDD has two general meetings, the first one being a bit more social where we announce each party mentor, what type of video games we would be creating, and then playing board games to break the ice between mentors and other party members. The second is where we announce who got into which party, and then provided some party bonding activities, such as playing board games and party formation is finalized. Workshops Workshops hosted by our in-club mentors where they go over general topics for interested students, and topics can vary from character design to programming to music. These are designed to be very beginner friendly and serves as a way for members to gain some basic foundational understanding of the topic. Industry event Industry speaker events where we have prominent members from big-name video game development companies come out talk about how it is working in the industry, how to break into the industry, and going over what each role contributes to a team, as well as providing a way for members to connect and network with the speakers. Bear Jams Bear Jams is our once-a-semester 45 hour game jam! A game jam is a game development marathon, where developers work together or alone to design, develop, and publish a game over the course of a limited timeframe – in our case, one weekend! GDD staff then streams every game over the course of the next week, giving our feedback as seasoned game developers. Movie Night Movie nights are a way for staff and students to hang out without any work or looming deadlines. We rent a room, set up a projector, and watch a relaxing movie together. These movies typically showcase 3D Graphics or are related to gaming in some way! Showcase Our big, fancy, end-of-semester Showcase! This is our largest event by far and is a way to show what members of the Berkeley game development community have achieved over the course of the semester. There are individual booths for each game allowing students to playtest and enjoy the results of everyone’s hard work, creativity, and dedication. Saturday Socials Every Saturday our club holds board game socials on campus, where staff and students can decompress and appreciate “acoustic” gaming. Playing games in a non-digital medium is a great way to learn game design principles and what makes a game fun, even without flashing lights and sound effects. Playtest The party system’s playtests invite the general Berkeley community to come and test the games the parties are working on! This is an incredibly important step of the development process, as people working on the games can get tunnel vision and it’s hard to visualize from the perspective of a brand new player. It is also a fun way to get people excited about the games in development! Funding Plan Outlined below is our plan for how we use any proceeds from crowdfunding donations: The funds will be used for event food ($16 for a snack pack and $20 for a pizza), room bookings ($25 for Games of Berkeley), and swag ($20 per T-shirt). The funds also will help cover transportation costs for industry speakers (~$100 allows one person to travel) as well as subsidize GDC Passes ($20 allows one student to be subsidized). Our Social Media Follow us on Social Media! Website: https://gamedesign.berkeley.edu/ All funds and proceeds raised through this project will go towards making the club experience for our members even more enjoyable and will allow us to host more events! Gifts of any size will make a significant impact towards helping us reach our goal and will be sincerely appreciated. If you could spread the word about us and our project, that would be greatly appreciated too! We hope we can count on your support. Thank you!
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2022-2023 Public Health Alumni Association Diversity Fellowship
By Elizabeth Ly
Diversity in public health is more important than ever and PHAA wants to support students from underrepresented backgrounds succeed.
Diversity in public health is more important than ever and PHAA wants to support students from underrepresented backgrounds succeed. The UC Berkeley Public Health Alumni Association Board of Directors is excited to launch our annual crowdfunding campaign to support diversity in public health with a goal of raising $13,000 to fund 6 fellowships for underrepresented students attending the School of Public Health. Thanks to the generosity of alumni and friends, we have exceeded our goals for the past 5 years and would love your support in making an even bigger impact and funding even more fellowships this year! Diversity is vital in public health and the development of a diverse public health workforce must be centered in schools of public health. One of the values of the UC Berkeley School of Public Health is “Strength Through Diversity,” which our community embraces in education, research, and service. While our underrepresented minority student population has increased in recent years, the School of Public Health could be doing more to create an inclusive, equitable environment for graduate students from these diverse backgrounds. One real and tangible way to do that is by providing fellowships to students from underrepresented backgrounds. Supporting underrepresented students in their public health education is a key step in addressing health inequities in the long term. We are asking alumni, faculty, family, and friends of the School of Public Health to support these students by donating to provide the financial aid that they need to thrive at the School of Public Health and in their future public health careers. Please donate to support 5 underrepresented minority students, each with a one-year, $2000 fellowship for the next academic year. If we exceed our goal, we will be able to fund additional fellowships! Last year the Public Health Alumni Association was able to fund 6 fellowships through this crowdfunding opportunity! (Please note that there is a campus-imposed 5% gift fee on all donations and a 2.5% processing charge for credit card transactions but the remaining entirety of the donation goes towards student fellowships.) One huge hurdle to achieving diversity in education is the increasing cost of tuition and the many expenses associated with being a student. High costs can have an even greater impact on underrepresented students (who may be particularly susceptible to the financial hardships created by the COVID-19 pandemic) and financial aid can be a deciding factor for many. We want to ensure money is not an obstacle to pursuing a degree for those interested in careers in public health. Below are some testimonials from fellowship recipients! The Public Health Alumni Association (PHAA) Board of Directors is a group of alumni volunteers who represent all alumni of the UC Berkeley School of Public Health. We help alumni support the mission of the School and strengthen personal and professional relationships among public health alumni and students. One of our particular goals is to support diversity in the field of public health and ensure an inclusive, welcoming climate at the School for all of our students. For any specific questions please contact us at PHAA@berkeley.edu.
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Ra-On: Feel the Soul of Korean Band Music
By Mirsol Kim
We are fundraising for our end-of-semester concert (equipment and venue). Support us in sharing the soul of Korean music with the Cal community!
We are fundraising for our end-of-semester concert (equipment and venue). Support us in sharing the soul of Korean music with the Cal community! Ra-On is a student-run Korean band dedicated to spreading Korean culture and spirit to Cal students through our music and performances. We were established in 2006 by a group of musically inclined students looking to make music together for others to enjoy. Our purpose is to bring the performing arts of Korean culture through band music. Although we are a Korean-centered band, we also cover a variety of English songs from Stevie Wonder to Muse. Ra-On Band (Fall 2022) With that being said, as a group funded primarily through fundraisers and other private sources, we greatly depend on the generosity of our donors which will help towards buying equipments for the band, going to studios, and a majority of it going towards renting out the venue for our End-of-Semester Concert. Support us in sharing the soul of Korean music with the Cal community! The following will be the exact split: 60% = Concert Venue Rental (Krutch Theater) 20% = Soundwave Rehearsals (Studio Time) 20% = Equipment Purchases to replace/upgrade older products During Fall and Spring Semesters, Ra-On practices everyday to make sure we give our best performance in the end. Every week, we rent out from practice rooms in Eshleman Hall and ever so often studios to rehearse various covers that we will perform at our End-of-Semester Concert and other events prior to the concert. Band Practice @ Eshleman Hall Because we love jamming, Ra-On is always open to perform short sets for anyone who would like to bring our Korean spirit and music to their special events. In recent years, Ra-On has been invited to participated for the East Asian Union Market, KASA's Culture Show, Taiko, mini stages in cafes, and carry out busking 3 times a semester on Upper Sproul. Ra-On End of Semester Concert (Fall 2021) Ra-On is Berkeley’s only student-run band on campus creating Korean-focused live music. Supporting Ra-On will help us share with you our Korean culture through live performances, fostering a more diverse and rich environment on campus for you to enjoy. Even if you do not decide to donate, Thank You for your interest by reading this far. On the other hand, if you do decide to donate, the band truly appreciates your support and love for Korean music and culture. Let's vibe. Love, Ra-On Ra-On Band (Spring 2022) Questions? Concerns? Contact Ra-On with the Subject: "Crowdfunding" at raon.staff@gmail.com or to Ra-On's current President, Minji Kim, at mjmj224@berkeley.edu.
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Undergraduate Moot Court Association at Berkeley
By Samuel Ratcliffe
Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! Support the new Berkeley Moot Court Team in providing undergrads legal research, analysis, writing, and oral advocacy skills!
Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! Support the new Berkeley Moot Court Team in providing undergrads legal research, analysis, writing, and oral advocacy skills! Undergraduate Moot Court Association at Berkeley (UMCAB) is a newly formed organization of over a dozen competition team members and rapidly growing feeder team at UC Berkeley dedicated to fostering valuable legal advocacy skills. UMCAB team members compete in the AMCA’s (American Moot Court Association) regional and national tournaments against over 450 universities across the nation in an experiential exercise that simulates an appellate court proceeding wherein students advocate a position. We are currently raising funds to help pay for our regional and national competition fees, as well as support us in our mission to ensure the longevity of this organization for future generations of Golden Bears! HISTORY: The organization was founded in the Spring of 2021, by 4 UC Berkeley pre-law students. Even through the obstacles of a remote semester, the team managed to recruit 8 competition team members through zoom auditions and interviews. In its first year of existence, the club sent 6 teams to AMCA regional tournaments, and 2 of these teams were crowned the champions of their respective tournaments. In all, 3 out of the 6 teams qualified for Nationals in January, and 7 out of 12 individual members won awards for finishing in the top 10 best speakers at their respective regional competitions. After just one season, our team is now nationally ranked alongside other top schools around the country! WHAT IS MOOT COURT? As law school students and lawyers know, moot court continues to be an important element in American legal education today. Moot Court tasks students with arguing appellate cases in a mock-Supreme Court setting -- both orally before a panel of justices and via written briefs -- debating issues ranging from the freedom of speech, to the 5th Amendment rights to privacy and bodily autonomy, to Congress’s legislative power under the Commerce Clause. In pairs of two, each co-counsel is tasked with arguing on behalf of one of two issues presented in the form of a fictitious case drafted by the American Moot Court Association (AMCA). WHAT SKILLS DO OUR MEMBERS LEARN? How to read and how to brief precedent Supreme Court cases Students read a reported case, identify and summarize the relevant facts of a case, find the rule of law within a decision, understand how a court applies the rule, and finally use precedent effectively in their arguments. Research techniques, specifically as applied in the legal field Students research and write a brief on the legal issue involved in the appellate simulation, selecting helpful texts and other resource materials, and navigating through legal research services, such as Westlaw and LexisNexis. Professional public-speaking techniques Through use of self-evaluation and team feedback during practice and final oral argument sessions, students focus on and improve aspects of various communication and presentation techniques such as vocal variation, articulation, body language, etc. 2021-2022 Last year, our teams drafted arguments that concerned the Commerce Clause, which defines Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce, and the Fourteenth Amendment which contains the concept of Due Process. (Issue One Counsels 2021-2022) (Issue Two Counsels 2021-2022) The Case Problem 2022-2023 This year, our teams are addressing arguments that concern the Fourth and Eighth Amendments to the United States Constitution. In Issue One, which deals with the Fourth Amendment, counsels must argue whether or not the warrantless use of a drone equipped with optical sensors violated the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Fourth Amendment protects the “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” In Issue Two, which concerns the Eighth Amendment, counsels must argue whether or not the sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole only after the first fifty years of a non-homicide offense imposed on Denolf Jr violates the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution, specifically the protection against cruel and unusual punishments. The question is complicated by the fact that the case’s petitioner is a minor. WHY SHOULD I DONATE TO UMCAB? When you donate to the Undergraduate Moot Court Association at Berkeley (UMCAB), your donation will help pay for seven teams’ registration fees for regional tournaments and nationals! After succeeding in securing our spot as a nationally ranked team after only one year of competing, our team is asking for your support to help us maintain and improve our ranking! Although last years competitions were online, this year, we are sending our teams across the country to Albany, New York and Lexington, Kentucky! Nationals will be held in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. We need your support to get there! Moot court continues to be an important element in American legal education, and we hope that you can support us in our mission to provide academic support, professional development resources, and career opportunities to our members. A breakdown of how your donations would help us! For more information, check out our website (https://tinyurl.com/berkeleymootcourt), and follow us on instagram (https://www.instagram.com/berkeleymootcourt/) and linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/company/berkeleymootcourt/) If you have any questions about donation matching, long-term sponsorship, please reach out to our Treasurer at ayannabediako@berkeley.edu.
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USI: Supporting formerly incarcerated & system impacted students
By Erin Katherine McCall
Building the prison to university pipeline through recruitment, retention, advocacy, and wellness services.
Building the prison to university pipeline through recruitment, retention, advocacy, and wellness services. Our Mission: Underground Scholars Initiative (USI) is an ASUC Sponsored registered student organization at UC Berkeley that works in partnership with BUS. USI is completely student-run. The two organizations, BUS & USI, are separate and aligned. Berkeley Underground Scholars (BUS) creates a pathway for incarcerated, formerly incarcerated, and system-impacted individuals into higher education. We are building a prison-to-school pipeline through recruitment, retention, and advocacy. BUS is an academic support program housed within the Division of Equity and Inclusion at UC Berkeley. We prioritize our services for formerly incarcerated students. We define system-impacted as a person who is legally, economically or familially affected negatively by the incarceration of a close relative. System-impacted also includes people arrested and/or convicted without incarceration. Our History: Underground Scholars was started in the Spring of 2013 by formerly incarcerated and system-impacted students at UC Berkeley as the Underground Scholars Initiative (USI), a student organization. In 2014, USI received funding from the University of California Berkeley through a fee referendum that students voted on. That funding made it possible for USI to rent some office space at Stiles Hall and hire our first director, transfer coordinator, and five formerly incarcerated students to work in our office. In 2016, we partnered with Senator Loni Hancock. She led an effort to secure funding from the state to develop an academic support program to serve formerly incarcerated students in addition to the student organization, USI. Berkeley Underground Scholars was born out of that effort. Shortly after USI was developed at UC Berkeley, formerly incarcerated students at UCLA began to develop a chapter. As Berkeley’s USI members graduated and spread through the UC system for graduate school, they began building chapters on other campuses. There is now a USI chapter at every undergraduate serving University of California campus. Our Work: USI aims to shift the School-to-Prison pipeline to a Prison-to-School pipeline using higher education as an alternative to incarceration. Our program model and mission have been developed and actualized through: RECRUITMENT, RETENTION, and ADVOCACY. USI recently added a fourth pillar: WELLNESS. Recruitment: We recruit in prisons, jails, and community colleges. We serve hundreds of incarcerated students annually by providing academic advising, transcript analysis, and UC application support. We offer paid leadership development roles, cross-enrollment in UC classes, and transfer application support for community college students. Retention: We serve formerly incarcerated and system impacted UC students with resources to ensure their retention and graduation. We help students meet critical needs, including transportation, housing, and food; assistance securing financial aid; academic, career, and mental health advising; and peer mentorship. We partner with a range of departments on campus to develop and offer coursework and enrichment opportunities centered around advancing our students’ academic and career goals., Advocacy: We're working on expanding our model to the entire UC system. We work with admissions professionals, deans, and faculty on campus to eliminate barriers to higher education faced by our students and advocate on their behalf in cases involving their parole and probation officers. Additionally, our students conduct policy research, draft proposals, and co-sponsor state bills to build skills in analysis, writing, and advocacy. To learn more about our work, please follow this link to our website: https://undergroundscholars.berkeley.edu/our-work Chancellor's Award for Public Service Underground Scholars won the Student Group Award for Civic Engagement in 2022 Crowdfunding Budget We are utilizing the crowdfunding platform to raise funds for community-building activities. When asked what they value about Underground Scholars, the overwhelming majority of students stated that they look to USI to build community and give them a sense of belonging at what can often be described as an intimidating and impersonal environment of a large research university. Our student organization will use crowdfunding donations for collective meals, teambuilding activities (half-day) through Cal Adventures, an outing on college night to a local bowling alley, and tickets to an amusement park (Great America). Any additional funding that we receive will go toward sponsoring more community meals. At this point, we hope to join together for a community meal once a month. Yet we acknowledge that if we could sponsor dinners once a week, instead of once a month, our community would grow stronger collectively. Check out our website: https://undergroundscholars.berkeley.edu/ Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theundergroundscholars/?hl=en Located at: Stiles Hall, 2400 C Bancroft Way, Berkeley, CA 94720 USI Leadership Team 2022-23 Michael Garcia: mgarcia182@berkeley.edu --- Treasurer Cesar Garcia: crgarcia620@berkeley.edu --- Secretary Michelle Maxwell: michellemaxwell@berkeley.edu --- Advocacy Chair Erin Katherine McCall: erinmc2@berkeley.edu --- Retention Chair
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STAR: New Year - New Rockets | Fall 2022
By UC Berkeley
STAR is getting on a new level with Liquid Engine 2, Deployable Aerial Vehicle Expirement, and more.
STAR is getting on a new level with Liquid Engine 2, Deployable Aerial Vehicle Expirement, and more. Welcome to STAR's Fall 2022 Crowdfunding Campaign! We are proud to showcase our past achievements and introduce new exciting projects & initiatives that will further improve our technologies and inspire more interest in science and engineering.▲ 2022 Crowdfunding Campaign Spring 2022 Team ▲ Previous Accomplishments STARxNexGeneGirls Scholarship Program This year, STAR’s outreach division is ecstatic to announce that the STAR Scholarship Program is officially in action! Over the past year, our now-president, Aarabhi Achanta, has worked alongside NexGeneGirls–a nonprofit seeking to provide opportunities, education, and connections to high school girls looking to pursue a career in STEM. In addition to providing financial support for a group of six talented women of color, we will also be hosting a series of workshops this October that will assist them with applying to colleges and continuing their passion for STEM in higher education. We are excited to be working with the College Admissions Mentorship Program (formerly People’s Test Preparation Service) to assemble a good curriculum for the recipients of STAR’s scholarship. Currently, Rachel Weber (Outreach Lead) and Anjana Saravanan are continuing the progress of this scholrship nd furthering its growth throughout this semester! Stage Separation (SSEP) Just a few weeks ago, we launched our most recent rocket, Stage Separation (SSEP). The launch’s success made us closer to our big goal–to reach the stars with a student-made rocket! This was the first ever 2-stage rocket successfully flown by a team at Berkeley. ▲ SSEP Launch Vlog 2022 Crowdfunding Campaign ▲ Experimental Liquid Low Impulse Engine (ELLIE) Last semester our team successfully achieved a planned 6-second burn on our first liquid engine design. Lessons learned from this project will provide invaluable experience and knowledge for our current LE2 project! We are proud to become a liquid engine capable collegiate team! ▲ ELLIE Hot Fire Current Projects DAVE DAVE, or the Deployable Aerial Vehicle Experiment, is a glider mission piloted by STAR for the 2022-2023 year. DAVE is designed to be a glider that we can launch from the rocket at apogee to carry our experiments and get astronomically more value out of each launch. To accomplish this, however, DAVE must be capable of shrinking from its large wingspan to fit inside the rocket and then awaits takeoff until carried outside the vehicle by a parachute, where it can freely unfold and collect new types of experiments previously impossible for the team. More recently, with DAVE, we have been preparing to start the project’s second iteration such as remaking the CAD, unfolding mechanisms, and adding new elements. From stronger materials to an added parachute, we emphasize bracing DAVE for its landing after deployment. We also have planned additions of RF control of our elevators, DAVE will be pilotable from the ground and allow us to change course mid flight. DAVE Prototype ▲ Liquid Engine 2 (LE2) Our first ever flyable liquid oxygen / ethanol powered rocket is currently in the fabrication and testing phase! On the propulsion front, we’re working on building and integrating physical/electronic components. As we test and optimize the system, we continually update our rocket model to more accurately reflect the predicted physics of launch. The flight vehicle airframe and recovery systems, developed in parallel with the propulsion element, continue with structural design and analysis as well as landing model development. We are currently on track to hotfire the foundational propulsion system in early November, and proceed with optimization and flight vehicle integration up until our launch in May! Timeline ▲ LE2 General Timeline New Goals! IREC IREC (Intercollegiate Rocketry Engineering Competition) is a 5 day competition where rocketry clubs from the nation get to network and present their rockets as well as launch them. Judges place teams depending on different requirements such as technicality and apogee. We have been working on HighBearNation for a year now and can’t wait to compete this coming summer. Our rocket highlights an axial avionics bay and an air brakes system to reach as close to 10,000 ft precisely as possible. We are currently working on having a replacement tube for air brakes to test the rocket without the air brakes system until it’s fully complete. We’re also going to create a new payload for our rocket and are super excited! IREC 2021 Launch ▲ Minimum Diameter (MINDI) MINDI is a brand-new rocket we plan to launch by the end of the year! MINDI stands for minimum-diameter, and it’s a rocket in which the motor slides directly into the body tube rather than being inserted into a smaller motor-mount tube. Such a design poses challenges when it comes to mounting the fins and retaining the motor, and along with our new project recruits, we will work to address these obstacles and build a high-flying rocket. We are aiming to break the university altitude record with MINDI! Timeline ▲ MINDI General Timeline Overall Budget STAR sees projects from both short-term and long-term perspectives. We have big dreams of launching each of our unique and complex rockets! However, to do so, the Business team need all the help we can get! We would greatly appreciate any support that our donors can provide! And to give back to our donors, we have cool prizes that range depending on the amount donated. Feel free to check them out! Approximate breakdown of our expenses for this year! Overall: $18,710.85 Contact Us & Learn More! We love the work we do at STAR and are always happy to talk about it! Contact us at: Email: UCBerkeleySTAR@gmail.com Website: stars.berkeley.edu/ Instagram: www.instagram.com/starberkeley/ Facebook: www.facebook.com/ucberkeleystar/ Finally, shoutout to the following teammates for helping set up the crowdfunding page: Saranyu Nel, Sharon Onofre-Lozano, Hubert Liu, Jason Duong, Justin Gonzalez, Abhiram Chennupati, Jingyuan Chen
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Helping Patients Navigate Their Healthcare
By Isabelle Thapar
Our team of UC Berkeley undergrads work as patient navigators, scribes, and health coaches to help UCSF patients in need of healthcare support.
Our team of UC Berkeley undergrads work as patient navigators, scribes, and health coaches to help UCSF patients in need of healthcare support. The Patient Advocacy Student Group is the UC Berkeley sister organization of the Patient Support Corps (PSC). The PSC is a service learning program in which UC Berkeley pre-health students serve as unpaid patient navigators while earning academic credit. A formal affiliation agreement between UCSF and UC Berkeley addressed parties' concerns about training, risk management, insurance, security, privacy and confidentiality, academic content, and academic credit. Since 2012, the Patient Support Corps has trained and deployed 137 undergraduates earning academic credit through UC Berkeley's Undergraduate Research Apprentice Program (URAP). Our student interns support UCSF patients in various capacities such as the COVID-19 Hotline, Population Health Outreach, Coaching Calls, Supportive Care Needs, Patient Scribes, and Prehab Pals. Our interns are able to interact directly with patients and healthcare providers to improve the accessibility to healthcare. Our student interns do great work that is largely possible because of previous financial donations. Funds raised would help cover the associated technology and travel costs needed in order for our student group to be able to support UCSF patients. The U.S. Healthcare System, especially at a major hospital, is challenging to navigate. The Patient Advocacy Student Group at UC Berkeley is here to help. Our program recruits and trains UC Berkeley undergraduates to be healthcare navigators, scribes, and health coaches for UCSF Medical Center and its patients, especially populations that face additional barriers to an accessible healthcare experience. Our program is important because we not only provide cost-free support to patients in-need through a variety of departments and programs, but also cultivate future healthcare professionals and develop their competencies in health navigation, patient care, and digital healthcare management systems. Patient Advocacy Student Group organization photo. UC Berkeley undergrads are badged as UCSF interns and integrated into the healthcare system as affiliate employees. This is one of the only universities in the U.S. that affords this opportunity to their undergraduates. Students really take advantage of this amazing experience and enjoy interacting with patients. Here are some testimonials: “This apprenticeship has been the highlight of my time at Berkeley. It has given me a chance to help patients in difficult medical situations, and as a pre-health undergraduate, this is important to me.” “It is a great opportunity to get clinical experience and work with like-minded people who care about creating a change in health care.” “We have a great deal of autonomy when working with patients, and it is also a rewarding experience because the patients really do appreciate the service that we give them.” If you want to support the needs of UCSF patients and enrich the experience and competency of UC Berkeley pre-health students as they make their journey towards a professional career in healthcare, please make a donation! Most of our student teams are currently working remotely, and our program must be able to provide students with the necessary technologies needed to participate in the program (laptops, ethernet cords, WiFi accommodations, headsets, and more). Additionally, funds will be allocated to necessary transport to clinic sites at the UCSF campus. Your donations will be used to help us to pay for these items, so our incoming cohort of students will be able to participate in the program and help patients in need! A screenshot from a UC Berkeley article recognizing our students' commendation from Dr. Talmadge King, Dean of the UCSF School of Medicine for the organization's participation on the UCSF COVID-19 Hotline (2020-2021). UC Berkeley Article - PSC/PASG Budget Breakdown: Required Technology Equipment/Supplies: $300 Clearances: $1300 Other Supplies/Events: $400 If you have any further questions about our program, please contact our Project Leaders at the emails below. We are more than happy to answer any questions! Project Leader Contact Information: Isabelle Thapar: isabellethapar@berkeley.edu Saffanat Sumra: saffy24@berkeley.edu Isha Pema: ipema@berkeley.edu Zain Shabbir: zain.a.shabbir@berkeley.edu Aji Nanda: ajiteshnanda@berkeley.edu Sana Desai: sana.desai@berkeley.edu
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Formula SAE (Fall 2022)
By David Guo
We're a student run team that designs, fabricates, and builds a racecar to compete in Formula SAE, an international collegiate design competition! Go Bears!
We're a student run team that designs, fabricates, and builds a racecar to compete in Formula SAE, an international collegiate design competition! Go Bears! Who We Are We're so happy you took the time to visit our page! We are Berkeley Formula Racing, a student-run organization that designs, builds, and races a single-seat car each year. Our goal is to give our members an opportunity to use what they learn in the classroom in a real-world application. We're thrilled to be able to inspire students and showcase our engineering knowledge. We rely heavily on the donations of people like you to be able to build our car. Since the team’s founding in 2001, we have expanded from a small team to one of the best in the nation. We're proud to have about 70 active members this year from a variety of majors and different backgrounds. Our team is made up of 9 subsystems: Aerodynamics, Brakes & Driver Interface, Business, Chassis, Drivetrain, Engine, Electrical, Suspension, and Vehicle Dynamics. We work to ensure that everyone is welcome on our team, regardless of experience or background. During the Fall semester we enter into the Design Phase in which each subsystem undergoes multiple design reviews with sponsors and alumni to ensure that they are working efficiently toward the goals they set at the beginning of the year. Once design is complete, we begin our Manufacturing Phase. During these two months, student machinists make over 300 unique parts for our vehicle and student welders weld our steel space frame chassis. The rest of our members assist by preparing and assembling steel tubes for chassis welding and fabricating foam molds and carbon fiber sheets for the aerodynamic devices.Once we assemble all these components, we move into the Testing Phase where we work to debug the car, validate our designs, and tune the car for optimal performance. At the end of Testing we will be to able to go to Competition fully prepared in May of next year! STEM education is important to our members because we strive to create opportunities for innovation and education outside of the classroom, which not only help to improve our car for competition but also help improve the our knowledge in design and project management. This would not be possible without sufficient funding so we thank you for your time and consideration. As with everyone, COVID has significantly impacted our team. Several sponsors that we’ve relied on to make up our budget haven’t been able to sustain their support through COVID. That’s why your support is so important, now more than ever. We hope that this crowdfunding campaign will fund us to get the support and parts we need to continue through our design and manufacturing process for B23 this year. Where Your Donation Will Go We need $10,000 to be able to complete our car. To see exactly where your money will go, we’re breaking it down: $3500 - Wheel Package Assembly Our drivetrain team is working on optimizing our wheel centers and machining them using a 5 axis CNC. We need enough sets of wheel assemblies to comfortably test with and run at comp with a set of wets as well! $4000 - Chassis Manufacturing Manufacturing our chassis to our design specifications requires a lot of precisely cut tubes, jigging, and welding. A well made chassis is the foundation of a successful race car. $1000 - Engine Exhaust System We are focusing a lot of attention on our exhaust system this year as we struggled to past to balance noise level and engine performance. We are exploring several strategies to reduce noise without limiting the power of the engine. $1500 - Vehicle Dynamic Sensors e.g. IR Rotor Temperature Using simulations to design our car is only the first step of a successful vehicle. Validating that our designs work in the real world and behave how we expect is essential for safety. Sensors like a brake IR rotor temperature sensor also help to tune the car so we can optimize the performance of the car. We would not be able to succeed without the generosity of our community. We know that this is a hard time for everyone, and we are thankful for anything you are willing and able to donate. Please reach out to us with any questions or comments. Thank you again for your time and support! For any questions or concerns, feel free to reach out to us at calfsae@gmail.com. Check our website out at fsae.berkeley.edu, and follow us on Facebook (facebook.com/calracing) and Instagram (@calformulasae).
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Expanding Your Horizons at Berkeley 2022
By Erin Aisenberg
Help sponsor 5th–8th grade girls’ participation in a day-long EYH conference to inspire and to foster the next generation of STEM women.
Help sponsor 5th–8th grade girls’ participation in a day-long EYH conference to inspire and to foster the next generation of STEM women. Who Are We Expanding Your Horizons at Berkeley is a group of graduate students, post-docs and undergraduate women from a broad range of STEM departments (chemistry, molecular and cellular biology, neuroscience, biophysics, etc), experiences and ethnic backgrounds at UC Berkeley. We want to share our passion for STEM subjects with younger women and girls, to encourage them to pursue STEM subjects in their future studies and careers. In the United States, cultural gender stereotypes dictate that women are less capable of excelling in STEM fields than men. This stereotype manifests in both an achievement gap for girls at the K-12 level in STEM subjects, as well as in the underrepresentation of women in STEM professions. Research has shown that particularly middle school represents a critical period in which young women first begin to question whether STEM subjects are “for them” and lose interest in STEM fields. EYH at Berkeley aims to encourage middle school girls to explore and participate in STEM activities by giving them access to education and mentorship from women in STEM fields, reducing the attrition of young women from science and mathematics fields. Founded in 2012, EYH at Berkeley hosts an annual conference where over 300 middle school girls from the East Bay Area community have the opportunity to visit the UC Berkeley campus and explore STEM subjects through hands-on workshops led by female mentors that are experts in their fields. The EYH conference offers an exciting keynote speaker, a full day of hands-on workshops, and opportunities for the girls to closely interact with undergraduate and graduate student mentors working in STEM related fields. The 2022 conference featured 15 unique and engaging workshops that were prepared and supervised throughout the day by 156 volunteers from a wide range of STEM departments of the UC Berkeley campus including: Code for Life Let’s talk about DNA – what actually is DNA? Why do genetic differences matter? Most importantly, how do your genes make you YOU? In this workshop, we’ll use hands-on activities to learn about these questions and more. Science of Slime We all love to play with slime, but how do you make it? In this workshop you will become an engineer at a toy company! We will conduct a series of stretchiness and bounciness experiments to make the perfect slime. Edible Water Capsules: Replacing Single-Use Plastics Disposable plastics – we use them once, then we throw them away! How can we replace these plastics with similar but more sustainable materials? This workshop will let you make your own edible water capsules, learn about green chemistry, and explore solutions to the single-use plastics problem. 2022 Conference On Saturday March 12th, the UC Berkeley Chapter of Expanding Your Horizons hosted our eleventh annual conference. After having our 2021 in a remote format, we were extremely lucky to be able to organize our 2022 conference in person on the beautiful UC Berkeley campus this March. We had the opportunity to reach 230 young science enthusiasts from various schools around the Bay Area. The participants had the chance to immerse themselves in a full day of hands-on exploration, ranging from introductions to food science and animal behavioral studies to the basics of computer science. The fifteen workshops were prepared and supervised throughout the day by volunteers from a wide range of STEM departments of the UC Berkeley campus. The day was topped off by our keynote speaker, Dr. Vanessa Pirotta. Dr. Pirotta is a wildlife scientist and science communicator who authored the children’s book “The voyage of whale and calf”. Throughout her career, Dr. Pirotta has been a champion for STEM education and women’s representation in the sciences. Her work has been recognized by foundations and educational programs internationally. Vanessa shared her story from how she became interested in STEM when she was young to the exciting research she has done using drones to catch "whale snot" and the opportunities she has had in pursuing her love of whales. She encouraged the audience to pursue their passions and that all have a place in STEM with their different backgrounds and stories. Additionally, 54 of our participants’ parents registered to attend the parents’ workshop aiming to provide information and guidance in encouraging their children to further their STEM education. Importantly, our organization is committed to making the conference accessible and fair to those from underrepresented and disadvantaged backgrounds. For the second time, this year, thanks to the generosity of our sponsors, we were able to offer the conference free of charge to all participants who applied to waive the registration fee. How Your Support Helps Despite the hundreds of volunteers that will donate their time to the EYH conference, it still costs over $25,000 to provide a day of interactive learning for over four hundred girls (this amounts to less than $60 per participant!). We are committed to ensuring the conference remains accessible for all young women and therefore ask for only $15 per student in registration fees. Furthermore, we are committed to honoring every single scholarship request. Your donation to the EYH conference at Berkeley will have a significant impact on our ability to inspire the next generation of female scientists, engineers, and mathematicians. With your support, we hope to be able to offer 300 conference scholarships to young girls across the Bay Area, ensuring that our STEM education program is accessible regardless of socioeconomic status. 2016 – 466 registered 2017 – 461 registered 2018 – 390 registered 2019 – 428 registered 2020 – 450 registered 2021 – 236 registered 2022 – 275 registered We are seeking $4,500 to sponsor 300 girls to participate in the conference. The cost for each girl to attend the conference is $15 which includes an EYH at Berkeley T-shirt, all the necessary materials sent to them for workshops they are interested in, and mentorship from UC Berkeley graduate students, post-docs, and undergraduates in STEM. Additionally, all parents will have the opportunity to participate in a parents’ workshop to learn how to support and prepare their child for a college education and explore ways to foster their interest in STEM fields. Your support for the EYH conference at Berkeley will have a significant impact on our ability to inspire the next generation of female scientists, engineers, and mathematicians. Please consider donating and sharing our page with your friends and family! Thank you! Keep in touch with Expanding Your Horizons at Berkeley by following our social media pages below! Website: https://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~eyh/index.html Instagram: @eyhatberkeley https://www.instagram.com/eyhatberkeley/ Facebook: Expanding Your Horizons at Berkeley Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/EYHatBerkeley/ Twitter: @EYHatBerkeley https://twitter.com/eyhatberkeley?lang=en Questions? Email us at eyhberkeleyinfo@gmail.com or contact Erin Aisenberg, co-chair of the Finance team, directly at erinaisenberg@berkeley.edu. Want to learn more about the network of Expanding Your Horizons conferences powered by Techbridge girls? Visit their website!
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ANova Hacks 2023
By Abigail Yu
ANova Hacks is a free overnight hackathon for students from under-resourced high schools, designed to change the way they view computer science.
ANova Hacks is a free overnight hackathon for students from under-resourced high schools, designed to change the way they view computer science. Our team hopes to raise $4,000 for our annual hackathon. We will use the money to provide the best hackathon experience for our students from under-resourced backgrounds. Would you be interested in supporting our cause? A hackathon is rooted in the simple but complex world of “creation.” During hackathons, teams come together to bring one of their own ideas into tangible reality using technology. Regardless of their interest in computer science, students are exposed to the wonders of technology and its impact on our world. Together, we can inspire the next generation of innovators to hack to new heights! Every semester, ANova puts on a hackathon for students in underserved communities. This year, ANova Hacks 2023 will be a fully in-person, overnight, free-of-charge event designed to change the way our students think about computer science. We want to give them the skills and experience necessary to achieve their career aspirations, and spread their ideas to the world through technology. Shay Ma, one of our organizers, helps a hacker at ANova Hacks 2022 The majority of our students have grown up with little to no exposure to computer science, higher education, and the technology industry. We hope to not only transform the spark of an idea into a prototype, but also to ignite a passion for computer science in our participants. By presenting a firsthand look at virtual reality, gaming, web development, and more, we provide students with an exciting look into the forefront of technological innovation. ANova Hacks merges the fundamental computer science techniques taught at our weekly site visits with events geared towards the construction of a project. Panels and workshops about financial aid, college life and the application process inspire students to pursue higher education in one of their passions. We offer students knowledge and advice from successful, experienced industry leaders as well as mentorship from passionate UC Berkeley students. Most of all, ANova Hacks is about forming friendships with our students so that they have the resources they need to achieve their goals. Oftentimes, hackers who attend hackathons have prior experience and have been able to be exposed to the infinite possibilities out there. Computer science has consistently been more prevalent in communities with access to computers and prior knowledge about the tech industry. However, a significant amount of potential computer scientists don’t have access to these opportunities, and that’s where ANova Hacks fits in: a hackathon specially for students in under-resourced communities to show every one of them that they can change the world through the power of technology. We hope to empower our students so that they can transcend any limits and ignite a passion towards becoming an engineer in the future. We hope that you can be a part of this journey and help make this possible for our students! Our hackathon aims to empower our students to use technology for social good. Through ANova Hacks, we aim to give them the skills and experience necessary to spread their ideas to the world. We imagine a diverse tech industry where age, gender and background do not limit one’s ability to pursue computer science, and ANova Hacks aims to make that a reality. To introduce our students to various kinds of technologies they may be able to use throughout the hackathon, we will bring in industry experts and host a variety of workshops. Last year, we held an in-person hackathon and hosted workshops on topics ranging from financial aid in higher education to lessons on design prototyping and mobile development. Our experienced ANova members also led workshops on web development, game development, and introductory Python and Java. At ANova Hacks 2023, we hope to bring even more interesting and enlightening workshops to our students, such as sessions on computer security and machine learning. To make this valuable experience accessible to our students, we host this hackathon free of charge. We ultimately look to raise around $10,000 for our hackathon so that we can provide fun workshops, mentorship, and awesome prizes for our hackers in a safe and spacious venue. The $4,000 from crowdfunding is only the first step in our journey to providing students with a safe, encouraging environment to work, learn, and have fun! Our goal for this crowdfunding campaign is to raise enough money to fund our venue for the hackathon and be able to provide an amazing experience to our students free of charge. If we raise over $4,000, we'll spend that money towards providing students with BART tickets to attend the hackathon! Your support will help make this possible. Please donate today! Every year, several students were unable to attend ANova Hacks due to conflicts with transportation to and from the venue. With extra funding, we’d like to encourage more students to attend our event by covering their transportation fees. We hope that you’ll be a part of our movement to inspire as many students as possible with computer science, mentorship, and a supportive, hands-on learning environment! To truly expose our students to what industry is like, ANova has partnered with industry leaders like Google, Facebook, and HackerEarth in previous years to provide swag and panelists for our hackathon. This year is no different and we plan to seek sponsorships with various industry leaders in order to continue giving our students a first-hand glimpse into the industry. Our sponsors have made previous hackathons possible with their invaluable experience in helping out with workshops and panels to give our students the full experience. We would like to thank them below for making previous ANova Hacks amazing: Facebook Google Microsoft Dropbox Databricks Workday IBM .tech Domains HackerEarth Trader Joe's Chipotle ANova is a registered student organization in UC Berkeley dedicated to improving computer science education in under-resourced communities across the Bay Area. We partner with middle and high school teachers and administrators to develop curriculum catered individually for each classroom. Our outreach and mentorship efforts strive to make computer science education and opportunities within computer science more equitable, available, and achievable for students of all backgrounds. ANova Fall 2022! We currently reach out to over 120 students at 8 different middle/high school programs. To be considered for our program, each one of these schools must provide above 40% free and reduced lunch. Every site has its own curriculum catered to its own specific needs. As part of our mission, we also host two large events annually: a semester-long college mentorship program (CMP) in the fall, where high school seniors are paired with an ANova mentor to guide them through the college admissions process, as well as ANova Hacks in the spring. Help ANova fund a 24-hour hackathon for under-resourced students and spread the love for computer science! Please make a gift today! Thank you for your support! If you have any further questions, comments, or concerns, contact Shay (shayma@berkeley.edu) or Abby (abigailmyu@berkeley.edu). To find out more about us, visit us at https://www.berkeleyanova.org/, facebook.com/BerkeleyANova, and check out our Instagram @berkeleyanova!
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Berkeley Scientific Journal FA ‘22
By UC Berkeley
BSJ, the premier undergraduate research journal, publishes Cal undergrad research, interviews with faculty, and features articles on science topics.
BSJ, the premier undergraduate research journal, publishes Cal undergrad research, interviews with faculty, and features articles on science topics. Who we are: BSJ is the premier undergraduate research journal of the University of California, Berkeley. Every semester, our undergraduate staff publishes independent research done by undergraduates at UC Berkeley, interviews with faculty members, and features articles on current issues in science. All research papers and features articles are reviewed by faculty members. The initial purpose of the journal was to provide an official forum in which Berkeley undergraduates could publish their independent research. But since its inception in 1996, the purpose of the journal has expanded to give the Berkeley scientific community a better understanding of how events here at Berkeley impact global concerns. The focus of the journal is broad, spanning scientific disciplines ranging from ecology to engineering, and from astronomy to biochemistry. Our intended audience includes, but is not limited to, UC Berkeley students, faculty, and the surrounding community. A new issue of BSJ is published twice a year on eScholarship, Issuu, and our website! Our members at the Bay Area Science Festival! Distributing copies of our journal on the Berkeley campus! This year, the dream of our editorial team is to 1) increase BSJ readership as much as possible both inside and outside the Berkeley community, 2) host large-scale guest speaker events on campus, and 3) secure enough funding to publish our issues in print. Each BSJ issue represents the dedication and talent of our students who produce interesting and high-quality work. To break it down further, $1500 will go towards printing and shipping costs, and the remaining $500 will go towards guest speaking events and club socials. Make a gift today to help make this a reality for BSJ! About our club members: Our majors: Our favorite Science Publications: Where we're from: Learn more about us through our social media! Website: bsj.berkeley.edu Instagram: @bsj.berkeley Facebook: Berkeley Scientific Please reach out to bsj.berkeley@gmail.com if you have any other questions!
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Kidney Disease Screening and Awareness Program (Fall 2022)
By Kundhan Dasari
We provide free kidney disease screenings and awareness events in underserved communities across the Bay Area to reduce high rates of kidney disease.
We provide free kidney disease screenings and awareness events in underserved communities across the Bay Area to reduce high rates of kidney disease. Who are we? We are the Kidney Disease Screening and Awareness Program, or KDSAP! Our organization addresses the issue of the high rates of kidney disease in the Bay Area, which is our main geographic target due to its proximity to our base location in Berkeley, CA. In the United States, 1 in 3 adults is at risk for Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD), and CKD is also the 9th leading cause of death. CKD is an often overlooked disease since major symptoms only become apparent during the final stages of the disease, when kidney damage is irreversible. However, by providing early detection and awareness about the causes of CKD, Berkeley KDSAP aims to decrease the prevalence of this “silent killer” disease. Minority populations are often at higher risk of CKD, and we have decided to concentrate our efforts in the Bay Area, where a lot of minority populations reside. The services that we provide are open to all, but the populations that we most actively target are Asian Americans, African Americans, and Hispanic communities, because these populations are at higher risk for kidney disease. As a student organization, we rely on fundraising and community grants in order to carry out our mission. What we do As an organization, we have two primary objectives: to hold kidney screenings throughout the Bay Area and organize awareness events for the public to learn more about how to maintain good kidney health. Our work addresses and advances health equity by ensuring that all the services that we provide (e.g. screenings, awareness events) are free and open to everyone. We also try to distribute information about these events to as wide of an audience as possible and make targeted efforts to reach the underserved in our community by working with community centers, churches, and other non-profit organizations to publicize our services to those who need it the most. For our screenings, we partner with physicians who provide one-on-one consultations with patients. We are also mentored by physicians from UCSF who help teach us information about kidney health and work with us to organize our screenings. We are a rapidly growing organization, and in the past 2 years have expanded the number of screenings we hold per year and the locations in which we hold them. We plan to hold 8 screenings a year, but due to the cost of screening supplies in conjunction with advertising, transportation, and other costs, our current sources of funding will not be sufficient to reach this goal. We would greatly appreciate your help as we work towards increasing engagement with the community and making a positive impact on more people’s health. Please make a gift today to support our mission! What your money will go towards Your donation will go towards the purchase of supplies such as urinalysis (urine test) machines, gloves, and glucometers (to measure blood sugar) that will allow us to conduct health procedures at our screenings, as well as train the volunteers who staff our screenings. We also plan on using funds to print outreach pamphlets and promotional fliers and to boost our social media advertisements, so we can publicize our screenings and awareness events to a broader audience. By donating to our organization, you will help provide the public with more information about an often overlooked disease, and will help people all around the Bay Area improve their health! Stay connected with us Learn more about us at our website and follow our social medial for regular updates! Facebook: UC Berkeley KDSAP Instagram: @berkeleykdsap Twitter: @berkeleykdsap #BerkeleyKDSAP Thank you for all of your support! Please share our page and help us reach our goal!!
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Engineers and Mentors of Berkeley (BEAM) (Fall 2022)
By UC Berkeley
BEAM inspires the next generation of scientists and engineers. Help us provide interactive STEM lessons for Bay Area K-8 students of all backgrounds!
BEAM inspires the next generation of scientists and engineers. Help us provide interactive STEM lessons for Bay Area K-8 students of all backgrounds! Berkeley Engineers and Mentors (BEAM) fuses science education with mentorship by leading weekly hands-on science and engineering lessons at local elementary and middle schools. UC Berkeley undergraduate students provide accessible science education to our local communities in hopes of inspiring students of all socioeconomic backgrounds to pursue careers in STEM. We give a path for underrepresented students in public schools a chance to be introduced to STEM subjects through interactive and fun projects. Through our organization, we teach at 17 public elementary and middle schools in the local Berkeley and Oakland area—teaching over 300 students a week. As we continue to grow our organization, we are looking for financial support to buy more supplies for our lessons and to help fund transportation costs to and from the schools we teach. From taste-receptor altering Miraculin to popsicle sticks for our classic Marshmallow Catapult lesson, BEAM’s interactive curriculum relies heavily on using various school supplies—encouraging students to explore scientific concepts and engineering principles with their own hands. In addition, we are looking to grow the BEAM program within East Bay, having expanded into two new schools this semester alone. As we venture further to provide accessible STEM education, BEAM seeks more sustainable and effective transportation solutions to reach young students for our weekly lessons. We ask for your support through donations or through sharing our project page as we pursue our mission of equitable STEM education for elementary and middle school students throughout the Berkeley and Oakland area. 100% of ALL proceeds go to BEAM’s mission through funds for expenses, including transportation and club materials. To stay up-to-date on BEAM happenings or to hear more stories about our mentors, follow our Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/beam.teach/) or visit our website (https://beam.berkeley.edu/). BEAM’s budget covers several different expenses. The majority of our budget will be used for lesson materials and transportation. Each semester we have 10+ lessons at several different schools. Each lesson requires us to plan and purchase materials such that every student has the chance to experiment and build. BEAM covers all transportation costs to get our mentors to their respective elementary and middle school sites. Expenses for risk management are used for fingerprinting and background checks for our Berkeley mentors who go to site. Finally, advertising/recruitment expenses support our initiatives to get more UC Berkeley students to join our team.
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Cal Women's Club Lacrosse Fall 2022
By Rachel Fong
Donate today to support Cal Women's Club Lacrosse's goal to foster a supportive environment where we can continue playing the sport we love!
Donate today to support Cal Women's Club Lacrosse's goal to foster a supportive environment where we can continue playing the sport we love! The Cal Women's Club Lacrosse team offers our players the chance to play the sport we love at a competitive level against other California club lacrosse teams. We are a student created and student run team with a passion for the game. We would like to raise money for the club in order to allow us to attend tournaments, travel for games, pay our incredible coaching staff, team building and bonding activities, and help us build and grow the team further. Our team was founded in 2008 as a Division II club lacrosse team. After just our second year, we won the WWLL Division II Championship and WDIA Division II Championship in California. We have since moved up to the Division I level, where we compete against other California club programs, including Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, University of Southern California, University of California, Santa Barbara, San Diego State University, St. Mary’s University, and more. Our team for the fall consists of different grade levels and fields of study across campus. We are an incredibly academic and athletic group of women, and lacrosse has helped us play the game we love, and make friends for life, while continuing to learn teamwork and leadership skills. Together, we hope to allow more women to have the opportunity to play an incredible sport, develop leadership and teamwork skills, and overall create a community at strong and tight knit Cal. Please consider making a donation today & sharing this page! By supporting our team, you will be supporting a positive community in which women can develop lifelong skills and friendships, while pursuing their academic interests and having fun playing lacrosse, regardless of financial situation. Here’s what your donation can help us cover this season! For questions or concerns, contact: calclublacrosse@gmail.com Check out our website: http://www.calclublacrosse.org/ Follow us on Instagram! @calwclublax
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Fastpitch Softball at Berkeley Fall 2022
By Faith Cuellar
Help fund our second season! Donating will help us book field time, buy practice equipment, and pay league dues this Fall.
Help fund our second season! Donating will help us book field time, buy practice equipment, and pay league dues this Fall. Hello! We are Berkeley's only fastpitch softball club! We are a group of college-aged women who love softball and want to provide the opportunity for experienced players to play fastpitch softball as well as teaching new players more about the sport. We first started this organization back in 2019, but due to COVID this will only be our second season playing. This semester, we will have regular practices and scrimmages so that we can prepare to compete in our NCSA tournaments this Spring. We won six out of 12 games last semester, and we are looking to do even better this year! We are depending on your support to pay league dues, purchase equipment, rent practice space, and travel to games. Help us reach our goals! Here are some items we are fundraising for this year: League dues for this semester: $1,350 Team uniforms: $600 Field rentals (Home games): $720 Travel (Away games): $400 Umpire payments: $1,120 Total: $4,190 Our fundraising goal is $2,200. We will use money left over from last semester, plus this semester's fundraising, to cover these expenses for the year. Suggested Donations $20 will buy the team gatorade or snacks $35 will give us one hour of game time $54 will pay league dues for one player $93 will cover an umpire's salary for one home game $163 will completely pay for one home game If you have any questions, you can contact us at berkeleyclubsoftball@gmail.com, or message our leadership team: Captain: Emily Ramey, emily_ramey@berkeley.edu Co-president: Maddie Heath, madisonh@berkeley.edu Co-president: Faith Cuellar, fcuellar@berkeley.edu Treasurer: Lianne Wong, liwong10@berkeley.edu Secretary: Jennah Brown, jb0055@berkeley.edu Fundraising: Mireya Vargas, mireya_va25@berkeley.edu Outreach: Joelle de Leon, joelledeleon@berkeley.edu You can also follow us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/calclubsoftball/ Photos from our last season:
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Cal Men's Lacrosse Team
By Liam Pakola
The Cal Men's Lacrosse team has been a student-run organization since 1964. With your support, we hope to raise money for this incredible program!
The Cal Men's Lacrosse team has been a student-run organization since 1964. With your support, we hope to raise money for this incredible program! Hi Cal Lacrosse family, friends, and fans! Last year, we went 12-4 and made it to the WCLL finals but lost in a close game to Cal Poly and just missed out from the MCLA national tournament. We're really excited about our team this year and are looking to get back to the MCLA national tournament where Cal Men's Lacrosse belongs. To succeed this year, we will need not only hard work on the field but also the support of the entire Cal Men’s Lacrosse community. We need your help. As a club sports team, we receive minimal assistance from the University - less than 1% of our annual operating costs. In order to pay for our coaching staff, equipment and uniforms, team travel, game fees, and services like stadium staff, we depend upon a combination of player dues and donations. In fact, half of our income comes from donations from alumni, family and friends! They are vital to our existence and vital to our success. Can you make a gift today to help us remain competitive? Your donation will help the club pay for coaches, game fees, and essential player equipment like jerseys and gear. Please make a gift today! Thank you for supporting Cal Men's Lacrosse. Go Bears! Your donation at work: $3,000 - Player Scholarship $2,000 - 1 night in a hotel for Team $1,000 - Team meal $500 - Player pack $200 - Helmet $100 - Gloves $50 - Hoodie $25 - Game Day T-shirt Stay in touch with us! Facebook - California Men’s Lacrosse Twitter - @CalBearsLax Instagram - @calmenslax
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Blueprint: Developing Technology for Nonprofits
By Jared Keating
Blueprint strives to make technology accessible and useful for those who create communities and promote public welfare.
Blueprint strives to make technology accessible and useful for those who create communities and promote public welfare. Code for Social Impact. Design for Social Impact. Build for Social Impact. Our team is hoping to raise $6000 to fund our efforts to develop technology solutions for local and global nonprofit organizations. Would you be interested in helping us on our mission to help others? Read more down below! Tech for Social Good Blueprint is a club at UC Berkeley that develops pro-bono apps for nonprofits and promotes tech for social good. Our mission is to make beautiful engineering accessible and useful for those who create communities and promote public welfare. Each year, we work with non-profit organizations to help them better serve their communities. The four nonprofits we are working with this semester are Chinese Newcomers Service Center, Vouchers 4 Veggies, Cultural Survival, and the Berkeley Student Cooperative! Chinese Newcomers Service Center Chinese Newcomers Service Center (CNSC) provides multilingual services that can help Chinese Immigrants adapt to life in the United States. CNSC serves are a bridge between the two cultures, enhancing the physical, mental, social, and economic well-being of immigrants, thus facilitating their efforts to become self-sufficient members of the community. This project involved building a multilingual mobile application that allows Chinese immigrants to browse and apply to jobs. The app will also support employer and admin permissions for posting and updating opportunities. We aim to reduce the limitations of WeChat and spreadsheets currently used by CNSC. Vouchers 4 Veggies Vouchers 4 Veggies (V4V) is a San Francisco based food program that aims to increase access to healthy and affordable foods for low-income individuals and families by providing free vouchers for fruit and vegetables. V4V partners with dozens of local grocers and farmers markets to address the unique food insecurity issues in San Francisco. The project involves building a mobile application that allows vendors to submit voucher data via QR code. This app will allow administrators to see voucher data and update vendor invoices. This project will help streamline logistical operations for vendors and V4V admin, letting them better focus on people facing food insecurity. Cultural Survival Cultural Survival is an Indigenous-led NGO that advocates for Indigenous Peoples' rights and supports Indigenous communities’ self-determination, cultures, and political resilience. For the past 50 years, Cultural Survival has partnered with Indigenous communities across 70+ countries, providing support through grants, advocacy, and community building. The goal of our project is to build an offline-friendly mobile application to store indigenous audio content and community resources. The app will allow users to search, download, and listen to podcasts in their chosen language, aiming to replace Cultural Survival’s current method of distributing podcasts via USBs. Berkeley Student Cooperative For nearly 90 years, the Berkeley Student Cooperative (BSC) has provided a quality, low-cost, cooperative housing community to university students who might not otherwise be able to afford a university education. BSC strongly prompts the values of anti-discrimination and access to education; it currently provides meals and/or housing to over 1300 Berkeley students. The goal of our project is to build a work shift management web application that will allow co-op students to submit their shift preferences, view assigned tasks, and submit proof upon completion. It will also allow admin to assign tasks to students and track their progress. We aim to streamline BSC’s task tracking to replace an outdated process and reduce their logistical burden. Community Outreach Blueprint makes big strides in sparking conversations on campus to help bring students, academia, nonprofits, and companies together. Blueprint fosters a warm, diverse, and inclusive culture around technology, and we want to share this perspective with the large UC Berkeley community. Some of our past projects include Hack for Social Impact Summit and our Bloom Mentorship Program. This semester, our focus will be continuing our Social Impact Summit series. Sponsorships Our sponsors and partners help make what we do at Blueprint a reality! Please consider supporting us on our mission to help others! The funds raised will go towards our expenses for technology and spreading our mission with our surrounding communities. Our budget breakdown is as followed: Venue: $2500.00 Technology: $1500.00 Marketing: $250.00 Travel: $1000.00 Food: $500.00 Swag: $250.00 Thank you for your time and support! Learn more about us at https://calblueprint.org!
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Bringing Anime, Game, and Film Music to the Bay
By Sydney Wong
The Intermission Orchestra brings anime, game, and film music to the Bay. Help us to share the music through more performances and venues!
The Intermission Orchestra brings anime, game, and film music to the Bay. Help us to share the music through more performances and venues! The Intermission Orchestra at Berkeley is a student-run organization dedicated to building a community for anime, game, and film enthusiasts and sharing our passions with the Cal community and broader Bay area through our music and performances. As a group funded through private sources, we depend on the generosity of our donors. Throughout the academic year, Intermission practices twice a week to rehearse orchestra music and prepare our ensemble performances for our Fall, Winter, and Spring concerts. We have always held these concerts for free for the community because we believe that the sharing of music should have no limits and are driven to demonstrate the unifying force of experiencing live music performances. Outside of preparing for our seasonal concerts, Intermission members perform at events local to the Cal campus, like Cal Animage’s Anime Destiny, as well as throughout the Bay, including Japanese cultural events in collaboration with libraries and hospitals and weddings for fellow anime/game/film enthusiasts! Through all these opportunities we have been able to really grow as musicians, and spread a sense of community within our organization and beyond. We hope to continue serving our communities, as well as reach towards bigger and brighter stages to share our passion for anime, game, and film music. We are grateful for the opportunities we have had so far to share our music and serve our communities. As we pass through Intermission’s 5th Anniversary this fall, we are working to book a larger venue for our end-of-year Spring concert to allow for more of the community to join us. Furthermore, to deliver a higher quality of performances at our concerts, we hope to upgrade our sound equipment to provide the best audio experience at our concerts, as well as upgrade our photography and video equipment to improve our content for the community to engage with us even when they can’t attend our performances in person. Beyond that, we hope to be able to support our members by subsidizing transportation costs to perform at venues anywhere throughout the Bay. We have even grander visions of one day being able to travel throughout California, the US, and even internationally to show our appreciation for anime, games, and film music that are a worldwide phenomenon. In order to continue growing, we ask for the generosity of individuals so we may perform at new venues, travel to entertain new fans, and upgrade our equipment. As the Intermission Orchestra continues to grow and spread our outreach around the world, we strive to use our performance opportunities and new equipment to teach members new skills and build their repertoire as musicians. During this campaign, we really hope you can join us on this new chapter of the Intermission Orchestra’s journey! Through your support, we hope to raise at least $2,500 to support our members traveling to performances throughout the Bay, new audio and video equipment for our staff, and a venue at Hertz Hall for our end-of-year concert. Budget Breakdown: $300 for travel $700 for equipment $1500 for venues Will you make a tax-deductible donation today to support the Intermission Orchestra and help us lay the foundations for spreading Intermission’s reach throughout the Bay and beyond? Your donations will help make the dreams come true for a one-of-kind community of musicians, artists, audio engineers, photographers, videographers, and anime, game, and film enthusiasts! Thank you so much for taking the time to learn about our orchestra. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us at intermissionberkeley@gmail.com! Socials: Facebook: @IntermissionBerkeley Twitter and Instagram: @tioatcal
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Send Cal Women's Club Soccer to Nationals!
By Hayes Nguyen
Help get these bears to Texas this November to compete in the National Soccer Championship Tournament!
Help get these bears to Texas this November to compete in the National Soccer Championship Tournament! Send Cal Women’s Club Soccer to Nationals!! Celebrating a win at Nationals in Alabama With the new season ahead of us, we need your support more than ever to help our team get to Nationals! A few years ago we had one of the most successful Crowdfunding campaigns ever. Will you help us set a record? The Women's Club Soccer Team was founded back in 1995 and our club has been going strong ever since. Our team is entirely student-run and organized. All aspects of the team, from coaching to scheduling to fundraising to travel, are coordinated by our student club officers. Learn about a few of these leaders in the bios section! Today, our program boasts two teams and over 40 players. In the fall and spring, all of our players train and compete against other top teams in California and on the west coast. Our A team competes in the West Coast Soccer Association (WCSA) Premier League, and our B team in the WCSA Second League. We host tryouts at the beginning of the fall and spring semesters--attracting talent from all over the world who are pursuing their studies at UC Berkeley. Every fall season we strive to compete in the NIRSA Regionals (SLO) and the National Tournament (Phoenix, AZ or Foley, AL). In past years, we’ve also competed in the UCLA tournament, San Diego Aztec Tournament, and the Santa Barbara Tournament. Unfortunately, competing isn't cheap; every year we collect dues from our players to help cover expenses like uniforms and equipment, league and tournament fees, and travel costs (gas, rental cars, flights, hotels). To make competitive soccer more accessible, we rely on support from the community to support the program and players. This campaign is primarily focused on making it financially possible for us to send a team to Nationals! Our players appreciate any and all of your support. Check out the following graphic to see where most of your support will go this year: More About Our History We traveled to our first out-of-state tournament in Colorado during our 2002-2003 season and this was also the first time we attended Nationals! In 2004 we were the West Coast Regional Champions and National Quarter-Finalists. Two years later, in 2006, we reached the Quarter-Finals of Nationals. In 2007, our team placed second in the Open Bracket at Nationals, and went on to suffer a heartbreaking loss in the quarterfinals at Nationals in 2009. In 2010 we fought our way to the Final of the Nationals Open Bracket in Arizona but tragically lost. The Cal Women's Soccer club went to the National Open Bracket Finals in Fall 2011, placing second just behind Mizzou. We went on to win the 2012 Spring League Cup. In Fall 2012 at Nationals in Memphis, Tennessee, we advanced the farthest in our 17-year history, placing 17th in the nation in the Championship Bracket. Since Spring 2016 our team has held the 1st place position in the WCSA league; claiming the title for five consecutive seasons. The teams also became finalists at the 2017 UCLA Tournament, and qualified for the Elite 8 of the NIRSA Open Bracket at Nationals. Since being established in 1995 Cal Women's Club Soccer has become a force to be reckoned with in NIRSA club soccer. GO BEARS!! Contact Us! Instagram: @calwomensclubsoccer Team Website: https://calwomensclubsoccer.weebly.com/contact.html Club Email: calwomensclubsoccer@gmail.com Co-President Mylinh Vu: mylinhvu@berkeley.edu Co-President Hayes Nguyen: haileyanguyen@berkeley.edu Late-night practices at California Memorial Stadium!
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Cal Equestrian Fundraiser | Fall 2022
By Noah Rojas-Domke
Cal Equestrian was born to directly challenge the notion that horseback riding is for the wealthy and privileged.
Cal Equestrian was born to directly challenge the notion that horseback riding is for the wealthy and privileged. Cal Equestrian was born to directly challenge the notion that horseback riding is for the wealthy and privileged. Our competitions are structured such that all riders, whether they have competed in Grands Prix or never ridden a horse before, will have a chance to compete and win points as an individual and for the team. At IHSA competitions, team members compete on the hosting school’s horses. This means you don’t need to own a horse to compete, which significantly reduces the cost of riding. We try to keep our team dues as low as possible to make the equestrian sport affordable and accessible for our members. This unfortunately means that they barely cover the cost of the lessons and membership dues, let alone horse care, riding apparel, travel, and more. Thanks to the personal sacrifices and hard work of our team members and supporters, Cal Equestrian has been able to stay running and we have become increasingly competitive in recent years. In 2019, two of our riders won at the regional competition to qualify for zone finals (which include all qualified riders from Washington State, Oregon, California, Colorado, Montana, Arizona, Utah, Wyoming, Kansas, Nebraska, and British Columbia). Come 2020, three of our riders qualified for zone finals. Unfortunately due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we were unable to compete in the 2020-21 and 2021-22 seasons, but we hope that with your help, we will be able to have great success in the 2022-23 show season, and hopefully make it to nationals. Budget Breakdown: $1000: Team member scholarships $300: Travel and show expenses $200: Team apparel and equipment $500: Community and educational events As our riders work hard to improve, we hope to ensure that everyone can afford to practice and compete, but we cannot do it alone. Through your generous donations, you will support a radical change in equestrian competition, leveling the playing field and allowing riders of all backgrounds and experience levels to have their shot at the blue ribbon. Follow us on: Instagram: @cal_equestrian or visit our website: https://equestrian.berkeley.edu/
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Cal Lightweight Rowing (Fall 2022)
By Anthony Zhou
Cal Lightweight Rowing is raising money to fund a championship-winning team. Help us foster new athletes and further the sport of rowing at Cal!
Cal Lightweight Rowing is raising money to fund a championship-winning team. Help us foster new athletes and further the sport of rowing at Cal! About The Team Cal Lightweight Rowing is a team with more than 50 years of history, dedicated to growing and fostering athletes as well as competing on a national level. Since its founding, the team has now includes over 50 men and women who train six days a week, enduring early mornings and arduous workouts for a love of rowing and the camaraderie of crewmates. The team prides itself on inclusion; we will teach and train any student interested enough to commit to the team as a part of a larger mission to expand the sport of rowing and its benefits to the Berkeley community. To meet our goals of developing competitive athletes alongside fostering new ones, the team relies heavily on the generosity of family, friends, and alumni for the necessary resources. Money for purchasing oars and boats, renting a boathouse, and even providing financial aid to rowers comes directly from donations, and your contribution will go towards not only keeping us afloat, but ensuring we can win nationally. Last spring, our varsity men won their first regional championship in nearly 5 years and went on to compete on a national stage. This season, we hope to build on this success with an expanded roster of athletes, new equipment, and hiring additional coaching staff. The team is at its largest in decades and poised for a historic season, but we need the funds to make this a reality. Please consider donating to help support our team! The Cal Lights at the Western Intercollegiate Rowing Association Championships! What Your Money Goes Towards As a rowing team, we operate on a similar scale and compete against fully funded school programs across the nation. Yet despite being self-funded, we still face similar costs: in the next season alone, we are projected to need over 75,000 dollars to remain competitive and build a nationally recognized program. A cost breakdown of our 2022-2023 season. Thank you for your support, we would not be here without you! Reach us at callightweightrowing@gmail.com or any of our social media! Website Instagram Facebook
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Cal Ballroom fall ‘22
By Kat Smoot
Help us provide lessons and shoes to our new dancers, host our annual competition, and make ballroom as accessible as possible.
Help us provide lessons and shoes to our new dancers, host our annual competition, and make ballroom as accessible as possible. Cal Ballroom is UC Berkeley's competitive ballroom dance team. We have been introducing Berkeley students to the world of ballroom dance for over 20 years, by providing lessons, coaches, and hosting two competitions a year. Our members learn ten dances, including International Standard dances like waltz, tango, and foxtrot; and International Latin dances like cha cha and samba. Members from our team attend competitions across the state and the country, and have placed and won at national competitions. Giving our members the opportunity to compete at this level takes an enormous amount of resources. Additionally, the pandemic took a heavy toll - we could not hold practices for two years, and almost all of our intermediate and advanced dancers graduated in that time. We hope to regrow a community of dancers from the ground up and provide quality dance education. To continue to hire our professional coaches and host our major intercollegiate competition, we need your support. In the past year, despite our smaller team and substantially increased competition costs, we were still able to maintain our quality coaches and host our competition. However, it was a significant strain on our resources. We hope to raise money to provide scholarship funds and subsidies for team members this year. This will make lessons with coaches more accessible, and allow members to travel more for competitions. We want to help as many people as possible have the opportunity to dance. Ballroom can be an expensive sport, so we do our best to make it accessible for our fellow students and our community. We are a large and incredibly close-knit group, so the gratitude of even one student helped is multiplied throughout the team. Our team loves dancing more than anything, so please help us continue to dance by sending a gift! Thank you for your support, from all of us at Cal Ballroom! If you are interested in learning more about Cal Ballroom, please visit our team’s webpage at ballroom.berkeley.edu. You can also visit us on Facebook or Instagram (@calballroom) and message us with any questions you may have. Please consider giving us a like while you’re there! Thank you!
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Democracy Camp 2023 | Fall 2022
By Matsui Center
Democracy Camp is a life-changing program for #CalBears committed to enhancing democracy through public service.
Democracy Camp is a life-changing program for #CalBears committed to enhancing democracy through public service. Matsui Center Help Students Answer the Call to Public Service! Democracy Camp is an alternative spring break experience designed to empower future change-makers and enhance our democracy. Cal undergraduate students gain knowledge and skills to chart their path to a meaningful public-service career. Please make a gift today and help us spread the word about this life-changing program! About Democracy Camp Democracy Camp is a four-day bootcamp that give students first-hand exposure to different facets of public service: legislative paths, community organizations, local and state government, legal professions, research, and philanthropy. Fellows learn directly from guest speakers about the opportunities available in these fields, and even travel to Sacramento for a day to experience work and life in the state capital. Fellows also participate in skill-building modules that focus on practical and tangible takeaways, including networking and resume writing. During Democracy Camp, Fellows have the opportunity to put these skills to practice by networking with speakers and exploring public-service internship opportunities on campus and beyond. Many Fellows go on to pursue summer internships while studying at UC Berkeley, and many of our alumni now have successful careers in public service. Our Fellows are passionate about making a positive difference in the world and are seeking the tools and resources to chart their own path to a meaningful public-service career. We strive to make our programs accessible and equitable, including for first-generation, non-traditional, and transfer students. Democracy Camp Fellows complete the program feeling engaged and empowered to make an impact in their communities and beyond. We believe that building pathways for young people with varied perspectives and life experiences will enhance our democracy and ensure a more effective and representative government. How You Can Help Democracy Camp is made possible by generous gifts from donors. With your help, we hope to raise $5,000 of our $7,500 budget to fund the 2023 Democracy Camp in Berkeley program. The Institute of Governmental Studies has committed to funding the balance. Donations will go towards the cost of learning materials and transportation to Sacramento, as well as three meals a day for all Fellows for the duration of the program. This will help defray costs for students who may otherwise be concerned about food insecurity during Spring Break. We are accepting donations between now and October 31. No gift is too small, and your support will ensure that we are able to provide the best educational experience possible for UC Berkeley’s motivated change-makers! Receive a 'Thank You' from a Democracy Camp Alum! Allow us to show our appreciation! For donations of $25 or more we will post a shoutout on social media, and for donations of $100 or more we will share a 'thank you' message from a Democracy Camp Fellow. Additional perks are available for larger donations. Democracy Camp is sponsored by the Institute of Governmental Studies (IGS) and the Robert T. Matsui Center for Politics and Public Service at the University of California, Berkeley. IGS stands at the forefront of research, teaching, and service in California and American politics and policy. Interdisciplinary and non-partisan, we foster thoughtful discussions of issues across party lines that focus on solutions – not just problems. Our mission is anchored by a belief in the transformational power of public service. To learn more, visit our website.
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UC Berkeley Chamber Chorus Portugal Tour - Summer 2023
By UC Berkeley Chamber Chorus
In Summer 2023, we're going to tour Portugal and your support will ensure all of our students can embark on this once-in-a-lifetime performance experience!
In Summer 2023, we're going to tour Portugal and your support will ensure all of our students can embark on this once-in-a-lifetime performance experience! UC Berkeley Chamber Chorus Chamber Chorus takes a bow after a successful fall concert. In Summer 2023, UC Chamber Chorus is going abroad for a 8-day tour to Portugal and we’re counting on your support to ensure all of our students can embark on this once-in-a-lifetime performance experience! The idea for this tour was born in summer 2019, when Chamber Chorus director Dr. Wei Cheng sat down with our members to discuss ways to increase the chorus’s visibility. We realized that despite our successful concerts and artistic excellence, our choir hasn’t traveled in years and many of our current musicians have never performed outside of Hertz Hall. Originally planned for summer 2021, all efforts for the tour were paused due to the pandemic. Two years later, we are finally bringing this back for our chorus! We aim to make international touring and cultural exchange an integral part of our curriculum and envision our Summer 2023 tour as the first of many. We know the first step lies in creating a financially-inclusive experience for our entire tour group, regardless of circumstance or background, and we plan to provide partial and full scholarships for our students based on financial need. This tour is not included with ensemble membership and the university does not financially support the trip. Members who participate pay expenses on their own and thus, scholarships are needed. Our journey to grow the chorus and develop our students as musicians and as leaders starts with this crowdfunding campaign. Consider making a gift today! Who We Are The UC Berkeley Chamber Chorus is the university's premier concert choir, consisting of 45 singer-musicians competitively selected from the greater Berkeley community, including undergraduate and graduate students and community members. Directed by Wei Cheng, the Chamber Chorus is acclaimed for its readings of early and contemporary music and has performed in venues like Grace Cathedral, Walt Disney Hall, and Carnegie Hall. In 2022, Chamber Chorus won The American Prize in Choral Performance - college/univeristy division (small program) and Dr Cheng won The American Prize in Choral Conducting - the Dale Warland Award (college/university division). In spring 2019, the Chamber Chorus partnered with Volti and the Philharmonia Orchestra of London under Esa-Pekka Salonen to premiere Dreamers, an oratorio about the stories of undocumented immigrants written by Berkeley alum and award-winning composer Jimmy Lopez. A group of our students mix and mingle at our retreat! The strength of our choir comes from the diversity of our musicians. Our members include underrepresented minorities, people of color, and members of the LGBTQ+ community, spanning from graduate students pursuing PhDs in Physics to undergraduates studying Environmental Design to Music majors who plan to turn singing into their career. Our choir is a family, coming together outside of rehearsal at potlucks, retreats, hiking trips, and more. How Your Support Helps Performing on this tour will allow our students to develop their leadership skills, to work diligently on complex repertoire, and to collaborate with international musicians, helping to create unity through cultural exchange. Every dollar from this campaign will go towards funding need-based scholarships for our Summer 2023 tour. Every $1000 supports one member's financial aid scholarship to participate on the tour. With a goal of $8000, we hope to sponsor at least 8 students to be able to embark on this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Support scholarships for our students by making a gift today! Chamber Chorus performs Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana" along with University Chorus, UC Alumni Chorus, and Pacific Boychoir. Follow Us on Social Media: UCB Choral Program Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/UCBerkeleyChoralProgram/ UC Berkeley Music Department Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ucbmusicdept/
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Game Design and Design Development at Berkeley (Spring 2023)
By UC Berkeley
Help us fund the Game Design and Development Club, which hosts a variety of game development events at Berkeley!
Help us fund the Game Design and Development Club, which hosts a variety of game development events at Berkeley! Game Design and Development Club at Berkeley Game Design and Development at Berkeley is a club dedicated to helping those interested in game design and development understand the common tools and work environments present in the industry. We encourage students from all backgrounds, as there are a variety of facets involved the production of a game including, but not limited to, programming, art, music, and project management. And since our goal is to help students learn, we require no prerequisite knowledge either. Our three goals as an organization are: Creating a space to foster a community for those interested in game design and development. Getting more people interested in game design and development. Providing a support pipeline that will enable everyone to work on their own games, including industry events, workshops, and game jams. The specific programs we run are the following: the mentor program where we run teams centered around different game design themes. In the decal, we teach game development fundamentals through the Unity Game Engine. The funds will also support community-building events and trips to game industry conferences like the Game Developers Conference. Events Throughout the Semester: Recruitment Events Sproul Tabling: Sproul tabling is our main form of recruiting new potential members, where we set up our table on Sproul Plaza, and pass out flyers to interested students as well as going up to and talking about what GDD does as a plan (primarily the party system and the decal system) and navigating them to our club’s discord if they are interested. Info Sessions: An info session where current members of GDD talk about what GDD does as a club, and as a decal, where more information regarding how to join, what the party system is, what type of events are planned for the semester, etc are provided to potential members who come to the session. GDD Info Session, Fall 2022 Project-Centered Events Bear Jams: Bear Jams is our once-a-semester 45 hour game jam! A game jam is a game development marathon, where developers work together or alone to design, develop, and publish a game over the course of a limited timeframe – in our case, one weekend! GDD staff then streams every game over the course of the next week, giving our feedback as seasoned game developers. General Meetings: GDD has two general meetings, the first one being a bit more social where we announce each party mentor, what type of video games we would be creating, and then playing board games to break the ice between mentors and other party members. The second is where we announce who got into which party, and then provided some party bonding activities, such as playing board games and party formation is finalized Playtests: The party system’s playtests invite the general Berkeley community to come and test the games the parties are working on! This is an incredibly important step of the development process, as people working on the games can get tunnel vision and it’s hard to visualize from the perspective of a brand new player. It is also a fun way to get people excited about the games in development! End-of-Semester Showcase: Our big, fancy, end-of-semester Showcase! This is our largest event by far and is a way to show what members of the Berkeley game development community have achieved over the course of the semester. There are individual booths for each game allowing students to playtest and enjoy the results of everyone’s hard work, creativity, and dedication. Industry Events Industry Speakers: Industry speaker events are where we have prominent members from big-name video game development companies come out talk about how it is working in the industry, how to break into the industry, and going over what each role contributes to a team, as well as providing a way for members to connect and network with the speakers. Workshops: Workshops hosted by our in-club mentors where they go over general topics for interested students, and topics can vary from character design to programming to music. These are designed to be very beginner friendly and serves as a way for members to gain some basic foundational understanding of the topic. Social Events Saturday Socials: Every Saturday our club holds board game socials on campus, where staff and students can decompress and appreciate “acoustic” gaming. Playing games in a non-digital medium is a great way to learn game design principles and what makes a game fun, even without flashing lights and sound effects. Movie Nights: Movie nights are a way for staff and students to hang out without any work or looming deadlines. We rent a room, set up a projector, and watch a relaxing movie together. These movies typically showcase 3D Graphics or are related to gaming in some way! Internal Social: An internal social for executive members where we play various party games on Discord as a way to getting to know each other in a more informal and social environment, as a way to build team-working skills and create a more casual bond amongst the board members. Game Tournaments: A social event where current and interested students engage in a casual, fun game tournament. The games primarily consist of 1v1 video games, hosted at UC Berkeley’s own Esports LAN Center, and is done via bracket. It is a fun and laid-back way of members interacting with each other and getting to know each other. Round 1 Trip: At the end of the semester, the club takes a trip to the nearest Round 1 Arcade for a change of pace! Funding Plan: Outlined below is our plan for how we will use the proceeds from crowdfunding donations: Our Social Media: Follow us on Social Media! Website: https://gamedesign.berkeley.edu/ All funds and proceeds raised through this project will go towards making the club experience for our members even more enjoyable and will allow us to host more events! Gifts of any size will make a significant impact towards helping us reach our goal and will be sincerely appreciated. If you could spread the word about us and our project, that would be greatly appreciated too! We hope we can count on your support. Thank you! Feel free to send us an email at calgamedesign@gmail.com if you would like to ask us any questions!
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Helix @ Berkeley
By Vivian Nguyen
The Helix Summer Medical Program is a free, four-week opportunity for high school students underrepresented in medicine to be exposed to healthcare.
The Helix Summer Medical Program is a free, four-week opportunity for high school students underrepresented in medicine to be exposed to healthcare. The Helix Summer Medical Program was built on the premise of breaking educational barriers for marginalized and socioeconomically disadvantaged high school students to diversify the healthcare workforce. This goal culminates into a free 4 summer medical program that allows participants to gain a medical foundation through our core curriculum and clinical site visits that allow students explore health in a hospital, pre-hospital, and clinical setting. Helix facilitates a critically engaging curriculum that can be broken down into three components: Core Curriculum, Clinical Shadowing, and Site Visits, all of which culminates in our annual symposium. Our budget is currently set at $15,000 to accommodate the needs of our students throughout the program. We house the students on-campus in the dormitories for the first week of the program, where they can easily access resources and spaces to participate in the core curriculum, which focuses on aspects of medicine, public health, and the social determinants of health. We also envision a future where, with the necessary funding, our students will be able to actively improve the systems in their communities by designing an intervention for the inequities that they research through their projects. Your donation would make a significant difference in the quality of experience that we are able to provide for our students. As portrayed in the 2022 summer program images below, your donation will be funding: Housing: Dorm Contract & Dining Plan Expenses ($11,000) Curriculum Materials: Dissection and Suture Kits + More ($1,250) Student CPR Certification ($800) Food: Meals & Snacks ($1,500) Transportation: Students (Shadowing and Site Visits) & Staff (High School Application Outreach) ($500) As a Berkeley student-run program, the volunteer staff is composed of motivated undergraduates with a heart for expanding a passion for medicine and public health in the local community, hoping to maintain the ultimate goal of encouraging marginalized high school students to pursue healthcare careers. Long after the program, our alumni continue to reflect on the impact of the Helix program in a manner that highlights these values. We recently collected feedback from our past cohorts and 93% indicated feeling supported by Helix beyond the program. One student shared, “I think a big part of my reasoning to apply to future internships and programs was because of the confidence I gained through Helix!” Beyond the Helix experience, students carry our mission in a way that ripples through every community as they work to deeply understand their social and cultural backgrounds in conjunction with their health, as another student shared. All in all, Helix impacts more than just students’ and parents’ lives; we strive to impact communities through the skills that we instill in our students for the enrichment of their future careers. Feel free to contact us at info@thehelixgroup.org, or personally at vnguyen871@berkeley.edu and paulamarquez@berkeley.edu (I was also a student in the program in 2019!). Please visit our site thehelixgroup.org if you want more information about our previous programs! Darleene, Daniel, and Paula, pictured standing at both ends, are alumni of the program who have returned as staff! 70% of surveyed alumni reported keeping in contact with former cohort members and staff beyond the program. 2018 Student Cohort 2019 Program Staff Watch the videos linked on this page for a heartfelt snapshot of the 2019 and 2022 summer programs and consider helping our students through this campaign!
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iGEM at Berkeley 2023
By UC Berkeley
We’re a student-led research organization that enables undergraduates from all backgrounds to conduct synthetic and computational biology research.
We’re a student-led research organization that enables undergraduates from all backgrounds to conduct synthetic and computational biology research. Our Story iGEM at Berkeley is a student organization that began with the goal of giving students the creative freedom to explore questions and conduct research in the field of synthetic biology with the ultimate goal of competing in the annual global iGEM (International Genetically Engineered Machines) competition. However, our organization’s mission has evolved to increase accessibility of the synthetic biology and bioengineering community to students of all backgrounds and research experience levels at Cal. By cultivating every student’s technical skill set, fostering collaborative experience in team settings, and encouraging passions for niches of bioengineering research, iGEM has grown to support and train over 400 members; our Training teams, educational resources, and events are open to all general members without any selection process. Some of our experimental and new ideas teams presenting their work at our End-Of-Semester Symposium! Our One-of-a-Kind Structure We break away from the traditional iGEM team format through our emphasis and dedication to accessible research training through education materials and providing lab space for building foundational skills and preparing to conduct supervised, undergraduate-initiated research. We have created a specialized Training Team, a student-powered program which provides students with a semester-long crash course in synthetic biology. Our members have created an entire curriculum to teach new members everything from basic laboratory skills to designing and testing scientific questions of their own. A student in our faculty advisor's lab participating in our new training program. With the knowledge they gain from their time in Training Team, members are then transitioned into either a New Ideas team or an Experimental team. As of Spring 2022, over 100 members participate in iGEM’s project teams, which are entirely student-initiated. In New Ideas teams, students explore areas of synthetic biology and perform extensive literature review, identify gaps in current knowledge, and ideate unique ways to solve their questions. Once their idea is shown to be scientifically sound and viable, New Ideas teams can then transition into Experimental teams, where students are provided resources to carry out necessary experiments and gather data. Our organization currently has 7 Experimental teams: 4 wet-lab teams and 3 computational biology teams. These teams are exploring questions such as creating more efficient ways to perform traditional cloning methods, and developing a pipeline for mining and processing chemical reactions from published scientific literature. Experimental members can receive research credit through iGEM at Berkeley through BioE 99, 199, H194, and 196. We are also creating a wet-lab training program, where students will be trained to do basic synthetic biology techniques in the lab setting, before transitioning into an experimental team. A wet lab experimental member plating her cells as part of our training program. In the following graphs, we reflect on the statistics of our membership over the past five semesters we have been active. We are a rapidly expanding organization, which reflects the undergraduate population’s demand for accessible, quality research experiences. Total Membership: reflects experimental, general, training team, and administrative members of our organization Experimental Membership: reflects members on active project teams (wet-lab or computational biology teams) General Membership: reflects members that have access to all of our events (workshops, training team, educational resources, and more) Unit Takers: experimental or Training Team members that opt to take research units for their training and experimentation Donations Every aspect of running our lab space, from writing grants to conducting experiments, is done by students. This means every dollar donated is critical to our operations. Our budget includes thousands of dollars in material costs, equipment purchases, and competition fees. Your donations go directly towards supporting these expenses, and allow students to bring their bioengineering ideas to life. Our Vision Our ultimate goal is to create a physical biomakerspace for the Berkeley undergraduate community: a space that provides necessary resources and support to anyone with a bioengineering idea. Existing biomakerspaces are models for our vision of a community where students can gain hands-on exposure to solving bioengineering problems outside of the classroom, engage in spontaneous discussions, and spearhead their own ideas in collaboration with other Berkeley students. Under the supervision of Dr. John Anderson, who graciously is mentoring our teams and providing his lab space for our organization’s use, iGEM at Berkeley wants to take this first step in making this physical environment a reality and meeting this student demand through additional equipment and funding opportunities for external scientific communication. Responding with substantial steps toward growth, we hope to cement Berkeley’s iGEM team as a community-oriented success for other universities to model and scale student experience, both crucial for impactful postgraduate careers in bioengineering or adjacent fields. A photo from one of our monthly all-hands meetings where all our members convene to share progress. Stay In Touch Our social media and website are constantly updated with our newest projects, progress, and events. Check us out on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter or igem.berkeley.edu to follow our journey! If you have any questions, contact us at directors@igem.berkeley.edu.
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Kidney Disease Screening and Awareness Program (Spring 2023)
By Dhruv Chawla
We provide FREE kidney screenings and awareness events in underserved communities across the Bay Area to reduce the prevalence of kidney disease.
We provide FREE kidney screenings and awareness events in underserved communities across the Bay Area to reduce the prevalence of kidney disease. Who are we? We are the Kidney Disease Screening and Awareness Program (KDSAP) of UC Berkeley! Our organization addresses the issue of chronic kidney disease (CKD) in the Bay Area. The services that we provide are open to all, but the populations that we most commonly see and are actively reaching out to are Asian Americans, African Americans, Latinx, and other underserved populations. These communities often have poor access to healthcare and are at a higher risk for kidney disease due to various systemic issues. We aim to help low to moderate-income families as healthcare in the United States is a privilege many cannot afford. As a student organization, we rely on fundraising and community grants in order to carry out our mission. CKD is known as a silent killer because its symptoms are undetectable until the final stages of the disease, at which point the damage to patients’ kidneys is irreversible. Due to unequal access to healthcare in the United States, people at risk for CKD are often unaware that they may be at risk until it is too late. Furthermore, dialysis and kidney transplant, the two treatment options for kidney disease, are often unavailable to patients, as it is very difficult to find a match from the transplant list. Dialysis is a costly procedure both in time and money. Our efforts of working towards providing free screenings grant free consultations with physicians to those who may not have access to healthcare services so that they may plan their next steps. What do we do? As an organization, we have two primary objectives: to hold free kidney screenings throughout the Bay Area and organize awareness events for the public to learn more about maintaining kidney health. Our work addresses and advances health equity by ensuring that all the services that we provide (e.g. screenings and awareness events) are free and open to everyone. We distribute information about these events to as broad audiences as possible. We make targeted efforts to reach the underserved in our community by working with community centers, churches, and other non-profit organizations to publicize our services to those who need them the most. For our screenings, we partner with physicians who provide one-on-one consultations with patients. We are also mentored by physicians from UCSF who help educate us on kidney health and work with us to organize our screenings. Our free kidney screenings hold the following stations: 1) Registration 2) Urinalysis 3) Blood Pressure 4) Blood Glucose 5) BMI/Waist-Hip Ratio 6) Nephrologist Consultation 7) Wellness & Nutrition with a Renal Dietician We are a rapidly growing organization, and in the past years have expanded both the number of screenings we hold per year as well as the locations in which we hold them. We plan to hold 10 screenings a year, but due to the cost of screening supplies in conjunction with advertising, transportation, and other costs, our current sources of funding will not be sufficient to reach this goal. We would greatly appreciate your help as we work towards increasing engagement with the community and making a positive impact on more people’s health. What will your money go towards? Your donation will go towards the purchase of supplies such as urinalysis (urine test) machines, gloves, and glucometers (to measure blood sugar) that will allow us to conduct health procedures at our screenings, as well as train the volunteers who staff our screenings. We plan to use funds to print outreach pamphlets and promotional fliers and boost our social media advertisements to publicize our screenings and awareness events to a broader audience. By donating to our organization, you will help provide the public with more information about an often overlooked disease, and will help people all around the Bay Area improve their health! Stay connected with us: ucberkeleykdsap.com Instagram: @berkeleykdsap #BerkeleyKDSAP
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Latinx Pre-Law Society
By Adriana Temprano
Support access to education by donating! Proceeds go toward scholarships and school supplies for Latine students within Berkeley's community.
Support access to education by donating! Proceeds go toward scholarships and school supplies for Latine students within Berkeley's community. Our Goal: To raise funds in order to award undergraduate students scholarships for pre-law resources and donate academic supplies to students from underserved communities. According to the American Bar Association's 2020 Profile of the Legal Profession, less than 5% of lawyers identify as Latine or Hispanic. When considering the communities of color often impacted by the legal system the most, this percentage falls extremely short of the representation Latine people deserve under the law. The Latinx Pre-Law Society (LPLS) at UC Berkeley was created as a promise to pursue change that betters not just the legal field, but society as a whole. Established in fall 2002, the purpose of the Latinx Pre-Law Society is to provide a solid professional, educational, supportive, and networking foundation for the Latine community within the legal profession, the population at UC Berkeley, and the community at large. LPLS is a non-partisan organization that focuses on a progressive agenda for preparing and empowering students of color to pursue a legal education or career. We are currently crowdfunding to raise funds that will go directly to two initiatives: Providing 10 involved applicants who are members of the LPLS community with $100-250 scholarships directed toward costs for pre-law and educational resources. Donating $500-$1,000 toward supplies for pre-law students, including basic school supplies, LSAT study materials, and practice booklets. While LPLS engages in community fundraisers throughout the year to provide these resources, this crowdfunding project ensures individuals from historically underserved communities feel supported and seen within the legal field. Together, we can uplift the change that needs to happen in law and justice. Thank you for your generosity and championing our cause. Contact us at lplsexecutivedirector@gmail.com for more info on all things LPLS. :)
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Men's Club Water Polo (Spring 2023)
By Jacob Lindy
UC Berkeley Men's Club Water Polo is a team composed of 25 students. We practice for over eight hours each week in addition to competing biweekly.
UC Berkeley Men's Club Water Polo is a team composed of 25 students. We practice for over eight hours each week in addition to competing biweekly. UC Berkeley Men's Club Water Polo is a highly competitive team composed of around 25 students. During our CWPA competitive season, which runs from September through November, we practice for over eight hours each week in addition to competing in biweekly tournaments for the latter month and a half of the season. We are members of the hotly contested Sierra Pacific Division, which comprises nine teams hailing from across Northern California, including rivals Stanford and UC Davis, and from which the top team qualifies for nationals. Having emerged as division champions for ten straight years from 2012 through 2022, we’re eyeing the 2023 season as a team with a history of success and a freshly stoked desire to reclaim our position atop the Sierra Pacific Division and punch yet another ticket to nationals. However, the team faces a major challenge; we are almost entirely player-funded. There are numerous costs associated with running a successful team, like coach’s fees, travel fees, lodging fees, league fees, uniforms, pool time, and equipment. This year, the team hopes to raise $4000, with $2500 going towards tournament lodging, $500 towards travel fees, and $1000 towards pool time, lifeguards, and tournament entry fees. We need your help and support to push the team toward our fundraising goals. Please share this page and keep up with what we are doing on our Facebook page @UC Berkeley Men’s Club Water Polo and our Instagram page @calmensclubwaterpolo! We thank you for your support!
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PHC Housing Scholarship
By Chloe Roesslein
Money raised by this campaign will directly support women at UC Berkeley afford housing while completing their undergraduate degrees.
Money raised by this campaign will directly support women at UC Berkeley afford housing while completing their undergraduate degrees. The Panhellenic Community at Cal prides itself on the strides it takes to alleviate the barriers surrounding entry and retention in Greek life. From eliminating recruitment fees to offering need-based scholarships, our community has a vested interest in ensuring that students from all backgrounds are able to join, able to remain, and most importantly, have as robust a sorority experience as possible. That nearly always involves spending time in the chapter houses--the cornerstones of the Panhellenic experience. Chapter houses function as a central hub for the community, giving Panhellenic women an opportunity to bond in an organic way, poising them to develop lifelong relationships that give rise to the unique advantages of sorority membership throughout one’s life. Panhellenic housemates become best friends, study buddies, business partners, and more. They hold open doors for each other, empowering each other in an active student and alumnae community that begins at home, at one of the 13 chapter houses in Berkeley, CA. Through your donations, we will be able to provide housing scholarships to PHC women in need for the Fall 2023-Spring 2024 year. Project Budget Breakdown: Your contribution- regardless of its size- will go a long way in making a direct, tangible impact in the lives of many college students. However, if you cannot donate at this time, we urge you to share our campaign with your friends and family to help get the word out! Thank you so much for taking some time off your day to learn about our cause. Go bears! Learn more at: https://www.calpanhellenic.com/
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Pi Sigma Alpha
By Gracielle Li
For every $500, a deserving future leader in political science will receive financial assistance in their studies!
For every $500, a deserving future leader in political science will receive financial assistance in their studies! Welcome to the Political Science Opportunity Donation Page! We hope that you can explore the different ways this scholarship will make an impact on low-income political science students and consider donating to our cause. According to the U.S. Office of Postsecondary Education, the University of California, Berkeley educates a high number of low-income students relative to its student body, highlighted especially in comparison to other universities (Daily Cal). The Iota Chapter of Pi Sigma Alpha aims to bridge the gap in need-based resources for political science students, creating the Political Science Opportunity Scholarship -- one of the only need-based scholarships specific to the promotion of political science studies. If you are within capacity, donations of any amount are welcome. Please consider joining this initiative and helping to propel deserving undergraduate students reach their academic aspirations and achieve their highest potential! How will these funds be used? Every penny from this crowdfunding campaign will be included in the Political Science Opportunity Fund which will sponsor present and future cohorts of political science undergraduate scholars at UC Berkeley! For every $250-$500, a need-based award is made available to deserving students who can propel the study of political science. For any questions or concerns, please contact Gracielle Li at gracielleli@berkeley.edu
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Project SMILE Spring 2023
By Vishal Pulugurtha
SMILE gives Berkeley students the chance to mentor students at Longfellow Middle School. Every donation is used to fund our weekly mentoring program.
SMILE gives Berkeley students the chance to mentor students at Longfellow Middle School. Every donation is used to fund our weekly mentoring program. Project S.M.I.L.E stands for Project Spreading Multiculturalism and Inspiring Leadership through Education. Through our program, Berkeley students have the opportunity to be mentors to students at two local middle schools, Longfellow and Willard Middle School. Our mentors are role models for the students and form strong relationships with them through weekly mentoring and special weekend events.... Our mission is to provide mentees and mentors with an opportunity to develop relationships built on respect, trust, and support. Through pod match-ups with students from the two middle schools, Project S.M.I.L.E seeks to promote and instill values such as the appreciation of diversity, leadership abilities, educational awareness, and a proactive sense of community. We hope to enhance the experience of both the mentees and mentors by creating a generation of motivated and inspirational leaders who are academically enlightened and socially adept. Help us support our community! During the school week, our mentors assist the students with homework help or any after school activities. In addition to assisting in after school activities, our mentors also lead themed workshops and enrichment activities to fulfill our mission. Such workshops include educating mentees about Black History Month or Women’s History Month to spread the ideals of inclusion and diversity. Some of the most exciting activities that our organization hosts are weekend field trips to promote bonding between our mentors and mentees. Each year, we go on a camping field trip together and engage in team-building activities! Project S.M.I.L.E has been a mentoring organization at UC Berkeley for over 20 years and is still going strong with new mentors and mentees joining each year! In response to the ongoing pandemic, we continuously follow CDC guidelines in regards to social distancing, masking, vaccinating and surveillance testing. Since we are a non-profit, we are counting on you to help us continue our services. The funds we raise will be distributed according to the graphic below, and we would truly appreciate it if you could donate or spread the word to your networks! Help us give to our community! Make a gift today to support our work! Keep up to date or contact Project SMILE through our platforms: Website- http://www.berkeleyprojectsmile.org/ Email- psmileinfo@gmail.com Instagram- @ucbpsmile Facebook- Project S.M.I.L.E (@CALProjectSMILE) https://www.facebook.com/CALProjectSMILE *For any questions, comments, or concerns in regards to Project SMILE, please direct your emails to psmileinfo@gmail.com, or directly to the Treasurer, Vishal Pulugurtha, at vishalpulu@berkeley.edu
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Psychedelic Science at Cal
By Varun Neal Srivastava
The Psychedelic Revival is here. Help grow and empower our value-oriented community to leverage this moment for individual and social transformation.
The Psychedelic Revival is here. Help grow and empower our value-oriented community to leverage this moment for individual and social transformation. Help us foster the next generation of psychedelic scientists, advocates, and explorers. PsySci@Berkeley is a democratic undergrad-led faculty-sponsored student organization with more than 400 members in the UC Berkeley college community. PsySci's mission is to foster a vibrant and diverse community that catalyzes understanding on how to channel the profound power of psychedelics to engender individual and social transformation so as to manifest greater well-being and flourishing in our ailing world. Our two main avenues to do so have been via education and empowerment — the DeCal, and the community itself. Spring 2023 Decal Cohort Our credited, student-run class 'Introduction to Psychedelic Science' (DeCal) has enriched the education of more than 300 students over the past six semesters and has featured guest lectures by leading pioneers in the psychedelic field like Robin Carthart-Harris, Rick Strassman, and Dennis McKenna, as well as vocal speakers and community activists from underrepresented backgrounds like Ayize Jama-Everett and Kufikiri Imara. The first two semesters were over Zoom and many lectures are openly-accessible on our website. Money raised will be used to support DeCal activities, especially honorariums for indigenous speakers, to ensure reciprocity in our community relations. Recorded lectures from our first two semesters on our Youtube channel The second half of PsySci is our ASUC-sponsored club, which seeks to create an inclusive, safe and sacred community in the psychedelic space. We encourage and empower our members to engage in research, art, and community events in this emerging field. Past projects our community has been involved in include: Entheoscope (psychedelic magazine), a “Young Professionals in Psychedelics” Career Panel, research on Wim Hof breathing and psychedelic college experiences, and psychedelic NFTs. We have maintained a Student Fund, stewarded by our democratic Board, to help promote future exciting projects. Weekly Meetups at La Val's Our community is committed to exploring dialogue about plant medicines without judgment and with respect to all the original explorers. Our main activities include weekly general meetings, bi-weekly journal clubs led by student-scientists, and monthly town halls. We have a tradition of equinox and solstice retreats, to celebrate a significant shift in the seasons. PsySci’s intent is to be open for all, while striving to be accessible to a diverse set of people and perspective. Additionally, our club is continually looking for opportunities to serve our surrounding community through acts of service. In the past, we have fundraised for Supernova Woman, a nonprofit empowering disenfranchised and underrepresented communities in the plant medicine space. Some of our horizon aspirations are - hosting an annual Psychedelic Science conference, creating a student-led psychedelic-consciousness research lab, understanding the incentives of current psychedelic scientific practices that are unfavorable open-science practices, and ultimately growing our mycelial network to extend beyond the Berkeley community. How we intend to use your donation:The money raised will be split between our Decal and aspiring projects. Around 50% will be for the DeCal: Money will especially go toward honorariums for speakers from indigenous and under-represented backgrounds to ensure non-Western centric voices remain an important perspective in our curriculum as well as building reciprocal relationships. The other 50% of our funds will go toward projects such as Furthering innovative research Community and artistic projects in-line with our club values Community upliftment. This includes providing nourishment and supplies (art, outdoors, academic, etc.) at our events to demonstrate our gratitude for our members and to ensure that no one is excluded from our community due to lack of resources. Contact: email: ucbpsychedelics@gmail.comdiscord: https://discord.gg/kynzkTENbf
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Space Enterprise at Berkeley Spring 2023
By UC Berkeley
Help UC Berkeley break the global collegiate altitude record for a liquid fueled rocket!
Help UC Berkeley break the global collegiate altitude record for a liquid fueled rocket! MISSION Space Enterprise at Berkeley (SEB) is UC Berkeley’s spaceship liquid rocketry team and our ambition of being the first collegiate team to send a liquid bipropellant rocket to space is only possible through the generous financial contributions of our community. Join us on our journey to reach space. TEAM Space Enterprise at Berkeley has had a profound impact on the lives of its members. SEB gives its members the opportunity to work on exciting, hands-on projects that go beyond what is learned in the classroom. These experiences give our members the skills required to get internships and full time jobs at some of the top aerospace companies such as SpaceX, NASA, and Boeing. Our in-depth and analytical approach to engineering has also allowed our members to go on and succeed in grad school at prestigious institutions like MIT, Columbia, and Stanford. Additionally, SEB has fostered a strong sense of community and provided an inclusive social environment for its members, no matter their background. The camaraderie and support of fellow rocket enthusiasts has helped members build lasting friendships and connections that extend beyond their time in the club. This community that we have built would not have been possible without our supporters. With your financial contribution, we will show the world that space is not an impenetrable barrier passed only by governments and corporations. We will prove that college students, and anyone else with the necessary passion and motivation, can reach out and touch the stars. PROJECTS EUREKA-1 On December 3, 2022, Eureka-1 soared 11,024 feet over the Mojave desert. Towering 20 feet above the launch pad, E-1 was powered by our liquid oxygen and liquid propane engine, Lightbulb, which provided more than 600 pounds of thrust, propelling the rocket to over 700 miles per hour. Due to an error in apogee detection which led to faulty parachute deployment, the launch vehicle was lost as it hit the desert floor. Eureka-1 launch video: https://youtu.be/Hrbeg6FNlpY EUREKA-2 Building off the success of E-1, Eureka-2 plans to surpass what our first liquid bipropellant rocket was able to accomplish. Besides developing a custom apogee detection system and rigorously evaluating recovery mechanics, our E-2 launch system will feature larger tanks to maximize apogee and will debut our E-Reg (electronic regulator) technology that allows us to dynamically control our engine's thrust by regulating tank pressures. Our team is the first group of college students to successfully develop this technology that allows us to throttle the engine. E-Reg throttle video: https://youtu.be/aFXYzkOWeu8 EUREKA-3 In parallel with E-2 development, the early developmental stages have begun for our next-gen spaceshot rocket – Eureka-3. This propulsion system aims to achieve over 3000 lbf of thrust to propel it beyond the Kármán line and become the first liquid bipropellant rocket to reach the edge of space. This rocket will show the world that space is not just within reach of the biggest governments, militaries, or wealthy corporations. LAD/VLAD Propelled by solid rocket motors, our LAD and VLAD programs provide test platforms for technologies that will eventually be deployed on our more high powered launch vehicles. These systems demonstrate technologies such as our custom avionics, advanced manufacturing techniques, and recovery systems. In June of 2022, LAD-8 reached an apogee of 8,000 feet, setting the altitude record for a 3D printed rocket. Despite breaking that record, these vehicles are not necessarily intended to reach the heights of our Eureka program, as indicated by their names: Low Altitude Demonstrator and Very Low Altitude Demonstrator. BUDGET THANK YOU! To hear more about what we do check out our website or send us an email! Website: www.berkeleyse.org Email: spaceenterpriseatberkeley@gmail.com If you'd like to stay up-to-date on all things SEB sign up for our newsletter at the link below! Newsletter: https://www.berkeleyse.org/newsletter To blue skies and bright stars!
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STAR (Space Technologies and Rockets) | Spring 2023
By UC Berkeley
We are a group of Berkeley rocketeers who shoot for the stars!
We are a group of Berkeley rocketeers who shoot for the stars! Welcome to STAR's Spring 2023 Crowdfunding Campaign! We are proud to showcase our past achievements and introduce new exciting projects & initiatives that will further improve our technologies and inspire more interest in science and engineering. ▲ 2022 Crowdfunding Campaign Spring 2022 Team ▲ Previous Accomplishments STARxNexGeneGirls Scholarship Program This year, STAR’s outreach division is ecstatic to announce that the STAR Scholarship Program is officially in action! Over the past year, our now-president, Aarabhi Achanta, has worked alongside NexGeneGirls–a nonprofit seeking to provide opportunities, education, and connections to high school girls looking to pursue a career in STEM. In addition to providing financial support for a group of six talented women of color, we will also be hosting a series of workshops this October that will assist them with applying to colleges and continuing their passion for STEM in higher education. We are excited to be working with the College Admissions Mentorship Program (formerly People’s Test Preparation Service) to assemble a good curriculum for the recipients of STAR’s scholarship. Currently, Rachel Weber (Outreach Lead) and Anjana Saravanan are continuing the progress of this scholrship nd furthering its growth throughout this semester! ALULA Congratulations STAR team on the successful static test-fire of our rocket engine! This Hotfire was earned by the hard work and stolid dedication to the challenge. Despite some initial problems with sensor connections and fluid system assembly, the team persevered and solved each problem to meet the demands of our first hotfire. After quickly diagnosing and resolving issues with LOX pressure data cutoffs and power system malfunctions, we successfully ran cryo fill and actuator arm through pressurization, ignition, and finally full system go. We started up the engine and scrambled to document our achievements. Although there are many technical and procedural improvements to be made, we got great results from our array of pressure, load, thermal, and power sensors. This project milestone is a testament to the prowess contained within UC Berkeley STAR and the broader technical community as a whole. Congratulations once again on a job well done! ▲ ALULA IREC IREC (Intercollegiate Rocketry Engineering Competition) is a 5-day competition where rocketry clubs from the nation get to network and present their rockets as well as launch them. Judges place teams depending on different requirements such as technicality and apogee. IREC 2023 Check Launch ▲ Current Projects DAVE DAVE, or the Deployable Aerial Vehicle Experiment, is a glider mission piloted by STAR for the 2022-2023 year. DAVE is designed to be a glider that we can launch from the rocket at apogee to carry our experiments and get astronomically more value out of each launch. To accomplish this, however, DAVE must be capable of shrinking from its large wingspan to fit inside the rocket and then awaits takeoff until carried outside the vehicle by a parachute, where it can freely unfold and collect new types of experiments previously impossible for the team. More recently, with DAVE, we have been preparing to start the project’s second iteration such as remaking the CAD, unfolding mechanisms, and adding new elements. From stronger materials to an added parachute, we emphasize bracing DAVE for its landing after deployment. We also have planned additions of RF control of our elevators, DAVE will be pilotable from the ground and allow us to change course mid flight. DAVE Prototype ▲ New Goals! Stage Separation 2 (SSEP 2) The SSEP 2 is the next step in putting us even closer to our goal – while one can achieve Space Shot with a single-stage vehicle, it requires custom solid propellant motors (SRAD motors), which is a challenging project that requires regular testing and manufacturing of such motors. On the other hand, a multistage vehicle can reach space with conventional, off-the-shelf motors, and in fact, has successfully been done before with N motors! Such vehicles would, however, need a compact staging mechanism. This SSEP 2 project works on improving the current mechanism to achieve a different level of performance. Since we already have experience building(and succeeding in the building) multistage rockets, we gave ourselves a deadline of two years to build this rocket. Overall Budget STAR sees projects from both short-term and long-term perspectives. We have big dreams of launching each of our unique and complex rockets! However, to do so, the Business team need all the help we can get! We would greatly appreciate any support that our donors can provide! And to give back to our donors, we have cool prizes that range depending on the amount donated. Feel free to check them out! Approximate breakdown of our expenses for this year! Overall: $18,710.85 Contact Us & Learn More! We love the work we do at STAR and are always happy to talk about it! Contact us at: Email: UCBerkeleySTAR@gmail.com Website: stars.berkeley.edu/ Instagram: www.instagram.com/starberkeley/ Facebook: www.facebook.com/ucberkeleystar/ Finally, a shoutout to the following teammates for helping set up the crowdfunding page: Sharon Onofre-Lozano
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The Intermission Orchestra at Berkeley | Spring 2023
By Sydney Wong
Let's raise money to support our fabulous concerts this semester. Support us to bring anime, game, and film music to Berkeley!
Let's raise money to support our fabulous concerts this semester. Support us to bring anime, game, and film music to Berkeley! The Intermission Orchestra at Berkeley is UC Berkeley’s premiere anime, video game, and film orchestra. We perform throughout the Bay Area to share our passions with our local communities. As a group funded through private sources, we depend on the generosity of our donors. Throughout the academic year, Intermission practices twice a week to rehearse orchestra music and prepare our ensemble performances for our Fall, Winter, and Spring concerts. We have always held these concerts for free for the community because we believe that the sharing of music should have no limits and are driven to demonstrate the unifying force of experiencing live music performances. Our group also encompasses artists, photographers, videographers, and audio staff, all who help make our concerts and activities possible. Outside of preparing for our seasonal concerts, members of the Intermission Orchestra perform at events local to the Cal campus, like Cal Animage Alpha’s annual anime conventions, as well as throughout the Bay, including Japanese cultural events, and in collaboration with libraries and hospitals and weddings for fellow anime/game/film enthusiasts! Through all these opportunities, we have been able to grow as musicians and artists, and spread a sense of community within our organization and beyond. We hope to continue serving our communities, as well as reach towards bigger and brighter stages to share our passion for anime, game, and film music. We are grateful for the opportunities we have had so far to share our music and serve our communities. As we pass through Intermission’s 5th Anniversary this fall, we are working to book a larger venue for our end-of-year Spring concert to allow for more of the community to join us. Furthermore, to deliver a higher quality of performances at our concerts, we hope to upgrade our sound equipment to provide the best audio experience at our concerts, as well as upgrade our photography and video equipment to improve our content for the community to engage with us even when they can’t attend our performances in person. Beyond that, we hope to be able to support our members by subsidizing transportation costs to perform at venues anywhere throughout the Bay. We have even grander visions of one day being able to travel throughout California, the US, and even internationally to show our appreciation for anime, games, and film music that are a worldwide phenomenon. In order to continue growing, we ask for the generosity of individuals so we may perform at new venues, travel to entertain new fans, and upgrade our equipment. As the Intermission Orchestra continues to grow and spread our outreach around the world, we strive to use our performance opportunities and new equipment to teach members new skills and build their repertoire as musicians. During this campaign, we really hope you can join us on this new chapter of the Intermission Orchestra’s journey! Through your support, we hope to raise at least $2,500 to support our members traveling to performances throughout the Bay, new audio and video equipment for our staff, and venues like Hertz Hall for our seasonal concerts. Budget Breakdown: $300 for travel $700 for equipment $1500 for venues Will you make a tax-deductible donation today to support the Intermission Orchestra and help us lay the foundations for spreading Intermission’s reach throughout the Bay and beyond? Your donations will help make the dreams come true for a one-of-kind community of musicians, artists, audio engineers, photographers, videographers, and anime, game, and film enthusiasts! Thank you so much for taking the time to learn about our orchestra. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us at intermissionberkeley@gmail.com! To connect with us and stay up to date, visit intermissionberkeley.com.
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UC Berkeley Pie Queens Spring 2023
By Cassidy Gilmore
New or experienced, our ultimate frisbee program seeks to empower members and gain long lasting relationships in an inclusive atmosphere!
New or experienced, our ultimate frisbee program seeks to empower members and gain long lasting relationships in an inclusive atmosphere! Who are we? The UC Berkeley Pie Queens is a nationally competitive D1 ultimate frisbee team for women, non-binary, and trans athletes at Cal. The core identity of the Pie Queens is rooted in inclusivity, joy, and personal growth. We pride ourselves in being a space where athletes of all levels of experience can come to unleash their competitive spirit, play on a team alongside great friends, and become a part of an incredibly supportive ultimate community that goes far beyond college. This team is undoubtedly a highlight of our members' college experiences and we are happy that we get to be a part of growing this sport. In the fall, we play as one big Pie Queens program where the focus is all about team bonding and skill development. Then in the spring, we split into our A and B teams, the Queens and Tarts, to take on the competitive season. We have a total of seven awesome coaches who generously volunteer their time to keep this program as strong as it is. As a full program we get to take our teams to 12+ tournaments in a school year! For some fun info about teams, scroll down to the end of this page! Team Trick and Team Treat in our themed uniforms at Chico 2022 Why support us? We are asking for your support so that the financial burden of being a member of this team does not deter any individuals from joining. Some of the main ways we use your donations to make the program more accessible/affordable are by: Offsetting the cost of team dues (team dues include costs such as tournament bid fees, housing, field space, and other miscellaneous team costs) Funding our BIPOC account which supports our program's BIPOC individuals on a need-based, no questions asked basis Having the funds to provide need-based support to all members of our program As a Cal Sport Club team, the cost of competing comes almost entirely out of members' pockets. By donating to our program, you are helping us grow all athletes in the program to their full potential. Many PQ alumni go on to coach and are heavily involved in the Bay Area ultimate community and beyond. We even have a current PQ coaching youth ultimate this season! A little Pie Queens history Our program has been around since 1988 and has been growing ever since. Somewhere along the lines, our team made the life changing decision to stop at a diner in Oakland called Lois the Pie Queen after a weekend of ultimate. The food was amazing, but the team agreed that the highlight of their meal was the pie! They offered a wide variety of pies including apple, sweet potato, lemon ice box, berry, cherry, pecan...the list goes on! And so, the UC Berkeley Women's Ultimate team, the Pie Queens, found their namesake in this delicious local restaurant and ever since, they've been loyal customers. This black-owned business has been serving delicious soul food for over 50 years and we couldn't recommend supporting them enough! Our visit to Lois the Pie Queen during this season's Spring Training More about our team! Where's everyone from? Hear about what some of the Pie Queens have to say about the program: "Tarts is a place where I can become a better athlete while also forming friendships with some of the funniest and sweetest people I've ever met. I love the uplifting and supportive vibes this team radiates! And as always, Tarts 4 Regionals." Jackie (Rings) Tran (she/her) Tarts '25 "From playing on the Tarts to the Queens the program of the pie queens has been incredibly fun and I have made so many amazing memories. Not only am I inspired to play better to not get absolutely beaten upline by my teammates, but the coaches are always giving me feedback on how to play to the best of my abilities. I am a transfer student at Cal, and making friends was not easy when I first came here. Pie Queens made it really easy to make friends with really cool people and I am so happy I joined." - Martina (Teeny) Sexton (she/they) Queens '23 "I was searching for a community at Cal for a long time, and I stumbled upon frisbee and my life has become exceptionally better. The joy of being on a team again with really cool and accepting people has been amazing. - Nat Gaffney (they/them) Tarts '23 "I love that frisbee can always bring me into such a lovely environment where everyone cares and supports each other. No matter what happens before or outside the game, at this point, we are all committed this spirit, this team, more importantly, to each other." Cecelia (Frosty) Wu (she/her) Queens '23 Thank you so much for visiting our page! We truly couldn't do this without you and appreciate any support you can offer whether it's monetary or helping us spread the word about our fundraiser. Help us reach our goal of $4000! Find us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook @piequeens and find our highlight videos on Youtube!
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UCB Raas Ramzat
By Shalini Saravanan
Support our group through the competition season and help us spread awareness of this beautiful and intricate dance!
Support our group through the competition season and help us spread awareness of this beautiful and intricate dance! Raas Ramzat is a competitive Raas/Garba Indian folk dance team recently founded at UC Berkeley and its aim is to spread awareness about a unique form of dance within India. The dance style, Raas, consists mainly of the usage of props, the most important being the use of dandiyas (traditional indian sticks). The Garba dance style is traditionally performed in a cyclic formation using different clap patterns to match the music. These dance forms are an expression of joy, often performed in order to celebrate the festival season. It is a high-energy dance form that combines Indian melodies with Western music. Emphasis is placed on intricate dance moves and creative dance formations. As a competitive team, we participate in competitions in the Midwest, East Coast, and the South to showcase this form of dance. Raas Ramzat's goal is to provide an outlet for creative and artistic expression, and to provide a supportive and nurturing community to a group of hardworking dancers. Raas & Garba have a tremendous cultural and historical significance attached to them and we would like to share this distinct traditional dance form with a modern twist with the students of UC Berkeley. We have worked to establish ourselves in Berkeley’s South Asian community by regularly performing at cultural and special events held by other UC Berkeley student organizations, as well as at gigs locally in the Bay Area. Raas Ramzat 2022-23 at our Annual Photoshoot Our team members come from unique backgrounds and have varying levels of dance experience. However, very few of our dancers had done Raas before joining the team. By fostering a culture of constant learning and performing, we teach Raas to those outside our community while giving all the dancers on our team the opportunity to expand their repertoire of dance styles. Our takeaways from Raas Ramzat are more than just dance, however; our practice and performance schedule teaches us how to manage time properly, communicate effectively with other organization leaders, and develop our own leadership skills. Finally, not only are we a dance team, we are a tightly-knit community. Through hours of practice, socials, and travel, we have become a family. Rangeelo Raas - Competition in Tampa, Florida This year, we have participated in three competitions in Ohio, Florida, and Maryland. Our team had been practicing diligently throughout the fall and spring semester to perfect our set and create a visually stunning production. We are incredibly proud to have finished our season and showcased our set to our family and friends! Performance at Raas in the 614 in Columbus, Ohio With crowdfunding, we hope to raise money for our next year's team to use for their competitive season and continue our upward trend. Our group would use these funds to purchase and create costumes and props that are necessary for the visual appeal of our performances. The larger and more detailed we make our props, the better they will integrate with our performance theme. Along with that, our competitions require a substantial amount of money for competition applications, registration fees, and team gear so that we are provided with necessary food and accommodations throughout the competition weekends. Raas Ramzat at the Airport A major financial burden from managing a team of 18 dancers is transportation costs for the movement of large materials, as well as to ensure the safety of all of our dancers. We want to use the money raised to help expand our reach throughout the Bay Area, so that we’re able to hold workshops to teach others of this new dance form, as well as to educate those on the traditional aspects of our dance. Cultural pluralism, as well as cultural understanding, is a value that we as a team uphold. We integrate South Asian and Western culture to create our own unique dance that takes the audience through a story. Our purpose is to give others a glimpse of a different style of dance, one that dates back 3000 years while being set in the modern time. Here is a breakdown of how we would use the money we raise: $400: hotels for our overnight stays at competitions in the East Coast Midwest, and South $300: traditional Gujarati dance costumes $300: supplies to build backdrop and handheld props We sincerely thank you for any contribution you are able to make to our team! You can also follow our progress this semester on our Instagram account (@ucb.raasramzat). If you have any questions or want to learn more, please contact Shalini Saravanan (shalini.sarav@berkeley.edu).
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American Medical Women's Association at Berkeley (Spring 2023)
By Neeraja Sripada
Help us in our mission to empower women in medicine & improve women’s health worldwide!
Help us in our mission to empower women in medicine & improve women’s health worldwide! In 1915, at a time when women physicians were an underrepresented minority and in need of cooperative action by women in medicine, AMWA became the first national organization of women physicians. AMWA entered the political arena on behalf of women physicians fighting for policy reform that resulted in career advancement and leadership roles for women doctors. AMWA Berkeley is a local undergraduate branch that is part of the National AMWA framework! We seek to empower our members by giving a loving and supportive platform for voices to be heard and transform ideas into realities. We love to discuss topics of women in medicine, women’s health, and gender equity. As a professional and community service organization, AMWA Berkeley offers opportunities for mentorship, professional development, volunteering, and support for individuals interested in healthcare careers. The Berkeley branch of AMWA has both chapter-wide events and specific committees for individuals to thrive and work toward what they’re passionate about. We operate through 5 committees: Gender and Sexual Health, Cancer and Womxn's Health, Childhood Nutrition and Education, Diversity in Medicine, and Mental Health. As a part of these committees, members are able to focus their efforts into planning events and campaigns to support or raise awareness for the topics that they are most passionate about. Left: Diversity in Medicine Committee Members making posters / Right: Childhood Nutrition and Education committee members at a local farmer's market As the largest pre-medical organization on campus and the largest undergraduate AMWA chapter, AMWA Berkeley has been able to support thousands of female-identifying pre-medical students on their journeys. Your support will go directly towards funding programs and events that will allow our members to develop professionally and support the advancement of women's health. These include our annual pre-health symposium during which physicians, medical students, and various Berkeley pre-health organizations all come together to support the pre-health community, and funding events and programs related to member development (such as our Big-Little mentorship program and our end-of-semester banquet). This year, we are also partnering with the Society of Women in Medicine at UCSF to match AMWA members with UCSF medical students mentors. For our mentorship meetup event, we would need to allocate funds to securing suturing kits, as well as UCSF’s Anatomy lab and ultrasound machine, so that Berkeley undergraduate students can gain insight on what it’s like to pursue higher education in medicine. The funds will also go to our committees and will be used to support committee specific goals, such as putting together care packages for the pediatric oncology unit at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital, hosting Period Drives and bake sales where all donations and profits are donated to the Women’s Daytime Drop-in Center, sharing nutritional recipes with the Berkeley Farmers Market and local elementary schools, providing mentorship to Berkeley High School students, promoting mental health on campus through wellness tabling, and many more projects driven by the creative freedom and passions of committee members. Detailed Budget Breakdown We greatly appreciate any and all support and we look forward to dedicating your generosity towards empowering women in healthcare! Thank you so much! Learn more about AMWA Berkeley or contact us at: https://amwaberkeley.com/ https://www.instagram.com/amwaberkeley/
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Association of Women in EE&CS (AWE)
By UC Berkeley
Our main objective is to provide a space in which women and non-binary students studying CS/EECS-related areas can connect and grow their career.
Our main objective is to provide a space in which women and non-binary students studying CS/EECS-related areas can connect and grow their career. Association of Women in EE&CS is seeking your support today! We are raising funds to be able to support our organization in our mission to empower women and non-binary students studying EE&CS. Association of Women in EE&CS is a student-run organization at UC Berkeley that seeks to empower female and non-binary undergraduate students pursuing Computer Science and/or Electrical Engineering disciplines. AWE hosts a variety of socials, technical workshops, company events, and all other kinds of events throughout the year to support and connect our members. Members stay in touch through our club-wide Slack, and receive opportunities through our weekly newsletter and resume book. We also encourage members to join our mentorship program to give back and get involved! Our office is also open as a study space and a social space for members during AWEffice hours. Being a part of AWE means joining a community of inspiring and supportive women in EE&CS here at Berkeley. Currently, there are over 1,000 members of AWE in the Slack and 250+ members of the community which renew membership each semester. Your donations and sponsorship will impact our members and improve their experience in EE&CS as a whole by helping to provide the resources they need to excel in EE&CS disciplines. Here's a quick budget breakdown. Our departments require funding in order to continue functioning and offer the best opportunities to women/non-binary students in EE&CS. We will allocate 1/4 of the raised funds to each of our student-facing departments, which will host a variety of events under their focus. In that way, we can ensure AWE members have access to a wide range of resources! Activities Department ($750) Hosts general meetings, boba socials, tote bag painting socials, embroidery socials, banquet, etc. Mentorship Department ($750) Hosts mentorship mixers, movie nights, study socials, facilitates upperclassmen to lowerclassmen pairings for mentorship, etc. Professional Development Department ($750) Hosts professional development office hours, technical (space tech, website, blockchain, etc.) workshops, resume and interview workshops, provides internship and full time role support, etc. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Department ($750) Hosts film screenings (Encanto), pride month-focused events, cross-club collaborations, facilitates DE&I focused boba chats with members for feedback, etc. What's in it for you? Our website is currently being revamped, but donor information based on donation tiers will be added to our brand new website once it is published as a thank you to all of our sponsors and donors. Bronze Sponsor: $10 donation or more Silver Sponsor: $25 donation or more Gold Sponsor: $50 donation or more Platinum Sponsor: $100 donation or more Diamond Sponsor: $500 donation or more Stay in touch! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/awe.berkeley/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/berkeleyawe LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aweberkeley/ Website: https://awe.berkeley.edu/ Questions / Comments: aweberkeley@gmail.com
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BARE Magazine
By UC Berkeley
Each year, our goal is to distribute $2,000+ in grants to 4-7 underrepresented student artists. Help us in expanding our goal to $10,000 by 2024!
Each year, our goal is to distribute $2,000+ in grants to 4-7 underrepresented student artists. Help us in expanding our goal to $10,000 by 2024! BARE Magazine is UC Berkeley’s premier arts, fashion, and lifestyle publication, comprised of 80+ Berkeley students. Since its debut in 2007, BARE has gained prominence on campus, and has also garnered national recognition in publications such as the New York Times and Teen Vogue. An entirely student-run publication, BARE publishes a print publication once a semester. BARE allows students the opportunity to collaboratively explore their interests in a range of fields including journalism, photography, styling, design, modeling, and marketing. BARE celebrates and engages with the diversity of Berkeley and the Bay Area, aiming to foster a community of creatively-driven individuals. Every dollar you donate goes directly toward the production of our online and print publication and funding the events we host. Your support will allow us to purchase the materials and equipment needed for photoshoots, cover the costs of printing each issue and publishing it online, funding the venues needed for events, and make the creation of our magazine possible. More specifically, we hope to raise the following: $2500 - to cover magazine printing costs for one semester $1500 - to cover costs to host events for one semester $1000 - to cover materials and equipment costs for our photoshoots By supporting BARE, you help uplift the vibrant, diverse community of artists at Berkeley, and you enable our arts community to flourish and grow. It's with your help that we are able to bring the work of so many young, inspired people to the forefront—your contributions support an entire community of creatives. Check out pages from our past issues (and view more on baremagazine.org) And a snippet from behind the scenes...our members work hard to put together meaningful and imaginative shoots, orchestrating everything from shoot locations to wardrobes and props to editing and curating the final photos. To contact us, feel free to email editor@baremagazine.org. View more of our work and stay up to date on events by following @baremagazine on Instagram and visiting our website (baremagazine.org).
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Berkeley Science Review
By UC Berkeley
Berkeley Science Review needs your help to continue highlighting ground-breaking Berkeley research - your donations will allow us to stay in print!!
Berkeley Science Review needs your help to continue highlighting ground-breaking Berkeley research - your donations will allow us to stay in print!! A wide range of incredible scientific research is produced by UC Berkeley every week, but we know first-hand how difficult it can be to understand it. Living through the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the dangers of scientific miscommunication, and here at the Berkeley Science Review (BSR) we work to combat that by providing accessible information on the scientific discoveries being made in our local community and beyond. We are a science magazine and blog run by graduate students whose aim is to report the research being done at Berkeley in a way that’s readily accessible to the public by minimizing jargon and simplifying abstract ideas. We publish easy-to-read articles ranging a wide array of topics—from quantum physics to fly genetics to public health. Many physical media outlets have struggled financially since the start of the pandemic, and the BSR is no different – with printing costs ever on the rise, we need your help to continue producing our magazine and ensure that the BSR still reaches the broadest audience possible! Please make a gift today and allow us to secure the legacy of the BSR for years to come. Behind the scenes, the BSR provides an invaluable experience to the writers, editors, and designers who work on the magazine—they gain experience in science communication skills, which are critical for building connections among scientists and the world at large. Our editors learn to keep a pulse on the latest findings in science. Our writers hone their craft as they pen exciting discoveries onto paper. Our designers’ creativity is challenged as they create a stunning magazine layout every issue. Our team’s efforts culminate into a professional-quality magazine every semester. We aim to distribute our magazine as widely as possible, handing out copies for free on campus and in the local community, and asking for only a small donation to cover shipping costs to our readers further afield. Due to recent increases in printing costs and decline in advertising revenue we are now operating at a loss. We wish for our magazine to remain free and widely available in the Bay Area and beyond, and so we are now asking for funds to help us continue to produce and distribute our magazine free of charge to our readers, and keep our science communication accessible to all. Any donations will 100% go towards the following causes: 1) Printing and distribution costs for our semesterly magazine The BSR leadership team showing off our latest magazines! Left to right: Liya Oster, Amy Kynman, Samvardhini Sridharan, Sophia Friesen Our writers, editors and designers work tirelessly to produce a high-quality magazine documenting groundbreaking research from UC Berkeley every semester. We print and distribute over a thousand magazines every semester, which makes up the bulk of our expenses even after university funding. We need donations to cover our increased printing costs and keep the BSR free for our community to access. Help us stay in print by donating today! 2) Maintenance of our website! Our website (berkeleysciencereview.com) has recently been upgraded to give the BSR a clear digital, online presence – more important than ever due to COVID-19, and increasing costs associated with physical media. We continue to distribute our content online between our semesterly magazine releases, but we need funds to pay the web developer and annual website hosting. Help us maintain our website by donating today! Thank you so much for your support! With your help, we can ensure that the BSR keeps educating the broader public about science and equipping students to effectively communicate science! -- Follow the BSR on Twitter or Instagram @BerkeleySciRev! If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us at sciencereview [at] gmail.com!
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Berkeley Women in Business
By Shannon Miranda
Berkeley Women in Business empowers the business leaders of tomorrow through leadership development & discourse about gender equity in the workforce.
Berkeley Women in Business empowers the business leaders of tomorrow through leadership development & discourse about gender equity in the workforce. Founded in 2005, Berkeley Women in Business (BWIB) is currently a renowned organization on campus that boasts approximately 50 active members. BWIB empowers women in the workforce through professional development and discourse on gender equity. We strive to develop our members into well-rounded individuals who are equipped with the necessary skills to succeed in their careers. We host events yearlong that encourage undergraduates to explore their passions in business, develop their professional skills, and understand more about women in the workforce. Additionally, these events are designed to foster a sense of community and mentorship - whether that be through retreats, socials, or formal mentorship opportunities with peers and MBA candidates. Our members not only gain professional development opportunities but also develop a sense of belonging and trust within our community which allows for personal growth. Berkeley Women in Business is open to all students, regardless of major or gender identity, who are in support of women in the workplace. FINANCIAL LITERACY AND ECONOMIC JUSTICE BWIB engages in several projects to enact social change throughout the world. This Crowdfunding campaign will allow us to further scale our impact by funding these projects. Financial literacy is the ability to use knowledge and skills to manage financial resources effectively for a lifetime of financial wellbeing. BWIB has curated content to be distributed among Berkeley students and the youth to have the skills to become financially independent and successful. The funds used from this campaign will go towards developing the brochures and informational booklets that many will be able to take advantage of. Micro-financing involves small loans typically in the range of $100-$25,000 to individuals or groups that may otherwise have little to no access to traditional financial services. BWIB has used the Kiva platform to microfinance for the past year. Thus far, we have lent over $500 to women-owned businesses across the world in Africa, Latin America, and the Philippines. Kiva allows BWIB to reach women in countries that we may not have the opportunity to help otherwise. Many of the women we lend to support their families through their own businesses. Our loans help them expand and grow their business and help secure their financial futures. We hope to use the funds from this campaign to give loans to more women throughout the world. WOMEN IN THE WORKFORCE CONFERENCE BWIB hosts an annual Women in the Workforce conference for young individuals to meet and listen to female women leaders in the business industry through workshops and keynote speakers. Through networking and discourse, individuals will learn about women's empowerment in the workplace and engage in conversations with respected industry leaders who are truly changing the world and breaking the status quo. Although improving, the discrimination and inequality women face in the workforce is undeniable. Men hold 62% of manager positions compared to the 38% women hold. 35% of women face some type of sexual harassment in the business field. 29% women feel that their gender is an obstacle to advancement. To break these facts and stereotypes, the Women in the Workforce conference educates and brings insight to young individuals from respected women in the industry and their stories. The conference had around 100 members attend. Past keynote speakers include Gioia McCarthy, SF Market President and Northwest Division executive at the Bank of America as well as Jenny Dearborn, founder and CEO of Actionable Analytics Group and former Chief Learning Officer at SAP. Workshops were led by individuals such as Marjolein Cuellar, the managing director at Boston Consulting Group, and Alta Sparling, director of campaigns at Sephora. In order to reach out to as many Berkeley individuals (both female and male) to attend this conference, we launch this crowdfunding campaign. BWIB hopes to continue making a change in gender equity in the workforce and we believe the way to do so is to inspire and influence as many people as possible. By donating to our project, we will be able to scale this conference and make a bigger impact in the community and hopefully reach out to more people across colleges all over the USA. BUDGET The budget for our yearly conference is approximately $3000. Please find our allocation below: LEARN MORE ABOUT US Website: www.berkeleywomeninbusiness.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/BerkeleyWIB/ Instagram: www.instagram.com/berkeleywib
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Cal Club Volleyball
By Ashlin O'Riordan
Our club volleyball team fields a competitive team of dedicated players. We just won the national club championship in 2022! Go Bears!
Our club volleyball team fields a competitive team of dedicated players. We just won the national club championship in 2022! Go Bears! Who We Are Cal Women’s Club Volleyball fields a competitive team of dedicated players with rigorous academic schedules. They are in Division 1 of the NCCVL (http://nccvlw.org) and compete against Cal Poly SLO, Santa Clara, Sonoma, UC Davis, and USF at the league level and teams from all over the country at the national level each season. The bears just won the national club championship in 2022! Check out our Facebook, Instagram, and Linked in page for more info! Go bears! Our Mission Cal Club Volleyball successfully became a club in 2015, being one of the first sports clubs. Our program started with one team and now has grown to two- women's A and women's B! Beginning with 15 talented women to now 26 accomplished athletes has become a great feat. As our club gains recognition and support, we intend to improve our national ranking while getting more funding for each team. Last season, our A team ranked number 1 at the national championships in Arizona, playing on the field of the Arizona Diamondbacks!! As our teams keep growing, we hope to get more coaches and fundraise for our expensive travel. Neither one of our teams were able to make it to the Las Vegas tournament for the last 2 years because of the travel costs. We hope to work harder and achieve our goal of $3,500 to pay for the Vegas tournament for next season! We greatly appreciate your support as we hope to come home to Berkeley with another National title! Please make a gift today to support Cal Club Volleyball! What Your Donation Goes Towards Your donation will go towards next year's Vegas tournament and the many club costs to run our team. This semester, our team was informed that our gym will cost over $2,000 to rent for practice. As this expense was unforeseen as we have never had to pay for gym space, our possibility of going to Vegas next season seems less achievable. By donating to Cal Club Volleyball, you'll be helping us afford our gym space for this season and give us a chance to make it to Vegas next year! With your help: - 35% of our funds raised will pay for gym space, tournament fees, and coaching. - 35% will go to travel costs which include plane tickets, hotels, gas, and rental cars - 30% will be reserved for the Vegas Tournament entry fees. Price Breakdowns! $2,300 - gym space $2,000- Vegas Tournament Costs $1,000 - 1 night in hotel for team $80 - per jersey $60 - per rental car per day Stay Connected! You can find our schedule on our Cal Club Volleyball Instagram! We also post updates on our other social media! Facebook: Cal Club Volleyball Instagram: @calclubvolleyball
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Cal Cycling
By Max Vink
We are a collegiate racing team and a community of bike enthusiasts! Your valuable contributions will support racing and non-racing members alike.
We are a collegiate racing team and a community of bike enthusiasts! Your valuable contributions will support racing and non-racing members alike. Who We Are:Cal Cycling is a sports club that offers road, gravel, and mountain biking to the undergraduate and graduate students at UC Berkeley. Whether weekly rides, shredding trails, racing up and down the coast, or sending members to nationals, Cal Cycling has something to offer cycling enthusiasts of all levels. In the recreational sphere, we've built our team from one of the smallest into one of the largest in the league at a time when most teams struggled to rebuild post-covid. With riders packing in miles every day, we feel confident that we are among the organizations on campus that have the most fun. Whether shredding berms and sending drops or blasting descents and snagging strava KOMs, we're a community committed to the idea that it's a good day to have a great day. On the race scene, we rep the gold and blue in a blur on the course. This year alone, on the road side, we've managed to podium in two thirds of races we've entered with the best yet to come, while on the mountain side, we dominated the field with nationally ranked riders and those that they helped elevate to collegiate greatness. But our club isn't our only focus. We also are committed to expanding the sport and infrastructure of cycling across the East Bay. We're supporters of movements across Berkeley to improve bicycle infrastructure, helping to make cycling a convenience that improves road safety, reduces traffic emissions, and mitigates the amount of urban space owned by cars. We're fundraisers for NICA, helping local youth mountain bike teams have access to the same great sport that we enjoy. And we're co-organizers of the Berkeley Omnium, the longest continuously-running race in North America, which due to our success last year, is this year the home of the Nevada and Northern California District Championship. The same discipline and work ethic that it takes to be a Berkeley student is put into the efforts our team chooses to undertake, but the barriers to those efforts are greatly reduced by contributions from our supporters. Our effort to cycling accessible to all students, regardless of income, and expanding the love of the sport is made possible in part because of donations from readers like you. Read below to find out how! How You Can Help: Whether flying through the trees or pushing physical limits further than riders could ever imagine, our efforts to make this wonderful sport accessible and enjoyable for all interested students is limited by economic constraints. Through this crowdfunding project, we hope to remedy that. As a student-run club sports team, the University does not provide us with financial support and hence we rely on member dues, sponsorships, and the generosity of folks like you. Your valuable contributions support racing and non-racing members alike. Funds we raise will be used to subsidize team bikes and equipment, storage facilities, and enable racers to pay for race fees that often put a financial limit on collegiate racers who seek to stand on the podium. In short, we ask you to help make cycling more accessible to current and future members of Cal Cycling and enable us to send as many racers as possible up and down the coast of California in the coming year, putting both mountain and road riders first across the finish line. Budget Breakdown:Races are expensive! Here's how we intend to spend your donations:Keep Up With Us!Follow us on @CalCycling on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter to watch our seasons unfold and hype up the latest generation of Cal brilliance on the course!https://www.instagram.com/calcycling/
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Cal Figure Skating 2024
By Joyce Luo
We are Cal Figure Skating, a nationally-ranked student athletics team that represents the UC Berkeley in the National Intercollegiate Conference
We are Cal Figure Skating, a nationally-ranked student athletics team that represents the UC Berkeley in the National Intercollegiate Conference We are Cal Figure Skating, a nationally-ranked student athletics team that represents the University of California, Berkeley in the National Intercollegiate Conference. Please consider making a gift to help us remain competitive! Since being founded in 2003, we have grown in both size and impact. Our team now has over 80 members, with around 25 traveling to competitions throughout the academic year. In addition to being full time students and athletes, many members of our team are active in other clubs across campus. We are a diverse group of students, ranging from English to engineering to business majors, but we are connected by shared principles of competitive spirit and sportsmanship. Cal Figure Skating is an entirely student-run organization with no coaches or managers. As such, we pay out-of-pocket for practice time, transportation, competition fees, and other associated costs out of love for the sport. Understandably, these expenses add up, and as our team continues to grow, so do our costs. So, we are enlisting the help of our community to allow our team to keep flourishing and competing nationally. Insufficient funding can easily be a limiting factor due to the cost of flights, car rentals, hotels, and registration fees required for each skater to participate in often out-of-state competitions. Thus, all funds raised will go toward competition fees to ensure that every student has the chance to participate as a member of Cal Figure Skating. Budget: Average per participant cost (prices are calculated for the full academic year) Expenses Cost per Skater Flights $800 Practice Ice $500 Practice Ice (Competition) $80 Entry Fees $330 Rental Cars (+gas) $130 Hotel $300 Food $100 Our average cost per student-athlete per competition season is about $2200. This per participant cost includes travel and lodging at competitions, competition entry fees, practice ice, and equipment. With our competitive team of about 23 student athletes, that makes the cost of keeping us competitive at the national level around about $50,000 per competitive season. By raising at least $5000, we will be able to defray the hotel costs for a competitive season. This year, we have competed in a total of three Pacific Coast Section qualifying competitions, placing top 3 at each one and hosting a home competition at Oakland Ice. We are proud to announce that our season will culminate at Nationals in the spring: November 2022: DU Open (Denver, CO) February 2023: Golden Bear Skate (Oakland, CA) March 2023: Ride the Tide (San Diego, CA) April 2023: U.S. Intercollegiate Championships (Los Angeles, CA) Cal Figure Skating has qualified for the U.S. Intercollegiate Championships every year since 2011, and has placed in 2012 (Pewter), 2013 (Pewter), and 2015 (Pewter). Cal Figure Skating has won the title of Pacific Coast Sectional Champions in 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2022. Every dollar goes a long way, and we really appreciate any support you are able to give. If you are unable to support us financially at the moment, please consider sharing this campaign and spreading the word! For more information, please visit our website here, follow us on Instagram @calfigureskating, and feel free to email us at ucbfigureskating@gmail.com with any questions. Thank you, and GO BEARS!
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California Cognitive Science Conference
By UC Berkeley
Help us realize our annual California Cognitive Science Conference, which brings together world-class speakers & innovative undergraduate research in CogSci.
Help us realize our annual California Cognitive Science Conference, which brings together world-class speakers & innovative undergraduate research in CogSci. The Cognitive Science Students Association (CSSA) is fundraising for the California Cognitive Science Conference that we organize and host every year! CSSA is an undergraduate organization at UC Berkeley, aiming to support and enrich the academic life of anyone interested in Cognitive Science. Cognitive Science is the interdisciplinary study of the brain and mind. It uses fields such as neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, linguistics, computer science, social cognition, and others to try to shed light on how the mind works. We strive to build a sense of community for those passionate about cognitive science and provide valuable opportunities for personal, academic, and career development. We regularly coordinate academic events such as guest lectures and information sessions; plan social events like student-teacher dinners and Cog Sci themed gatherings; and work with Cog Sci faculty to provide assistance for students. Additionally, CSSA has an academic outreach program where we partner with local elementary schools to teach fourth graders about the brain and foster an interest in STEM. Our biggest event of the year, however, is our annual California Cognitive Science Conference. The California Cognitive Science Conference (CCSC) is an annual, day-long symposium bringing together hundreds of students, researchers, and members of the general public from around the world who are passionate about the interdisciplinary field of Cognitive Science. We feature talks given by prominent scientists and thinkers from a wide variety of disciplines. Our acclaimed poster session provides undergraduates with the opportunity to present their own original research alongside graduate students and professional researchers. Our theme for this year’s 14th annual conference is Forging Connections: Bonding & the Brain and will be all about the ways in which we connect and relate to each other!! Organizing CCSC is no easy feat: from booking the venue to flying in speakers, a lot of planning and creativity is involved in order to provide our community with an incredible and enriching experience. Therefore, all funds raised will be allocated to organizing next year’s conference. Your support is essential to the execution of our event. Here is a breakdown of our budget: Every dollar counts and we appreciate your support!! If you have any questions, please email cssa.berkeley@gmail.com. If you would like to purchase a ticket to our conference on April 15th, please visit: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/14th-annual-california-cognitive-science-conference-ccsc-2023-tickets-531471163557 Follow us on our social media! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cssa.berkeley/?hl=en Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Cal.CSSA/ Website: https://cssa.berkeley.edu/
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California Men's Ultimate (Spring 2023)
By Sam Laur
Help us on our journey back to the top of national competition in Division I of USA Ultimate. Donations cover jerseys, flights, bid fees and more!
Help us on our journey back to the top of national competition in Division I of USA Ultimate. Donations cover jerseys, flights, bid fees and more! Who We Are Ursa Major, UC Berkeley's Men's Ultimate team, has been representing Cal since 1989. In that time, the team has made 7 appearances at the USA Ultimate College Championships, where the top 20 teams in the country compete for National dominance. Most recently we finished 5th place at last year's Nationals and are in a unique position to make back-to-back appearances at this tournament - something Cal hasn't done in over a decade. We are currently ranked 25th in the country and in contention to receive one of the hotly contested bids to Nationals from the Southwest region, and we need your help to get there! But first, a little more about us. This year's iteration of Ursa Major is comprised of 22 athletes and 2 coaches, who hail from 8 different US states and 2 countries. We come from diverse backgrounds and study many different subjects. We have players who started playing ultimate as early as 5th grade and as late as graduate school, yet we are all united by this one team. All smiles after a very muddy Stanford Invite Why Support Us? In order to compete at the highest level of college ultimate, we must travel across the state and country to face other top opponents in tournaments. These tournaments include expensive travel costs such as airfare, hotels, rental cars, and gas. Cal Ultimate prides itself on not letting any financial barriers prevent people from being a part of our team. We provide as much financial assistance as possible to players who need it, which can include covering their flight and hotel costs for tournaments. In order to earn a bid to nationals we need to compete against teams from all over the country. Your donations will make competing at these tournaments accessible for players of all backgrounds on our team. We are currently ranked in the top 25 teams in the nation and know that with the proper funding, we will make it to Nationals! Budget Breakdown The graphic below shows the major costs associated with our upcoming Spring tournaments! Highlight Reels Our media team has put together some amazing videos lately. Check these out! 2022 Nationals Highlights 2022-2023 Season Coaching Announcement Fall Preseason Highlights Social Media and Contact Info Follow us! Instagram: URSA MAJOR ULTIMATE (@calmensultimate) • Instagram photos and videos Facebook: UC Berkeley Men's Ultimate Team | Facebook Twitter: Ursa Major Ultimate (@CalMensUltimate) / Twitter You can also reach out to us via email for questions or requests: californiamensultimate@gmail.com
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Fastpitch Softball Spring 2023
By UC Berkeley
Support Cal's premier Fastpitch Softball team as we get ready for the season!
Support Cal's premier Fastpitch Softball team as we get ready for the season! Hello! We are Berkeley's only fastpitch softball club! We are a group of college-aged women who love softball and want to provide the opportunity for experienced players to play fastpitch softball as well as teaching new players more about the sport. We first started this organization back in 2019, but due to COVID this will only be our second season playing. This semester, we are planning to finish our tournament season strong and start preparing for next year! We are gaining recognition as a club sport at Berkeley and will officially make the transition at the end of this semester. We are depending on your support to pay league dues, purchase equipment, rent practice space, and travel to games. Help us reach our goals! Here are some items we are fundraising for this year: League dues for this semester: $1,275 Team uniforms: $850 Field rentals (Home games): $720 Travel (Away games): $700 Umpire payments: $1,240 Total: $4,785 Our fundraising goal is $3,500. We will use money left over from last semester, plus this semester's fundraising, to cover these expenses for the year. Suggested Donations: $20 will buy the team gatorade or snacks $35 will give us one hour of game time $54 will pay league dues for one player $93 will cover an umpire's salary for one home game $163 will completely pay for one home game If you have any questions, you can contact us at berkeleyclubsoftball@gmail.com, or message our leadership team: Captain: Emily Ramey, emily_ramey@berkeley.edu Co-president: Maddie Heath, madisonh@berkeley.edu Co-president: Faith Cuellar, fcuellar@berkeley.edu Treasurer: Lianne Wong, liwong10@berkeley.edu Secretary: Jennah Brown, jb0055@berkeley.edu Fundraising: Mireya Vargas, mireya_va25@berkeley.edu Outreach: Joelle de Leon, joelledeleon@berkeley.edu You can also follow us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/calclubsoftball/ Photos from past seasons:
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Funding Free Speech: The Berkeley Forum Spring 2023 Crowdfunding
By Rachel Perez
Support free speech & open discussion! All money raised will go towards bringing some of the best thinkers, leaders, and innovators to our campus.
Support free speech & open discussion! All money raised will go towards bringing some of the best thinkers, leaders, and innovators to our campus. Who We Are The Berkeley Forum is a non-partisan, student-run organization at the University of California, Berkeley. Founded in 2012, the Forum hosts debates, panels, and talks by leading experts in a wide variety of fields. The Berkeley Forum plays an important role in the community by providing unique opportunities for students, faculty, and community members to come together and engage in the discussion and presentation of a diversity of relevant and important topics and issues. The unique platform the Forum hosts allows experts to share their passions with an engaged, excited audience, but also allows the audience to interact and grapple with the ideas being posed to them. The Berkeley Forum has a long history of hosting events with a range of distinguished speakers. In the past, we have hosted basketball player, Jaylen Brown, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the Chief Medical Advisor to the President, Anthony Fauci, US Senator Rand Paul, ACLU President Susan Herman, Olympic Swimmer Natalie Coughlin, 88Rising Founder Sean Miyashiro, and many more. How Your Support Helps The Berkeley Forum was founded on the principles that its events ought to be open and accessible. We consistently strive to improve the quality of experience and discourse we foster, but these goals come with a significant financial burden. Unfortunately, the funding we are provided from the university covers just a limited fraction of our overall costs. Frequently, Forum members, who are all undergraduate students, are required to pay out of their own pockets for our events. Thus, we are hoping to receive support from the Berkeley community that will help us continue putting on our events. Our current semester includes a total of 13 debates, panels, and talks. We hope to expand accessibility by booking larger venues, upgrading our current audio-visual tech, and accommodate for more speakers in our debates and panels, which calls for greater funding to achieve. As our organization strives to stay true to its founding values, our financial limitations as a prominent student-run organization have begun to inhibit our abilities to achieve our goals. With your support, we hope to overcome these issues in three areas: 1) $800 to increase the number of debates and panels. As opposed to our talks, which only feature one speaker, our debates and panels often feature 2-4 speakers which can multiply the costs of an event significantly. For instance, flying one speaker out from the East Coast can cost $250, but flying two speakers costs $500. As a result, we limit the number of debates and panels we can put on. $800 of this crowdfunding campaign will be used for organizing more debates and panels and, thus, diversifying our platform even more. 2) $600 to purchase new technology. All of our events are streamed and recorded to increase accessibility to those who cannot make it to our events in person. For each event we require a camera, microphones, and professional lighting. We would like to allocate $600 toward new audio-visual tech to uphold our high standard for virtual accessibility. 3) $600 to host more events at off-campus venues. Recently, we have not been able to use many of the venues we used to get for free (especially in the Haas School of Business) because of changes in administrative rules. As a result, we will end up having to spend more money on venue rentals. To compensate for this, we would like to allocate $600 towards increased venue costs as well as towards hosting more events in venues that are off-campus to make them more accessible. Contact Information Email: info@forum.berkeley.edu Website: https://www.berkeleyforum.org/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/berkeleyforum/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-berkeley-forum/mycompany/ Instagram: @berkeleyforum Twitter: @berkeleyforum
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Littlest Bear 5K
By School of Information
NEW GOAL: $3,500! The Littlest Bear 5K takes place every year, celebrating with School of Information alums. This year, we support our Student Opportunity Fund!
NEW GOAL: $3,500! The Littlest Bear 5K takes place every year, celebrating with School of Information alums. This year, we support our Student Opportunity Fund! School of Information Ready to participate? --> Start by registering for the Littlest Bear Virtual 5K. Current I School students may register for the Littlest Bear 5K free of charge! As you lace up for this year’s Littlest Bear Virtual 5K, we invite you to go the extra mile by donating to the I School Opportunity Fellowship Fund. Your gift doesn’t just support students - it removes barriers, empowers leaders, and fuels innovation for those who need it most. Your support will: Transform Lives: Your donation to the I School Opportunity Fellowship provides critical fellowship support to graduate students who’ve overcome extraordinary challenges to pursue their education at the I School. Amplify Impact: Direct support goes to students leading the charge in diversity, equity, and inclusion at the I School and beyond. Build Community: Every dollar helps create a more equitable future for tech, policy, and information fields. Together, we’re moving the needle. Maximize your impact: the more people donate, the more we win! Last year, your generosity helped students travel to conferences like Grace Hopper, National Society of Black Engineers, and Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing and provided direct fellowship support to students who had an urgent need. The more funds we raise, the more opportunities we can unlock, so this year, let’s go even further! Questions? Want to organize a run in your area? Reach out to Charles Wollin Director of Alumni Relations, charles@ischool.berkeley.edu. Thanks! Thank you for fulfilling Professor Emeritus Paul Duguid’s Challenge! Since we reached 20 donors, we unlocked an additional $500 in funding for the opportunity fund!
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Cal Archery 2024-25 Tournament Fundraiser
By Cal Archery
Cal Archery, a leading West Coast team, excels in competition and inclusivity. Help support our athletes' tournament costs with your donations!
Cal Archery, a leading West Coast team, excels in competition and inclusivity. Help support our athletes' tournament costs with your donations! Cal Archery Who We Are The Cal Archery, founded in 2005, was one of the first recreational collegiate archery teams established on the West Coast. Over the years, it has grown significantly, now boasting more than 50 active members. As leaders in the Western Region, the team has not only excelled in competition, winning multiple gold medals at regional, state, and national levels, but also played a key role in helping other West Coast teams, such as UC Davis, UC San Diego, and UC Merced, establish their own archery programs. Committed to fostering inclusivity, the club welcomes members of all skill levels, from beginners to experienced competitors. We provide all necessary equipment and training, offering opportunities to learn and compete in various disciplines – compound, Olympic recurve, and barebow. With the club's continued growth, we aim to raise $7,500 in this year's crowdfunding opportunity to cover a portion of our team's competition costs and sponsor our athlete's at state and national tournaments. Our goal is to ensure that archers of every skill level can engage in the sport and thrive in a supportive, competitive environment. What will your donation go towards? This year, we hope to support our team in financing our tournament fees, while minimizing the out-of-pocket cost for each attendee. Competitions in the 2024-2025 season include: February 2025: National Indoor Championships (Sacramento, CA) April 2025: West Regional Collegiate Championships (Long Beach, CA) May 2025: National Outdoor Collegiate Championships (East Lansing, Michigan) The projected cost breakdown per athlete in the 2024-25 competition season is tabulated below. Competition costs generally include transportation (rental cars/flights), hotel accommodations, and competition registration fees, adding up to roughly $15,000 annually, or $600 per athlete, for our actively competing group of roughly 25 athletes. Competition registration* $100 Hotels $250 Ground transportation $150 Airfare* $100 Total $600 Estimates are rough only, and actual expenditures may vary. * These are reimbursed costs, not the full cost the athlete pays. With this crowdfunding opportunity, we hope to raise $7500, half of the expected costs to fully support our athletes in tournaments, greatly alleviating our fundraising efforts. Regardless of whether our goal is met, we will use the funds raised to sponsor our athletes' competition funds as much as possible. For all donations that come through crowdfunding, we will cover expenses in the following priority order: Tournament Registration Fees Hotel Costs Ground Transportation Costs Airfare We hope that this strategy encourages many students to compete at tournaments within at least the state. Any remaining costs will be covered by team members and additional fundraising efforts. By donating to our club, you will help provide the students of UC Berkeley a chance to learn and actively participate in archery as a sport. Please consider supporting us! Stay connected with us! Official Website: https://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~archery/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/calarcheryclub/
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Cal Men's Ultimate: Road to 2025 Nationals! (Fall 2024)
By Cal Men's Ultimate
Cal Men's Ultimate aims for the D-I College Championship with 14 returning players. Support travel and financial aid to make Nationals!
Cal Men's Ultimate aims for the D-I College Championship with 14 returning players. Support travel and financial aid to make Nationals! Cal Men's Ultimate Who We Are Cal Men's Ultimate was formed in 1989 as a member of what is now USA Ultimate's D-I College division. Our team competes at high-level tournaments throughout California and across the country. Each college ultimate season culminates in a national tournament featuring the 20 best teams, with representatives from each of 8 regions. In our history we have made Nationals nine times, with four of those appearances coming since 2019. In 2022 we saw our best result since 2010, with a 5th place finish in the country. In 2023 and 2024, we made nationals twice more, breaking seed both times. Last year, we came back from a 9-4 deficit to win 11-10 and earn our bid to nationals. Heading into the 2024-2025 season, we feel that our 14 returning players are more bought into fighting for Cal Ultimate than ever. Each of us is equipped with an extra season of experience under our belts, and we are looking to reach even higher successes. This year we will attend two fall pre-season tournaments, four regular season tournaments in the spring, and up to three postseason tournaments culminating in the college championships. Our team's goal this year is to win the D-I College Championship. This requires us to make nationals for the fourth year in a row. To make nationals, we must compete and succeed in tournaments around the country, which have been as far as Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Beyond the costs of travel and lodging, we have to get jerseys, pay bid fees to tournaments, and purchase off-campus practice fields (along with any miscellaneous fees). Ultimate frisbee is an expensive and exclusive sport. Our top priority as a program is to provide financial aid to players who aren't able to afford these costs. We believe that no one should ever be restricted access from ultimate due to financial reasons. In the past, crowdfunding has been huge for us in procuring the budget we need to pay these costs. Our fundraising goal is to raise $5,500. $3,000 would go to flights to travel tournaments and other travel fees such as rental cars, hotels, and food costs. $1,400 would go to financial aid for players in need. This money can go towards uniforms, flights, and hotels for students who cannot afford them. $1000 would go towards tournament bid fees, which are often $500. This would cover our two fall-preseason tournaments. Cost breakdown per person - Flights: $800 per person - Lodging: $350 per person - Rental cars & gas: $250 per person - Bid fees: $250 per person - Food: $200 per person - Practice fields: $60 per person - Uniforms: $50 per person Frisbee in not inexpensive, and the costs of these events take a toll on the players' bank accounts. Your donations will greatly aid in making these expenses a lot more affordable for our team and our players. Donate whatever you can, any amount is appreciated! If we can't reach our goal, then our first priority will be fulfilling financial aid needs. We will still be able to work towards our goal of making nationals! Cal players celebrate qualifying for 2024 Nationals Associated Costs The costs to play Ultimate can be lot for a college student to bear. Here's a breakdown: Why Support Us? In order to compete at the highest level of college ultimate, we must travel across the state and country to face other top opponents in tournaments. These tournaments include expensive travel costs such as airfare, hotels, rental cars, and gas. Cal Ultimate prides itself on not letting any financial barriers prevent people from being a part of our team. We provide as much financial assistance as possible to players who need it, which can include covering their flight and hotel costs for tournaments. In order to earn a bid to nationals we need to compete against teams from all over the country. Your donations will make competing at these tournaments accessible for players of all backgrounds on our team. Our players and leadership are more bought in than ever this year and know that with the proper funding, we will make it to Nationals! Below is a graphic of our travel schedule from last year's regular season. Social Media and Contact Info Follow us! Instagram: URSA MAJOR ULTIMATE (@calmensultimate) • Instagram photos and videos Facebook: UC Berkeley Men's Ultimate Team | Facebook Twitter: Ursa Major Ultimate (@CalMensUltimate) / Twitter You can also reach out to us via email for questions or requests: californiamensultimate@gmail.com
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Cal Boxing 2024
By Cal Boxing
Support Cal Boxing , the nation's oldest collegiate boxing program, as they compete and foster champions!
Support Cal Boxing , the nation's oldest collegiate boxing program, as they compete and foster champions! Cal Boxing About Us Founded in 1916, the UC Berkeley Boxing Club (Cal Boxing) is the longest continuously established collegiate boxing program in the nation. We compete in intercollegiate boxing events as members of the National Collegiate Boxing Association (NCBA), sanctioned by USA Boxing. Our club is open to all students, regardless of skill level, and we strive to create a welcoming and inclusive environment for all who want to learn the sweet science of boxing. In the 108th year of our storied history, Cal Boxing continues to shine. Most recently, Alejandro Rojas, a freshman, defied the odds to win the men’s 132-pound division at the 2024 NCBA National Championships in Charlotte, North Carolina. His rapid rise to success is a testament to the dedication and skill developed in our program. Rojas joins a proud tradition of champions, following in the footsteps of past winners such as Lea Chambadal, who captured the women’s 132-pound title in 2023. With a rich legacy of developing champions both in and out of the ring, our club emphasizes character, leadership, and resilience. Under the guidance of Head Coach Jon Zaul, a former team captain and longtime coach, we aim to cultivate not just top-tier athletes, but also well-rounded individuals who can handle the challenges of life. Every year, hundreds of students express interest in joining our team, and while our roster is limited to 30-60 boxers, our focus extends beyond competition. We believe that boxing is an educational experience, fostering personal growth and teamwork as much as it builds physical skill. At Cal Boxing, we are more than a team—we are a community. Join us and become part of a tradition that spans over a century of excellence. Funding and Support As a fully student-run team, Cal Boxing receives no financial assistance from UC Berkeley or Sports Clubs. This means that all of our expenses—including travel, gear, competition fees, and coaching—are funded directly by our athletes and through fundraising efforts. As we continue to grow and compete at the national level, so do our financial needs. Your generous contributions play a critical role in supporting our program. Donations help cover key expenses such as: 70% for travel and accommodations, ensuring our athletes can compete in major tournaments across the country 20% for community events and outreach, helping us engage with the broader Berkeley community 10% for athlete fuel and nutrition, so our boxers can perform at their best All donations are tax-deductible and go directly towards our operating costs. Your support, no matter the amount, makes a significant impact on our ability to pursue excellence both in and out of the ring. If we don’t meet our goal, your contribution will still go towards essential expenses like travel to competitions, which is our top priority. If we exceed our goal, additional funds will further enhance the program. Please consider making a donation today and helping us continue to grow, compete, and foster a positive community for all our athletes. Contact Us Website | Instagram | Facebook | calboxingclub@gmail.com
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Cal Equestrian Team | Fall 2024
By Cal Equestrian
Cal Equestrian Club competes in equitation riding. Donations support horse care, rider fees, and travel as we aim for Nationals this season!
Cal Equestrian Club competes in equitation riding. Donations support horse care, rider fees, and travel as we aim for Nationals this season! Cal Equestrian Who Are We? The Cal Equestrian Club practices and competes in American equitation riding. The club competes in the Interscholastic Equestrian Association, which allows students of all experience levels to join the team regardless of access to horses. When at competitions, the host college provides the horses. Riders are randomly assigned to a horse and compete against other collegiate riders with similar riding experiences. Levels range from walk/trot on the flat to 3 ft over fences. Our History The Cal Equestrian Team was Founded in 2010. The team joined the Intercollegiate Horse Show Association for the 2011-2012 season. The team competes against other Zone 8 Region 1 teams including Stanford University, Cal Poly, UC Davis, and UC Santa Cruz. For the 2022-2023 season, Cal Equestrian sent a rider to IHSA Nationals. This year marks the team's first year with a new coach and new facility. We are thrilled to be riding with Paxton LLC at Willow and Wolf in Livermore. At this new program, we hope to renew the Cal Equestrian competitive spirit and send our team to Nationals for the first time. Your Impact Our goal is to raise funds to support our team's horses, and riders in their ambitions to compete at Nationals. This year the team is very grateful to have received their first horse donations. The addition of donated horses offers a greater number of lesson opportunities for team members, a greater number of competition opportunities for team members, and the opportunity for Cal to host a colligate show. However, the addition of these horses also means additional costs. Traditionally, the team split fees between members. To keep team fees at a minimum, funds from Crowdfunding will be used to cover these additional monthly horse fees. Extra funds will be used to support riders who need financial support with paying team dues and to cover travel costs that might discourage or prohibit a member from competing at regionals, zones, or nationals. Funds Breakdown The team's horses will cost around $1,000 a month. The first $8,000 collected during Crowd Funding will go to horse care. The remaining $2,000 of our goal will go to supporting riders with their team dues, lesson costs, and travel costs. Contact Email us at calequestrianclub@gmail.com Connect with us on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and our Website! Join our mailing list by clicking here.
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Cal Women's Rugby | Support Our Team! Fall 2024
By Cal Women's Rugby
Cal Women's Rugby, a student-run team, competes nationally. Donations cover travel, coach fees, and more as we aim for a 2025 national championship!
Cal Women's Rugby, a student-run team, competes nationally. Donations cover travel, coach fees, and more as we aim for a 2025 national championship! Cal Women's Rugby Cal Women's Rugby (CWR) was formed in 1998. It is an entirely student-operated team where all finances and expenses are covered by donations, fundraising, and player dues. We foster a competitive and supportive atmosphere for womxn to learn the amazing sport of rugby. CWR is a no-cut sport, as most people discover and begin playing rugby in college. In fact, almost all of our team learned what rugby is and how to play on this team. This year, we have a roster of around forty students. We are very proud of this number, as it has been challenging to rebuild our team after the COVID years. In our 2022 season, we struggled to field a team for most of our matches and lost all of our league games. CWR is a D1 club team. We compete in the Pacific Mountain Rugby Conference against Chico State, Fresno State, UC Davis, Sac State, and Stanford. In the this last 2024 season, we hit the ground running and were determined to become one of the most dominant teams in our league. With a strong group of rookies and returnees, we went 6-2 in the league and qualified for playoffs. CWR advanced to the quarterfinals of the CRAA D1 Club playoffs and placed in the Top 7 in the nation! For the 2025 season, our collective goals are to win our league, become 15s National Champions, and, of course, beat Stanford! To achieve these goals, we may need to rent off-campus fields for additional practices, travel to four different cities for league competitions, participate in two weekends of playoffs in an undetermined location, and travel to nationals, which is likely out of state. CWR will use the funds raised to pay for travel to games, compensate our coaches fairly for their hard work, and other team costs. One of our main goals at CWR is to go to playoffs and nationals. These weekends can be expensive trips depending on the location. Also, at CWR we emphasize that we are not just a rugby team but also a community and family that spans over twenty-five years! We are very fortunate to have some committed alumni and local rugby experts who help to run and coach our team. Their value to our team is indescribable and we hope to give them fair compensation. Part of the funds we raise will help us pay our amazing coaches who donate their time and knowledge to our team! Price Breakdown for 2024-2025 season: We appreciate your support and are committed to win this season! If we don't reach our funding goal, we will still use the raised funds to cover the expenses outlined in our project plan to have a successful season. Go Bears! Stay connected with us! Cal Women's Rugby is currently in our pre-season. Keep an eye out for our spring season schedule on our Instagram! Instagram: calwomensrugby Facebook: calwomensrugby Email: calwomensrugby@gmail.com
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Cal Lightweight Rowing 2024
By Cal Lightweight Rowing
Cal Lightweight Rowing fosters athletes and competes nationally, relying on donations for equipment, travel, and coaching to build a strong, inclusive team.
Cal Lightweight Rowing fosters athletes and competes nationally, relying on donations for equipment, travel, and coaching to build a strong, inclusive team. Cal Lightweight Rowing Cal Lightweight Rowing is a team with more than 50 years of history, dedicated to growing and fostering athletes as well as competing on a national level. Since its founding, the team has now includes over 50 men and women who train six days a week, enduring early mornings and arduous workouts for a love of rowing and the camaraderie of crewmates. The team prides itself on inclusion; we will teach and train any student interested enough to commit to the team as a part of a larger mission to expand the sport of rowing and its benefits to the Berkeley community. To meet our goals of developing competitive athletes alongside fostering new ones, the team relies heavily on the generosity of family, friends, and alumni for the necessary resources. Money for purchasing oars and boats, renting a boathouse, and even providing financial aid to rowers comes directly from donations, and your contribution will go towards not only keeping us afloat, but ensuring we can win nationally. In Spring 2024, the Cal Lightweight Rowing team competed at the Western Intercollegiate Regional Association (WIRA) Championships in Sacramento, CA, where we placed 1st in the Men's Novice Lightweight 4+ and 3rd in the Women's Novice 8+. We also competed at the American Collegiate Rowing Association (ACRA) Championship in Oak Ridge, TN and placed 3rd in the Men's Varsity Lightweight 4+ and the Women's Varsity 2- at ACRAs.During the summer, the Cal Lightweights represented UC Berkeley in Huzhou, China at the 2024 Elite International Universities Water Sports Open, where we competed alongside teams from Harvard University, Yale University, Cambridge University, University of Tokyo, Yonsei University, NTU Singapore, and Zhejiang University. This season, we hope to build on this success with an expanded roster of athletes, new equipment, and hiring additional coaching staff. What Your Money Goes Towards As a rowing team, we operate on a similar scale and compete against fully-funded rowing programs across the nation. Yet despite being self-funded, we still face similar costs. Our goal is to build a nationally recognized program. We will use the funds raise to cover new equipment, race and boat entries, travel costs, boathouse rent, hiring more coaching staff, etc. If we do not reach our goal, we will prioritize what we need as a team to function, instead of purchasing new equipment or hiring additional coaching staff, for instance. Surpassing our goal will help sustain us in the future and get us closer to national recognition! Cost breakdown of our 2023-2024 season. Estimates are rough only, and actual expenditures may vary. Thank you for your support, we would not be here without you! Reach us at callightweightrowing@gmail.com or any of our social media! Website Instagram Facebook
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Women's Lacrosse Team Fundraising
By Women's Lacrosse
After placing 4th last year, support Women's Lacrosse as we aim to win the WWLL Division II and WDIA Division II Championships in 2024!
After placing 4th last year, support Women's Lacrosse as we aim to win the WWLL Division II and WDIA Division II Championships in 2024! Women's Lacrosse About Us: Cal Women's Club Lacrosse Cal Women’s Club Lacrosse is a student-run organization at the University of California, Berkeley, competing in two of the nation’s most competitive leagues: the Western Women’s Lacrosse League (WWLL) and the Women’s Collegiate Lacrosse Associates (WCLA). Since our founding in 2008, we have been dedicated to advancing women’s lacrosse at UC Berkeley, fostering leadership, teamwork, and sportsmanship in a fun, competitive environment. In just our second year, we won both the WWLL Division II and WDIA Division II Championships. Since moving up to Division I, we’ve continued to build on our success, consistently ranking among the top teams. In 2023, we finished 4th in the WWLL, demonstrating our competitive spirit and drive. Our team is not only united by a passion for lacrosse but also enriched by the diverse academic and personal pursuits of our players. Our student-athletes study a range of subjects, including Data Science, Engineering, Nutritional Science, and Media Studies, while being active members of various campus organizations. Funding and Support As a fully student-run team, we receive no financial assistance from UC Berkeley or Sports Clubs. This means all expenses—such as rental cars, tournament fees, gear, and coaching salaries—are paid out of pocket by our players and through fundraising efforts. As our team grows, so do our financial needs. The generosity of donors plays a crucial role in sustaining our program, allowing us to compete with top teams across the country and gain national recognition. All donations are tax-deductible and go directly toward our operating costs. Your support, no matter the amount, makes a huge difference in helping us pursue our goals and maintain the high level of competition we've achieved. Every donation, whether large or small, is valuable. Even if we don’t meet our fundraising goal, your contribution will still help cover essential expenses like travel, tournament fees, and equipment. If we exceed our goal, the extra funds will enhance our program. Every dollar raised brings us closer to ensuring our team can thrive and compete at the highest level. We believe everyone, regardless of financial background, should have the opportunity to join our lacrosse team. Please consider making a donation today and sharing our cause! By supporting our team, you’re contributing to a positive community where women develop lifelong skills, form lasting friendships, pursue their academic goals, and enjoy playing the sport they love. Here’s what your donation can help us cover this season: Tournament Fee: $2,080 Hotels: $1,600/weekend Rental Cars: $150/car Referees: $160-280/referee WWLL Dues: $1,170/year Coaches: $4,000/coach For questions or concerns, contact: calclublacrosse@gmail.com Check out our website: http://www.calclublacrosse.org/ Follow us on Instagram! @calwclublax
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Cal Ice Hockey | Fall 2024
By Cal Ice Hockey
Cal Ice Hockey's aiming for our first PAC-8 championship and needs funds for rink rentals, travel, and community outreach events. Support us!
Cal Ice Hockey's aiming for our first PAC-8 championship and needs funds for rink rentals, travel, and community outreach events. Support us! Cal Ice Hockey We have extended our goal to $30K! Every donation goes a long way to helping us with our goal of making our first ever national playoff appearance! The Cal Ice Hockey Team, founded in 1918 and officially recognized as a Varsity Team in 1928, has a distinguished history. After a hiatus during World War II, the program reemerged as a Club Sport and has been competing in the PAC-8 conference since 1996. Our program has consistently excelled, qualifying for the PAC-8 Playoffs and the ACHA Western Regional Tournament. With projected expenses nearing $150,000 for the 2024/25 season, contributions are crucial for our organization’s growth and sustainability. As the only group in our league without a salaried head coach, your charitable gift enables us to offer a competitive stipend and reduce our $4,000 per player dues, making the team more accessible to talented players. The 1918 Cal Ice Hockey Team Without on-campus ice training facilities, your backing helps cover the steep off-campus ice rental charges of nearly $600 per hour, allowing us to increase practice frequency, improve skill levels, and schedule ice slots that better support student academics. Additionally, your funding helps offset high travel costs for league away games and enables us to compete against higher-ranked ACHA teams, enhancing our regional and national standings. Your assistance covers broadcasting fees, ensuring that family, friends, and fans can watch our games remotely. Donations help us purchase essential equipment, update jerseys, and hire professionals for photography, videography, and marketing. Goal celebration vs. SJSU (PC: Spencer Lee) Based on previous budgets and our current plans, we expect to spend approximately 150k in the 2024-2025 season. The majority of our budget is dedicated to rink fees, which covers the costs of renting ice time for practices, games, and travel. Our budgeted expenditures are shown in the graph below. Our project originates from our financial struggles that continually makes it difficult for our team to improve and succeed. Due to our lack of funding, our team has to be extremely frugal holding practice times at 6am. This puts an extreme strain on our players as we attempt to balance the workload of attending UC Berkeley while pursuing the sport we love. In addition, we only can afford to practice twice a week compared to our competitors who practice 4-5 times a week leaving us at an extreme disadvantage. Lastly, not only does our budget leave us with inconvenient practice times, but if we qualified for nationals, we would be unable to afford it. The team celebrating a goal vs. SJSU (PC: Spencer Lee) All things considered, the most important goal of this fundraising campaign is to expand our impact on the surrounding community. Specifically, our team hopes to invest time and money in hockey outreach events with projects like charity games, summer camps, and youth team mentoring. Another implementation our team strives to make is holding a “teddy bear toss” game, where after the first goal is scored fans will throw teddy bears onto the ice that will then be donated to an orphanage or sick children’s hospital. In closing, your donation will go a long way to help both the team and the communities of Berkeley and Oakland. Celebrating the home opener win vs. SJSU 9-0 (PC: Spencer Lee) P.S. The Big Freeze versus Stanford is back on November 15th, 8 PM @ Oakland Ice Center for the first time in two years! Post 11-2 Big Freeze win Vs. Stanford 2022 (PC Jaden Yenjai) Check out our social media! Twitter: @calicehockey Instagram: @calicehockey Tiktok: @calicehockey Website: https://calicehockey.net/index.html Feel Free to Contact Us! tysonstorr@berkeley.edu team@calicehockey.com
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Support Mobile Health Clinics in Vietnam!
By VMO
NEW GOAL: $2500! All donations go toward funding mobile health clinics, Hep B vaccinations, corrective surgeries, & more for underserved areas in Vietnam
NEW GOAL: $2500! All donations go toward funding mobile health clinics, Hep B vaccinations, corrective surgeries, & more for underserved areas in Vietnam VMO Update: New Goal of $2,500! Thank you so much to everyone who has helped us reach our goal of $2,000 this fall! Hoping to continue this momentum, we have decided to add a stretch goal of $500, for a total of $2,500 this October. VMO is hoping to raise $20,000 this year in total to provide as many Hep B vaccines as we can and to support twice as many Mobile Clinics as last Summer. Any additional support will bring us closer to this goal. Once again, thank you so much for everyone's past and continued support! Established in 2008, Volunteers for Medical Outreach (VMO) is a student-run, nonprofit organization that aims to provide underserved communities abroad with free, sustainable healthcare. Every school year, members of Volunteers for Medical Outreach organize various events in order to raise funds for our cause. 100% of the proceeds we make go directly toward funding mobile health clinics, Hepatitis B vaccinations, medications, dental services, corrective surgeries, and school renovations for underserved areas in the global community. During the summer, we travel abroad to volunteer amongst doctors, dentists, and pharmacists at the mobile health and vaccination clinics that we fund, teach public health lessons to the communities we visit, visit hospitals to view the disparities of healthcare systems in different countries, and serve the community in non-medically related ways as well. So far, VMO has established a strong presence in Southern and Central Vietnam, but we are hopeful about expanding our services to other countries as our organization continues to grow. This year will be our 14th trip to Vietnam where we plan to host 2 full day mobile clinics to provide the local community with Hepatitis B vaccinations, dental care, and pharmaceutical drugs. In addition to our mobile clinics, our students will also volunteer to renovate local schools, give dental health lessons to school children, and learn more about public health in Vietnam. Not only does VMO provide services to these communities, but our Cal students are given a valuable opportunity to have a hands-on learning experience in these mobile clinics. This past summer, the money we raised throughout last school year enabled us to provide 100 Hep B vaccinations and screenings for children. These funds also helped us host 2 mobile clinics in Hue where we saw over 800 patients ranging from young children receiving dental care to older patients receiving medications. Our trip members were able to assist the dentist and pharmacists as well as utilize their blood pressure training on the patients there. As an organization traveling abroad to volunteer for a local community, we recognize the privilege and educational value that this opportunity provides our students in their pre-health journey. To uphold our mission of providing sustainable healthcare, we believe in the importance of education and therefore prioritize teaching the children proper dental hygiene and teaching the adults about the risks and symptoms of Hepatitis B. In addition, we ensure that we return to the communities that we have developed personal connections with. All this is done via our longstanding partnership with Aid to Children without Parents (ACWP) and recently QTS Australia who recruit volunteer doctors, pharmacists, and dentists to travel with us to Vietnam for these mobile clinics. 100% of our funds raised will go toward subsidizing the medical supplies and other operating costs for our mission by Summer 2024. During this past fall semester, our members have organized and hosted numerous fundraisers including Krispy Kreme fundraisers, Berkeley Hill clean-ups, and various other social media campaigns such as online Bingo and raffles. During the Krispy Kreme fundraisers, our members wake up at 5am to sell donuts in San Francisco! For our local community work, we participate in Keep the Red Out where our members clean up dry brush in the Berkeley Hills to prevent wildfires. With all of our proceeds going directly to providing medical supplies for our mobile clinics, we are hoping to garner your support so we can expand our impact's reach. Our members and organization are extremely dedicated to providing services to underserved communities and hopeful for a future with international health equity. We believe your contributions will help us fulfill our goals and expand our impact to additional communities. The mobile clinics take place in late May or early June. We plan to purchase medical supplies and send funds in late April or early May. To reiterate, all funding goes to support patients who would otherwise be unable to receive necessary, essential healthcare. We wish to make a tangible difference in each patient's life by providing care ranging from potentially life-changing surgeries, preventative vaccines, or basic dental equipment for them to maintain daily hygiene. Numerous previous members fondly recall the trip as an eye-opening experience for their perspective on national and global health, and helping assist doctors that utilize the supplies purchased from their fundraising goals is especially fulfilling. Any and all donations are extremely appreciated! We thank you for all your support! Here are some quotes from our previous trip members! "My experience on the trip this past summer was truly unforgettable. Serving these communities was a humbling experience because it reminded me of the importance of compassion, empathy, and community." - Joy Le, senior "I had a meaningful experience with VMO cohort in Vietnam. The trip allowed me to reflect upon my childhood memories in Vietnam, share that with other members and connect the values of healthcare systems in the US and Vietnam together. Throughout the VMO trip, I felt grateful for the opportunity to serve the community I grew up in and for the great friendships with other members." - Nhi Phung, sophomore "As an immigrant, VMO's mission struck me because I could see myself in the shoes of the people that VMO strives to help. We had the opportunity to organize free mobile and vaccination clinics for underrepresented communities in Vietnam and work alongside so many doctors, nurses, and other dedicated healthcare professionals." -Hieu Pham, senior This budget provides a rough estimate only and actual expenditures may vary. If we are unable to raise the $2,000 necessary, we will raise more money through other fundraising goals, such as our donut sales, Keep the Red Out, and others. Still, crowdfunding is an additional helper for reaching our overall goal of $10,000, so any amount received will be helpful toward our cause! Check out our social media! Instagram: @calvmo Facebook: @calvmo X (Twitter): @cal_vmo Website: https://vmo.berkeley.edu Feel Free to contact us at: calvmo@gmail.com
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Support Free Kidney Screenings Around the Bay! (Fall 2024)
By Kidney Disease Awareness
We provide free kidney disease screenings and awareness events in underserved communities across the Bay Area to reduce high rates of kidney disease.
We provide free kidney disease screenings and awareness events in underserved communities across the Bay Area to reduce high rates of kidney disease. Kidney Disease Awareness Who are we? We are the Kidney Disease Screening and Awareness Program (KDSAP) of UC Berkeley! Our organization addresses the issue of chronic kidney disease (CKD) in the Bay Area. CKD is known as a silent killer because its symptoms are undetectable until the final stages of the disease, at which point the damage to patients’ kidneys is irreversible. Kidney disease affects 1 in 3 adults and is the 9th leading cause of death in the U.S. Many people are often unaware that they may be at risk for CKD due to unequal access to healthcare in the United States. Furthermore, of the two treatment options for kidney disease, 1) kidney transplants are often unavailable to patients as it is very difficult to find a match from the transplant list, and 2) dialysis is a costly procedure both in time and money. Our free kidney screenings in the Bay Area focus on prevention, helping high-risk populations monitor and maintain their kidney health before it's too late. Here at KDSAP, we provide free kidney screenings and awareness events to all, prioritizing outreach to minority populations who are at higher risk, including Asian Americans, African Americans, Hispanics, and other underserved communities. By partnering with local community centers, churches, and non-profits, we ensure our services reach those who need them most. Our screenings include free one-on-one consultations with physicians, and we are mentored by UCSF nephrologists who guide us in delivering accurate kidney health information and services. Most of our funding is directed toward purchasing supplies and creating awareness materials for our screenings. As a student organization, we rely on fundraising and community grants in order to carry out our mission. Volunteers after a screening at The Mission HQ, Spring 2025. What do we do? As an organization, we have two primary objectives: to hold free kidney screenings throughout the Bay Area and organize awareness events for the public to learn more about maintaining kidney health. Our work addresses and advances health equity by ensuring that all the services that we provide (e.g. screenings and awareness events) are free and open to everyone. We distribute information about these events to as broad audiences as possible. We make targeted efforts to reach the underserved in our community by working with community centers, churches, and other non-profit organizations to publicize our services to those who need them the most. For our screenings, we partner with physicians who provide one-on-one consultations with patients. Our free kidney screenings hold the following stations: 1) Registration 2) Urinalysis 3) Blood Pressure 4) Blood Glucose 5) BMI/Waist-Hip Ratio 6) Physician Consultation 7) Wellness & Nutrition with a Renal Dietician We are a rapidly growing organization, and in the past years have expanded the number of screenings we hold per year and the locations in which we hold them. For this semester, from early October to mid-December, we plan on having 6 screenings in different locations across the Bay Area. We would greatly appreciate your help as we work towards increasing engagement with the community and making a positive impact on more people’s health. What will your money go towards? Your donation will go towards the purchase of equipment we use in our screenings, such as urinalysis machines, blood glucose monitors, and test strips. Each screening costs approximately $281. This includes $400 for bulk supplies per screening (hand sanitizer, table cloths, alcohol wipes, alcohol pads, tissue paper, band-aids, cotton pads, batteries, etc.) and $3 per patient (urinalysis strips, urine cups, paper bag for urine cups, blood glucose test strips, lancets). Every semester, we also carry out mock screenings (2x $20) and trainings (2x $20) to prepare our general member volunteers with the skills needed to work at screenings. We will spend around $467 on outreach care packages and post-screening resource pamphlets on free local clinics and aftercare services. We spend $450 on our awareness presentations including fliers, banners, and other materials. We will spend around $50 on publicity flyers for recruitment, and $330 for club socials for general members. Included in each category are transportation costs to and from screening locations, awareness presentations, and fundraising opportunities if not accessible by public transportation. *All estimates are rough only, and actual expenditures may vary In the event that we do not reach our fundraising goal, the funds that we do raise will continue to be used to support our screening operations as broken down above. By donating to our organization, you will help provide the public with more information about an often-overlooked disease and help people all around the Bay Area improve their health! Stay connected with us: ucberkeleykdsap.com Instagram: @berkeleykdsap Facebook: www.facebook.com/ucberkeleykdsap Email: berkeleykdsap@gmail.com
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Bengal Gazette 2025 Print Issue
By The Bengal Gazette
The Berkeley Bengal Gazette is the first South Asian student-run publication started at UC Berkeley in 2018. We are online, social media & in print!
The Berkeley Bengal Gazette is the first South Asian student-run publication started at UC Berkeley in 2018. We are online, social media & in print! The Bengal Gazette About the Bengal Gazette The Bengal Gazette is the first South Asian student-run publication at a US university established at UC Berkeley in 2018. We publish in print and online via our website and global social media presence. We collaborate regularly with Bengali Student Association (BSA’s) across the U.S. and other South Asian diaspora organizations, while keeping ties to communities in Bangladesh and India. Mission We strive to serve as a global grassroots diaspora publication, offering Bengali and South Asian adjacent communities and individuals a platform to promote any kind of creative expression. Our organization champions its peer-review process, where we guarantee each writer’s submission receives at least 3-5 editors and upon completion, a full Instagram post and online publishing exposure through both our popular website and Instagram. We promote original journalism, academic papers, cultural commentary, art, poetry and video submissions. Our publication consistently creates new opportunities for Bengali and South Asian thought, discussion and knowledge production with our regimented design and peer review processes. History We began as a registered student publication at UC Berkeley in 2018, working alongside the Bengali Student Association. Our first-ever print issue was published in print during the BSA Spring 2019 Bengali New Year celebration through a scholarship from the Institute of South Asia Studies and Subir and Malini Chowdhury Center for Bangladesh Studies at UC Berkeley. With the pandemic preventing our launch of a second print issue in Spring 2020, we launched a popular website and social media presence, transitioning to an online publication. We have since continued publishing both in print and online, and to date, have published over 60 students, faculty and people around the world. Significance In 1780, the original Bengal Gazette was published in Kolkata, erstwhile-East India Company administered British India, as the first newspaper in all of Asia. 238 years later, we created the first South Asian student-run publication at a US university under the same name and promoting a new vision, enshrining original articles on all things related to Bengal from its history, politics, cultural commentary, art and other forms of creative expression. The original 1780 Bengal Gazette published in Kolkata. Budget Breakdown The funding from this crowdfunding initiative will contribute greatly to the publication costs of the Bengal Gazette during this calendar year. In 2019, the Bengal Gazette was awarded a $2,000 Live Life like Tarisihi scholarship from the Institute of South Asia Studies, which covered printing costs from a Silicon Valley-based publisher frequently used by UC Berkeley registered student publications called Fricke Parks Press. We hope to receive the following funds in order to cover publication and operation costs for the 2024-2025 academic year: Fixed Costs + Projected Costs = Total Printing Costs $3,500 + $500 = $4,000 Event Costs $500 + $200 = $700 This budget provides a rough estimate only and actual expenditures may vary. Please feel free to contact us via email at theberkeleybengalgazette@gmail.com or DM us via Instagram at the @berkeleybengalgazette.
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Support The Intermission Orchestra! | Fall 2024
By Intermission Orchestra
The Intermission Orchestra consists of musicians, artists, photographers, and audio staff who work together to create music from films, video games, and anime!
The Intermission Orchestra consists of musicians, artists, photographers, and audio staff who work together to create music from films, video games, and anime! Intermission Orchestra About Us The Intermission Orchestra at Berkeley is a student-run organization dedicated to building a community for film, game, and anime enthusiasts and sharing our passions with the Cal community and broader Bay area through our music and performances. As a group funded through private sources, we depend on the generosity of our donors. Our Goals We are grateful for the opportunities we have had so far to share our music and serve our communities. As we pass through Intermission’s 6th Anniversary this fall, we are working to book a larger venue for our end-of-year Spring concert to allow for more of the community to join us. Furthermore, to deliver a higher quality of performances at our concerts, we hope to upgrade our sound equipment to provide the best audio experience at our concerts, as well as upgrade our photography and video equipment to improve our content for the community to engage with us, even when they can’t attend our performances in person. Beyond that, we hope to be able to support our members by subsidizing transportation costs to perform at venues anywhere throughout the Bay. We have even grander visions of one day being able to travel throughout California, the US, and even internationally to show our appreciation for film, video games, and anime music that are a worldwide phenomenon. In order to continue growing, we ask for the generosity of individuals so we may perform at new venues, travel to entertain new fans, upgrade our equipment, and find even more ways to connect our love for music with our community. As the Intermission Orchestra continues to grow and spread our outreach around the world, we strive to use our performance opportunities and new equipment to teach members new technical skills and build their repertoire as musicians. Donate Now! During this campaign, we really hope you can join us on this new chapter of the Intermission Orchestra’s journey! Through your support, we hope to raise at least $3,000: $700 to support new audio and video equipment for our performances, $2000 to book Hertz Hall and other venues for our concerts, and $300 to subsidize costs for traveling. This is a rough estimate and actual expenditures may vary. Will you make a tax-deductible donation today to support The Intermission Orchestra and help us lay the foundations for spreading Intermission’s reach throughout the Bay and beyond? If we are unable to reach our goal, the funds we have raised will still go towards purchasing necessary equipment and instruments so that members can have access to valuable resources and so we are able to create new and inspiring music for the community around us to enjoy. It is valuable to us that each of our members has an opportunity to learn and gain enriching experience in the arts of music, audio engineering, art, photography, or video editing, so we would use these funds to purchase equipment, instruments, and training for member use. Your donations will help make dreams come true for a one-of-kind community of musicians, artists, audio engineers, photographers, videographers, and film, game, and anime enthusiasts! Thank you so much for taking the time to learn about our orchestra. If you have any questions or concerns please contact us at intermissionberkeley@gmail.com!
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Support Southeast Asian Students at Cal!
By SEA Student Coalition
NEW GOAL: $5000! Celebrating 25 years of SASC! Join us as we welcome first-years and transfer SEA students through SEASO and host our SEA Cultural Festival.
NEW GOAL: $5000! Celebrating 25 years of SASC! Join us as we welcome first-years and transfer SEA students through SEASO and host our SEA Cultural Festival. SEA Student Coalition Thank you to all the amazing donors who have helped us reach our initial goal, SASC is extremely grateful for everyone's continued support! Our New Goal is $5,000! Founded 25 years ago in response to an increasing Southeast Asian (SEA) refugee population following the American Wars in Southeast Asia, the Southeast Asian Student Coalition (SASC) has acted to build crucial support systems for low-income and first-generation Southeast Asian Americans. Today, SASC has sponsored and created many Southeast Asian campus events (the Southeast Asian Cultural Festival (SEACF), the Southeast Asian Orientation (SEASO), SEAsgiving, and SEAgraduation (SEAgrad)) and helped develop Southeast Asian student groups through funding and structural support. Recognizing the challenges of college entry, SASC launched the Southeast Asian Mentorship Project (SEAM), inviting SEA high school students across California to experience Berkeley and participate in a semester-long mentorship program. Our events range from our new student orientation to our high school mentorship project, which has solidified our Southeast Asian American (SEAA) communities as we face unique challenges and hurdles. As we look into the future, SASC will continue its duty to support those who are here already and those who will carry on the torch of our SEAA communities. This budget provides a rough estimate only and actual expenditures may vary. SEAM '23 Highlights About: The Southeast Asian Mentorship Program, a subcommittee of SASC, is dedicated to supporting and guiding Southeast Asian high school students. Through this program, mentors educate students about Southeast Asian culture and the SEA student experience. They focus on preparing mentees for the challenges of university life, offering guidance and insights to help them navigate this transition. Goals: The program’s ultimate goal is to ensure that students are well-prepared, informed, and equipped to thrive in their university journey as Southeast Asian students. Budget Outline: Estimated expenses total to $12,375.32PLEASE CLICK HERE FOR MORE PROJECT AND DETAILED BUDGET INFORMATION SEASO '24 HighlightsAbout: Our SEASO event is designed for both incoming and current students who are interested in joining SASC or becoming more engaged in the Southeast Asian community. At this event, SASC facilitates various community-bonding activities to help students connect and build long-lasting relationships. Additionally, SASC highlights important statistical data on the underrepresentation and misrecognition of Southeast Asian students at UC Berkeley while also offering advice from various alumni. Goals: The primary goal of SEASO is to introduce students to SASC's mission and welcome them into our close-knit community, with the aspirations of creating a stronger, more empowered future for Southeast Asian students. Budget Outline: Total expenses equal to $1,516.74 PLEASE CLICK HERE FOR MORE PROJECT AND DETAILED BUDGET INFORMATION SEAsgiving '23 Highlights, activities featured: Pumpkin Painting Contest About: Our SEAsgiving event mirrors a traditional Thanksgiving celebration, where students come together to share a communal meal and reflect on what they’re grateful for over the past year. SASC organizes various activities, from pumpkin decorating to gingerbread house making, fostering collaboration and a friendly sense of competition among participants. In addition, the event features a donation drive, with all contributions going to support the Southeast Asian Resource Center in San Francisco. Goals: SEAsgiving is a time for gratitude, where attendees can express their thanks and celebrate their proudest achievements from the past year. It is also where participants can find a home far away from home while forming vital relationships with one another. Budget Outline: Total expenses equal to $2,387 PLEASE CLICK HERE FOR MORE PROJECT AND DETAILED BUDGET INFORMATION Highlights from SEACF '24About: The Cultural Festival is our largest event, bringing together various Southeast Asian organizations to celebrate and showcase the rich diversity of their cultures. The event features performances like traditional dances, music, and regional arts and crafts, providing a captivating cultural experience. As one of SASC's most successful and enduring events, the Cultural Festival remains a cornerstone of our community. Goals: SASC aims to highlight and promote each organization, raising awareness of its presence within UC Berkeley. The festival serves as a platform to share the vibrant traditions of Southeast Asian countries, offering attendees a deeper understanding and connection with their unique cultural backgrounds. Budget Outline: Total expenses equal to $3,584.90PLEASE CLICK HERE FOR MORE PROJECT AND DETAILED BUDGET INFORMATION Highlights from the 19th Annual SeaGrad (2024) About: SEAGrad is dedicated to recognizing the achievements of the graduating Southeast Asian senior class, whose contributions often go unnoticed at UC Berkeley. To honor their accomplishments, SASC hosts this special event. Unlike the larger UC Berkeley graduation, SEAGrad offers a more intimate setting where each student's achievements are individually celebrated and acknowledged. Graduating seniors also have the opportunity to give a speech, sharing their personal journeys, challenges, successes, and any reflections they wish to express. Goals: This event provides a meaningful platform for students to be formally recognized for their hard work and dedication at UC Berkeley. Budget Outline: Total expenses equal to $3,494.64PLEASE CLICK HERE FOR MORE PROJECT AND DETAILED BUDGET INFORMATION Khoa Nguyen, Public Relations, khoan@berkeley.edu Jordan Vu, Operations Director, at jordanvu@berkeley.edu A special thank you goes to those who came before us. Today, we stand on your shoulders to continue what you dreamed of and loved the most.
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Fundraiser for Aglet Noise's music events! (Fall 2024)
By Aglet Noise
Aglet Noise curates DIY music events for aficionados and professionals alike.
Aglet Noise curates DIY music events for aficionados and professionals alike. Aglet Noise Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere you want. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. Aglet Noise Collective, a bull in the heather, a home for the avant-garde curious and DIY-inclined, was started in 2023 to put on live music, performance art and create visual media like films and art installations. Members come together from different artistic backgrounds to put on showcases, distribute music and make experimental films. Notably, on last Halloween, we hosted a wide hotpot of experimental musicians, and premiered our films and an art installation in a two-staged music/arts festival in Berkeley. We were able to fundraise over $2,500 for Palestine and Sudan relief funds! This was our biggest event yet with over 300 persons at peak, allowing us to disseminate our abstract-art approach to more and more people. But we rely on funding from our friends(you!) and the university to help pay performers and artists, as well as keep equipment of speakers and electronics required for shows. We plan to host some exciting shows this spring. Performers include noise-music royalty Ryosuke Kiyasu, east cost hardcore band Chemical X and many more throughout the Spring! BUT we need your support to be able to continue bringing such artists to Berkeley and expand our mission. That's why we're aiming to raise $1,000; so we can bring more cool artists, update our sound and light equipment and make CDs of our members' music! Out of the funds: $400 will be pledged to paying artists a fair fee in the 2026-27 academic year. Along with ticket sales, we use this money to book artists. We follow a collective system of payment where each artist/band receives the same amount at a show given their time performed! $300 will be reserved for buying and fixing our sound/visual equipment. We are currently in need of good-quality, long-distance microphone cables. In the past we've relied on members' cables but that leads to inconsistent qualities of sound. Another $300 will be reserved for producing our members art only. This would include the pressing of CDs, publishing of 'zines and any other miscellaneous expenses we might incur in the production of Aglet Noise's art. https://www.instagram.com/agletnoise/?hl=en https://www.youtube.com/@AgletNoise https://soundcloud.com/aglet-noise agletnoise301@gmail.com
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Strengthen Support with Lean On Me at Berkeley! 2024
By Lean On Me at Berkeley
Lean On Me is a peer-to-peer text support hotline that provides students with emotional support through the convenience and confidentiality of texting.
Lean On Me is a peer-to-peer text support hotline that provides students with emotional support through the convenience and confidentiality of texting. Lean On Me at Berkeley Lean On Me at Berkeley is a student-run, 24/7, non-crisis text support hotline that aims to make mental health support at UC Berkeley less stigmatized and more broadly accessible to students from all backgrounds and identities. Students may encounter stress, imposter syndrome, and relationship struggles in their daily lives, and the hotline provides a safe and anonymous space for students to express their feelings and receive support. Lean On Me Peer Supporters are trained in active listening, empathy, and the importance of confidentiality, and apply these skills when taking on texts from other students. Lean On Me at Berkeley is a chapter of the larger nationwide Lean On Me organization founded at MIT in 2015. We believe that every student deserves access to compassionate support, and our mission is to ensure that mental health resources are within reach for all students. By fostering an environment of trust and understanding, we hope to break down the barriers that often prevent students from seeking help. This is Lean On Me at Berkeley's first year participating in crowdfunding, and we are excited to get the ball rolling! This year, Lean On Me at Berkeley is fundraising for the yearly cost of keeping the Berkeley chapter of the hotline up and running to support students. These costs include hotline technical fees and supplies used to raise awareness of the hotline number around campus through stickers, posters, and tabling. Since Lean On Me services are completely free for all students, we need YOUR support to keep our hotline running. In an effort to support as many students as possible, Lean On Me at Berkeley is committed to expanding its reach and ensuring that every student knows there is somewhere they can turn to in times of need. By contributing to this campaign, you are directly helping to foster a more supportive and inclusive campus environment where every student feels heard, valued, and connected. Our Impact Our chapter of Lean On Me was founded in 2020 during the pandemic as an easily accessible online resource for anonymous mental health support. Since then, we have engaged in over 100 conversations with students at UC Berkeley ranging from a wide variety of topics including breakups, friendship, loneliness, and academic stress. Unlike other mental health resources on campus, our hotline is completely anonymous for both the user and the supporter. This means that the user (texting in to the hotline) and the supporter receiving the text will never know each other's names or identities. Our goal is not to build relationships with users, but to be a resource for reliable and judgement-free peer support in times when a student just needs a friend to talk to. Here are more stats regarding the most popular days and times that our hotline is used: Meeting our crowdfunding goal will allow our organization to maintain our hotline service, which provides students with a safe space to engage with Peer Supporters! Budget breakdown: $2,000 is the cost of the technical fees to maintain the hotline. Anything extra will go towards printing posters, flyers, and stickers with the hotline number to give out to students on campus, as well as mental health care packages to hand out to students. If we are not able to reach our goal, funds will be put towards mental health care packages to hand out to students, and posters/stickers promoting mental health. This budget provides a rough estimate only and actual expenditures may vary. Thank you for your interest in Lean On Me! For more information about our organization and our mission, please visit our website, Instagram, or contact us here: - Lean On Me website: https://leanonmechat.wixsite.com/ucberkeley/ - Lean On Me Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/berkeleyleanonme/ - Email: ashleytaira@berkeley.edu, sophiasiopack@berkeley.edu
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Support the Elder Welfare Mentorship Fundraiser!
By Elder Welfare Mentorship
Elder Welfare Mentorship is an organization that strives to connect UC Berkeley students with senior citizens to share knowledge and experiences.
Elder Welfare Mentorship is an organization that strives to connect UC Berkeley students with senior citizens to share knowledge and experiences. Elder Welfare Mentorship Who We Are The “Elder Welfare Mentorship” club is an inclusive student organization at UC Berkeley, built on the belief that mentorship is a mutual exchange of knowledge and companionship, benefiting both students and senior citizens. Our primary objective is to empower senior citizens with technology skills, provide entertainment, and offer meaningful companionship while affording our students the invaluable opportunity to learn from our elder community members' life wisdom and experiences. Understanding that not every student has the privilege of having grandparents in their lives and that not every senior citizen has the opportunity to be a grandparent, we aim to provide the Berkeley community a sense of respect and shared learning between generations, where knowledge, experiences, and wisdom are cherished and passed on. WE AIM TO - Empower senior citizens with technology skills to help them stay connected and engaged. - Provide meaningful companionship through regular visits and interactions. - Create intergenerational exchanges where students can learn from elders' wisdom and life experiences. Our Goal: $2000 This semester, we hope to raise $2000 to support our efforts over the fall, spring, and summer months. The funds will be used as follows: - $1100 – Technology Equipment (tablets, smartphones, etc.) to help senior citizens learn and stay connected. - $300 – Workshops & Training (organizing and facilitating technology workshops with expert speakers and resources). - $300 – Entertainment & Social Events (movie nights, game days, and other gatherings to foster companionship). - $150 – Transportation Costs (for students visiting senior centers and seniors attending our events). - $150– Marketing & Outreach (to promote our events and ensure greater community participation). This budget provides a rough estimate only and actual expenditures may vary. By supporting our project, you are: - Helping us bridge generational gaps. - Enriching the lives of both senior citizens and UC Berkeley students. - Creating a platform for intergenerational learning and respect. - Empowering seniors with technology skills. - Providing seniors and students with companionship and meaningful experiences. - Create lasting connections between students and elders, promoting respect and mutual understanding across generations. Even if we don’t fully meet our goal, we will prioritize: - Marketing and outreach to build a larger community presence, ensuring future sustainability and growth. By increasing awareness and participation through targeted promotion, we will gradually expand our capacity to organize more entertainment and social events for our senior citizens. Our ultimate aim is to foster deeper connections and engagement between students and seniors, and even with partial funding, we can work toward this by ensuring a steady influx of participants and supporters who share our vision. Follow us on Social Media! - https://www.instagram.com/elderwelfarementorship/ -https://www.linkedin.com/company/elder-welfare-mentorship/ Watch President Giselle Soto Calderon introduce the organization. https://youtu.be/_bFVPp6JfnI?feature=shared Introducing the rest of the board!
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STAR - Flying the Next Generation of Rockets | Fall 2024
By Space Tech. & Rocketry
STAR is developing its second liquid rocket: LE3. A regeneratively cooled engine with control valves, it's our most ambitious project yet!
STAR is developing its second liquid rocket: LE3. A regeneratively cooled engine with control valves, it's our most ambitious project yet! Space Tech. & Rocketry Space Technologies and Rocketry, also known as STAR, is Berkeley's premier competition rocketry team. With nearly a decade of experience, STAR is an entirely student run and led organization dedicated to pushing the boundaries of low-cost rockets. This budget provides a rough estimate only and actual expenditures may vary. Space Technologies and Rocketry is UC Berkeley's premier competition high-power rocketry team. Over the past 8 years, we have successfully completed 13 launches, with 4 taking place in the last year! With the successful launch of our first bi-propellant liquid vehicle ALULA, we are starting development on our third liquid engine (LE3). Our vehicles are entirely student-designed, manufactured, and tested, from our custom flight computer to our life support payload KELSE-Y. Committed to having no barriers to entry, STAR has no requirements or applications for members, and everyone who joins takes part in a comprehensive onboarding program. STAR also boasts the longest competition history on campus having previously launched at NASA Student Launch, and now participating in the ESRA Spaceport America Cup. STAR is developing its second liquid rocket: LE3. A regeneratively cooled engine with control valves, it's our most ambitious project yet! We plan to launch LE3's solid motor demonstrator at the 2025 Spaceport America Cup while developing the liquid engine in parallel to be launched in Fall 2025. Funding will be divided between the two parallel projects' development and insurance costs. Our hundred-plus members work tirelessly to hone their engineering skills by launching rockets, but they cannot reach their full potential without proper funding. These projects additionally push the boundaries of collegiate rocketry and advance the field of low-cost rockets by inventing and testing new technologies. Using our accomplishments and the skills we learn, we lead outreach events with Bay Area pre-college students, inspiring them to pursue engineering. Email: contact@stars.berkeley.eduWebsite: https://stars.berkeley.edu/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/calstar Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ucberkeleystar/ STAR featured in… The Daily Californianhttps://dailycal.org/2023/09/13/starhttps://dailycal.org/2023/09/15/job-fair-issue-2023 Berkeley Engineeringhttps://www.instagram.com/p/CxnpEqYO7cm/?hl=en
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Democracy Camp 2025 | Fall 2024
By Matsui Center
Democracy Camp is a spring break bootcamp for Cal undergraduate students interested in public service. Students get engaged, empowered and informed!
Democracy Camp is a spring break bootcamp for Cal undergraduate students interested in public service. Students get engaged, empowered and informed! Matsui Center Help students answer the call to public service! Democracy Camp is an alternative spring break experience designed to empower UC Berkeley changemakers and enhance our democracy. During this four-day intensive program, 21 undergraduate students explore their public service interests and expand their professional toolkit. Now entering its eighth year, Democracy Camp has an impressive track record of propelling students into public service. Be a part of this story — make a gift today and support the next generation of public service leaders! About Democracy Camp Democracy Camp is a bootcamp that gives students first-hand exposure to different facets of public service: legislative paths, community organizations, local and state government, legal professions, research, and philanthropy. Students learn directly from guest speakers about the opportunities available in these fields in order to chart their own path to service. Preparing students for service at all levels of government Every year, students take a one-day day field trip to Sacramento, where they meet with elected members and professionals in the state legislature and state agencies, as well as Cal alumni in public service careers in our state capital. 2024 Democracy Camp students outside the California State Capitol building. | Sacramento, CA In 2024, thanks to the generous support of donors like you, we piloted an additional field trip to Downtown Oakland to meet with local government leaders and journalists covering issues in the Bay Area. This field trip was a huge success, and we want to make it a staple of the program! Your donation will ensure that Democracy Camp continues to shine a light on the importance of not only our state government, but also community-level action and local leadership. 2024 Democracy Camp student Sherwin Ho (a senior double-majoring in Molecular Cell Biology and Psychology) with guest speaker John Bauters, former mayor and city councilmember of Emeryville. | Oakland, CA In addition to meeting with public-service professionals, students participate in skill-building workshops, including networking and resume writing. Participants have the opportunity to put these skills to practice by networking with speakers and exploring public service opportunities on campus and beyond. Fostering a community of service — and building the democracy we need Democracy Camp is a cohort-based program that is intended to nurture the public service community at UC Berkeley and build a pipeline to service. After completing Democracy Camp, students go on to pursue summer internships, research training, and campus leadership roles. After graduating, many alumni go on to secure competitive post-collegiate fellowships or grants, pursue graduate or professional school, or start their career in public service. Time and again, we hear that this program was an important step, even a catalyst, for an alum's career trajectory. We believe that building pathways for students with varied perspectives and life experiences will enhance our democracy and ensure a more effective and representative government. To that end, this program is designed to be inclusive and accessible to all Cal students, including first-generation, non-traditional, and transfer students. "I thoroughly enjoyed my experience at Democracy Camp. Through listening to various accomplished speakers from the public service sector, I feel empowered to dedicate myself towards aiding the community and shaping a brighter future. ...Public service isn't limited to particular academic backgrounds or interests — rather, a career in public service is akin to open arms...anybody can pursue (or even switch paths to) a career in public service for a fulfilling journey of impacting the community. With more motivation than ever, I'm excited to continue my academic path at UC Berkeley, ultimately working to serve my community and inspire others." – Chelsea Kawamura, 2024 Democracy Camp participant Why we fundraise, and how you can help Democracy Camp is made possible by generous gifts from donors. With your help, we can continue to make this program FREE for participants, ensuring that UC Berkeley students have access to professional enrichment opportunities and public service training, regardless of financial circumstances. This year, we need to raise $5,000 of our $7,500 budget to fund the 2025 Democracy Camp in Berkeley program. (The Institute of Governmental Studies has committed to contributing the remaining balance.) Donations will go towards the cost of learning materials and field trip ground transportation, as well as three meals a day for all Fellows for the duration of the program, to support students who may otherwise experience food insecurity during Spring Break. We are accepting donations between now and October 31. No gift is too small, and your support will ensure that we are able to provide the best experience possible for UC Berkeley’s motivated changemakers! These are only estimates, and actual expenditures may vary. Receive a "thank you" from Democracy Camp participant! Allow us to show our appreciation! For donations of $50 or more, we will post a shoutout on social media, and for donations of $100 or more we will share a "thank you" message from a Democracy Camp alum. For gifts of $1,000 or more, donors will receive a personalized "thank you" video message from a Democracy Camp alum. Democracy Camp is sponsored by the Institute of Governmental Studies (IGS) and the Robert T. Matsui Center for Politics and Public Service at the University of California, Berkeley. IGS stands at the forefront of research, teaching, and service in California and American politics and policy. Interdisciplinary and non-partisan, we foster thoughtful discussions of issues across party lines that focus on solutions – not just problems. Our mission is anchored by a belief in the transformational power of public service. To learn more, visit our website.
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The Cameron Institute 2024 Donor Challenge
By Cal Athletics
The institute is guided by the vision of positioning Cal student-athletes to perform to their full potential & thrive for a lifetime through The California Way.
The institute is guided by the vision of positioning Cal student-athletes to perform to their full potential & thrive for a lifetime through The California Way. Cal Athletics Welcome to our month-long crowdfunding effort to support the Cameron Institute for Student-Athlete Development at the University of California, Berkeley. We hope to secure support from at least 50 donors in the month of October from our loyal alumni, student-athlete parents, The Golden Bear Network Members, and everyone in between! The Cameron Institute is a world-class model for growth and achievement in Intercollegiate Athletics. The institute is guided by the vision of positioning 900 student-athletes to perform to their full potential and thrive for a lifetime through The California Way model. Launched in the Fall of 2020, the Cameron Institute was founded thanks to a generous $12.5 million endowment established by C. Bryan Cameron. Led by an 11-person team grounded in the values of excellence, trust, growth, and clarity, the Cameron Institute strives to be an exemplary student-athlete development model within Cal Athletics and college athletics departments throughout the country. The California Way is delivered through high-impact specialized services across three pillars: Career Development Community Engagement Mental Performance The services are delivered in the following formats: 1:1 Advising/Consultation, Small Group & Team Sessions, Experiences, and asynchronously through Online Platforms: The Golden Bear Network, Community Engagement Hub, and the Calm app. Services are delivered to meet or exceed the expectations of student-athletes and coaches and are guided by an exceptional group of practitioners from various backgrounds and professional experiences. Gifts to the Cameron Institute support the operational needs of the program and ensure Cal student-athletes have the resources they need to be successful in competition, in the classroom, and in life beyond Cal. Here is a list of gift amounts and what a gift that size could support: $10 - Calm App Subscription $30 - Mental Performance Technology $50 - Sponsor a Student-Athlete Advisory Committee Representative $150 - DiSC Assessment for Athletes $500 - Student-Athlete Advisory Committee $1,600 - Mentorship Program Experience $2,000 - Community Engagement Event These are rough estimates only, and actual expenditures may vary. Your donation helps cover the costs of the items mentioned above by providing general support to the Cameron Institute. Thank you, and GO BEARS! Career Development Community Engagement Mental Performance Learn more about the Cameron Institute. WEBSITE CalBears.com/CameronInstitute TWITTER @CalCameronInst INSTAGRAM @CalCameronInst YOUTUBE CalBears.com/CameronYT NETWORK GoldenBearNetwork.com COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT HUB calbea.rs/community-hub EMAIL CameronInstitute@berkeley.edu
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ECCO @ Berkeley: Education is a Human Right
By Educate a Child for Change Org
ECCO bridges the educational equity gap for first-gen students and immigrants & creates opportunities for impoverished children to go to school!
ECCO bridges the educational equity gap for first-gen students and immigrants & creates opportunities for impoverished children to go to school! Educate a Child for Change Org ECCO at Berkeley, the first-ever chapter of ECCO (Educate a Child for Change), is dedicated to supporting and empowering youth through educational opportunities. We focus on fostering a brighter future for first-generation refugee students and immigrants by providing resources that help them succeed in higher education. Since launching our College Application Mentorship Program in October, we have helped students apply to prestigious universities, including UC Berkeley, Yale, and Harvard. Our programs also facilitate UC Berkeley campus tours for immigrant youth and their families. UC Berkeley Tour In early November 2023, ECCO at Berkeley facilitated a UC Berkeley tour for immigrant youths and their parents. In addition to touring the campus, students attended campus workshops in Dari (their first language) to learn more about UC Berkeley, the application process, financial aid and scholarship options, and guidance on their college essay questions. The tour also allowed them to meet current first-generation immigrant UC Berkeley students. ECCO at Berkeley regularly hosts community events in partnership with organizations such as Community Health for Asian Americans to offer newly arrived refugees opportunities to connect and join our programs. Also, to celebrate the diversity of UC Berkeley and our efforts to expand educational opportunities for youth, ECCO at Berkeley will host its third Annual Multicultural Gala. These initiatives help us maintain a strong sense of community while providing important resources, such as educational materials, scholarships, and mentorship. 2023 Multicultural Gala Our campaign is focused on empowering first-generation immigrant and refugee students by providing them with essential educational resources, mentorship, and networking opportunities. Our goal is to create a safe and supportive environment where individuals from challenging backgrounds can confidently navigate their careers with the guidance and encouragement they need. This budget provides a rough estimate only and actual expenditures may vary. If we do not make our goal, we will include a brief disclaimer on our 2024-2025 academic year project about how these funds will be used and which categories/resources they will primarily support. We’ll inform our supporters through emails, newsletters, and other online platforms/ social media about how their contributions are being used. By contributing to our cause, you will be help break down barriers that prevent underrepresented students from accessing the resources they need to succeed. Your support will provide educational guides, campus tours, and mentorship opportunities that make a real difference in the lives of young people. Every dollar you donate will help build a more equitable future for students striving for academic and personal success. Together, we can create a future where every student, no matter their background, has the chance to succeed. Thank you for reading our content! We invite you to connect with us via email at eccoatberkeley@gmail.com or on Instagram @ecco_world. Your support means a lot to us!
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Support Cal in the Capital's Summer 2025 Students! | Fall 2024
By Public Service Center
Cal in the Capital provides education, support, and mentorship to 60 UC Berkeley students pursuing a wide range of summer internships in Washington, D.C.
Cal in the Capital provides education, support, and mentorship to 60 UC Berkeley students pursuing a wide range of summer internships in Washington, D.C. Public Service Center Support Summer 2025 Cal in the Capital Interns in Washington, D.C.! Founded in 1965, Cal in the Capital supports UC Berkeley undergraduate students who are pursuing internship opportunities in Washington, D.C. As of 2024, over 4000 CITC interns have completed 1,815,689 hours of service in hundreds of organizations, including; Congressional offices, government agencies, think tanks, nonprofit organizations, media outlets, law firms, and research institutions. Students from all majors, backgrounds, and interests participate in our program, and we highly encourage students from underrepresented communities to apply. During spring semester, CITC students prepare for their internships by taking a DeCal course taught by our four Student Directors. The DeCal course covers resume and cover letter effectiveness, interview skills and practice, and current events awareness. Through Cal in the Capital's partnership with the UC Berkeley Public Service Center, students also learn how to engage with their internship by holding public service at the center. In the summer, students head for Washington, D.C. to complete internships in policy, art, media & news, education, and advocacy. CITC participants work full-time, have a chance to connect with Cal alumni, and explore the DMV area. Cal in the Capital is an incredibly impactful experience for our cohort members, and for most, it marks the beginning of their careers in public service! Your Support Provides Transformative Summer Experiences This year, Cal in the Capital is recruiting 60 students to participate in our program. Our goal is to completely cover the cost of summer housing for 20 students, and provide partial support to an additional 20 students. If we reach our fundraising goals, CITC would be able to provide some type of financial assistance to two thirds of our entire cohort. Fundraising efforts are crucial in ensuring Cal in the Capital is accessible to students who may not take this opportunity without financial support. Please read below testimonies from students who received financial assistance for summer 2024; Robert with US Senator Cory Booker "My experience interning for Senator Alex Padilla has certainly impacted my career trajectory. I now have a more profound understanding of the legislative process and the power of individual staffers to make a positive difference in Congress. Combined with the welcoming office culture, exciting day-to-day workday, and buzzing city life in Washington, DC, my internship experience has provided me with a genuine interest in returning to the hill post-graduation... I would like to acknowledge that were it not for this program, Cal in the Capital, this opportunity would not have made itself available; again, it is mentorship that truly helps others achieve their goals, and CITC is the premier example of this." -- Robert Carrillo. Summer 2024 Intern with US Senator Alex Padilla, and 2024-2025 CITC Academics & Operations Director. Rachel with her Congresswoman, US Representative Katie Porter "It is not an overstatement to say that this summer has been one of the most enriching experiences I have had so far – both personally and professionally... Overall, I think being in Washington, D.C. is truly a unique experience. It is even better when you are surrounded by your Berkeley friends and family who help you get settled into the new city! I absolutely loved the Cal in the Capital experience and would highly recommend all students from all areas to get involved!" -- Rachel Yang. Summer 2024 Intern with the US Department of Education. If you would like to read more from students who received support from CITC, please visit our blog site! How crowdfunding is used: All CITC students are required to live at the UC Washington Center for the summer, where the cost of housing for ten weeks is approximately $4,000. For students who demonstrate financial need, funds raised through this campaign are used solely to subsidize their cost of housing. Generally, the amount that we offer ranges from $1,500 - $4,000. In the winter, applicants accepted into the program will be notified if they meet the threshold for financial assistance from CITC. In the case that we do not reach our crowdfunding goal, it simply means we cannot offer support to as many students as we would like. Estimated budget for financing a summer in D.C.: ItemPriceHousing at UC Washington Center $4,000Food $1,000Air Travel $600Local Transit $400Personal (includes professional attire, travel, etc.) $500Total $6,500 This budget provides a rough estimate only and actual expenditures may vary. Why Support Cal in the Capital? “I remember my time as an intern fondly, and can tell you without hesitation that this program changed my life, as it has for so many others. Because of my experience with the program, I have always enjoyed having the privilege of hosting Cal in the Capital interns in my congressional office. The passion and dedication that these student leaders display toward serving their country, their communities, and those whose voices too often go unheard is an inspiration to all.” Congresswoman Barbara Lee | Alumni | Former CITC Intern “CITC did so much for me. How could I not stay involved and give back? CITC remains one of the most well regarded summer internship programs in Washington, DC.It’s time for alumni to come to the rescue in a big way. If you are a former CITC intern, my fondest hope is that you will reconnect with this program and contribute financially to its continued success on a yearly basis. It needs your help to survive and thrive." Victoria Brademan | Donor & Alumni | Former CITC Intern & Student Director “I can’t imagine a more valuable cause to donate to. You’re donating to the University of California, your alma mater. You’re donating to the generation of future leaders for the nation and therefore, investing into the seed corn of the leadership of the nation. And you’re enriching the Washington environment because the contribution of students when they’re on the scene is a contribution that is not just expressed in terms of the work they do, but also in terms of the spirit they bring.” Dr. Michael McGinnis | Donor & Alumni | CITC Founding Member Visit our website: publicservice.berkeley.edu/citc Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cal_inthecapital/ Send us an email: calinthecapital@gmail.com
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Raise the Roof with Cal Habitat for Humanity Fall 2024
By Cal Habitat for Humanity
Cal Habitat hosts impactful volunteer events, from cleanups and gardening to soup kitchens and home-building, all aimed at uplifting underserved communities!
Cal Habitat hosts impactful volunteer events, from cleanups and gardening to soup kitchens and home-building, all aimed at uplifting underserved communities! Cal Habitat for Humanity Since its inception in 1999, Cal Habitat has emerged as the largest student-led humanitarian organization at UC Berkeley, committed to uplifting underserved communities throughout the Bay Area. Each semester, our Golden Bears unite for over 200 events, contributing more than 3,400 impactful hours through various activities such as gardening, clean-ups, soup kitchens, and home-building initiatives that genuinely foster change. Donations play a vital role in enabling our student volunteers to travel via BART to soup kitchens, where they serve hundreds of families in need. Contributions also assist us in revitalizing the yards of women’s shelters, among numerous other projects. We invite you to watch our video to see our work in action! A highlight of our efforts includes build events, where donations directly support students in constructing affordable housing. We have witnessed the transformation of dirt mounds turn into homes where individuals and families now live and thrive! Your support is essential to sustaining this critical work. Together, we are "Raising the Roof with Cal Habitat," creating lasting change and hope for those in need. Funds raised will be allocated for Spring 2025. Currently, we are facing a funding deficit due to a decline in support from our primary donors. These funds will ensure the longevity of our organization, allowing us to continue providing students with the opportunity to serve and, most importantly, to make a meaningful impact within our community. This budget provides a rough estimate only and actual expenditures may vary. Your donation helps cover the costs of the items mentioned above by providing general support to Cal Habitat. If you're interested in becoming a donor, we have some optional perks that we would love for you to consider. Get a BIG THANKYOU from our members. You can expect to see 100 students waving and thanking you on your device. :) SO SWEET! Our mascot is a manatee named hugh. Can you guess why? Hint: say his name and what he is aloud. Hehe. Depending on the event, you can look forward to gardening or cleanup activities at a hiking trail, coast, garden, or farm. SO NATURE-Y! Sponsor 10 to 15 volunteers for a local event! Your contribution typically goes towards supplies or rideshare services, as public transportation options to the mountains are limited. Depending on the event, you may find yourself engaged in detailing, wood sawing, hammering, or painting. SO CREATIVE! Your contributions will aid in transporting approximately 20 dedicated volunteers to the construction site via Bart, with a fare typically set at $10 per individual. Thank you for taking a look at our page and considering our mission. Your support means the world to us. No donation is too small and a repost goes a long way. Feel free to share to your friend and family! Best, Cal Habitat For Humanity. GO BEARS! Follow Us! Contact Us! Instagram: @CalHabitat Email: Calhabitat.pres@gmail.com
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Berkeley Scientific Journal Fundraiser FA’ 24
By Berkeley Scientific Journal
BSJ, the premier undergraduate research journal, publishes Cal undergrad research, interviews with faculty, and features articles on science topics.
BSJ, the premier undergraduate research journal, publishes Cal undergrad research, interviews with faculty, and features articles on science topics. Berkeley Scientific Journal Who we are: Berkeley Scientific Journal (BSJ) is the premier undergraduate research journal of the University of California, Berkeley. Every semester, our undergraduate staff publishes independent research done by undergraduates at UC Berkeley, interviews with faculty members, and features articles on current issues in science. All research papers and features articles are reviewed by faculty members. The initial purpose of the journal was to provide an official forum in which Berkeley undergraduates could publish their independent research. But since its inception in 1996, the purpose of the journal has expanded to give the Berkeley scientific community a better understanding of how events here at Berkeley impact global concerns. The focus of the journal is broad, spanning scientific disciplines ranging from ecology to engineering, and from astronomy to biochemistry. Our intended audience includes, but is not limited to, UC Berkeley students, faculty, and the surrounding community. A new issue of BSJ is published twice a year on eScholarship, Issuu, and our website! We are also continuing our mid-semester magazine, The Hypothesis, that will feature more short-form content for our readers!Club Social Event on Campus with our members! This year, with your donations, the dream of our editorial team is to: 1) Increase BSJ readership as much as possible both inside and outside the Berkeley community 2) Host large-scale guest speaker events on campus 3) Secure enough funding to publish our issues in print. Each BSJ issue represents the dedication and talent of our students who produce interesting and high-quality work To break it down further, $1000 will go towards printing and shipping costs, guest speaking events and other outreach events to educate the community about science through journalism. If we do not meet this goal, we will still use the money towards printing as many copies as we can to effectively communicate science. Make a gift today to help make this a reality for BSJ! Distributing copies of our journal on the Berkeley campus!Our members at the Bay Area Science Festival! Learn more about us through our social media! Website: bsj.berkeley.edu Instagram: @bsj.berkeley Facebook: Berkeley Scientific About our Members: Here are some fun facts about our members! Our majors: Our favorite science publications: Where we're from: Please reach out to bsj.berkeley@gmail.com if you have any other questions!
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ANova Hacks 2025
By ANova
ANova Hacks 2025 is a hackathon for underserved communities designed to change the way our students think about computer science!
ANova Hacks 2025 is a hackathon for underserved communities designed to change the way our students think about computer science! ANova Our team hopes to raise $4,000 for our annual hackathon. We will use the money to provide the best hackathon experience for our students from under-resourced backgrounds. Would you be interested in supporting our cause? A hackathon is rooted in the simple but complex world of “creation.” During hackathons, teams come together to bring one of their own ideas into tangible reality using technology. Regardless of their interest in computer science, students are exposed to the wonders of technology and its impact on our world. Together, we can inspire the next generation of innovators to hack to new heights! Every semester, ANova puts on a hackathon for students in underserved communities. This year, ANova Hacks 2025 will be a fully in-person, overnight, free-of-charge event designed to change the way our students think about computer science. We want to give them the skills and experience necessary to achieve their career aspirations, and spread their ideas to the world through technology. Shay Ma, one of our mentors, helps a hacker at Anova Hacks 2022 The majority of our students have grown up with little to no exposure to computer science, higher education, and the technology industry. We hope to not only transform the spark of an idea into a prototype, but also to ignite a passion for computer science in our participants. By presenting a firsthand look at virtual reality, gaming, web development, and more, we provide students with an exciting look into the forefront of technological innovation. ANova Hacks merges the fundamental computer science techniques taught at our weekly site visits with events geared towards the construction of a project. Panels and workshops about financial aid, college life and the application process inspire students to pursue higher education in one of their passions. We offer students knowledge and advice from successful, experienced industry leaders as well as mentorship from passionate UC Berkeley students. Most of all, ANova Hacks is about forming friendships with our students so that they have the resources they need to achieve their goals. Oftentimes, hackers who attend hackathons have prior experience and have been able to be exposed to the infinite possibilities out there. Computer science has consistently been more prevalent in communities with access to computers and prior knowledge about the tech industry. However, a significant amount of potential computer scientists don’t have access to these opportunities, and that’s where ANova Hacks fits in: a hackathon specially for students in under-resourced communities to show every one of them that they can change the world through the power of technology. We hope to empower our students so that they can transcend any limits and ignite a passion towards becoming an engineer in the future. We hope that you can be a part of this journey and help make this possible for our students! Our hackathon aims to empower our students to use technology for social good. Through ANova Hacks, we aim to give them the skills and experience necessary to spread their ideas to the world. We imagine a diverse tech industry where age, gender and background do not limit one’s ability to pursue computer science, and ANova Hacks aims to make that a reality. To introduce our students to various kinds of technologies they may be able to use throughout the hackathon, we will bring in industry experts and host a variety of workshops. Last year, we held an in-person hackathon and hosted workshops on topics ranging from financial aid in higher education to lessons on design prototyping and mobile development. Our experienced ANova members also led workshops on web development, game development, and introductory Python and Java. At ANova Hacks 2025, we hope to bring even more interesting and enlightening workshops to our students, such as sessions on computer security and machine learning. To make this valuable experience accessible to our students, we host this hackathon free of charge. We ultimately look to raise around $10,000 for our hackathon so that we can provide fun workshops, mentorship, and awesome prizes for our hackers in a safe and spacious venue. The $4,000 from crowdfunding is only the first step in our journey to providing students with a safe, encouraging environment to work, learn, and have fun! This budget provides a rough estimate only and actual expenditures may vary. Our goal for this crowdfunding campaign is to raise enough money to fund our venue for the hackathon and be able to provide an amazing experience to our students free of charge. If we raise over $4,000, we'll spend that money towards providing students with BART tickets to attend the hackathon! Your support will help make this possible. Please donate today! Every year, several students were unable to attend ANova Hacks due to conflicts with transportation to and from the venue. With extra funding, we’d like to encourage more students to attend our event by covering their transportation fees. We hope that you’ll be a part of our movement to inspire as many students as possible with computer science, mentorship, and a supportive, hands-on learning environment! To truly expose our students to what industry is like, ANova has partnered with industry leaders like Google, Facebook, and HackerEarth in previous years to provide swag and panelists for our hackathon. This year is no different and we plan to seek sponsorships with various industry leaders in order to continue giving our students a first-hand glimpse into the industry. Our sponsors have made previous hackathons possible with their invaluable experience in helping out with workshops and panels to give our students the full experience. We would like to thank them below for making previous ANova Hacks amazing: Facebook Google Microsoft Dropbox Databricks Workday IBM .tech Domains HackerEarth Trader Joe's Chipotle ANova is a registered student organization in UC Berkeley dedicated to improving computer science education in under-resourced communities across the Bay Area. We partner with middle and high school teachers and administrators to develop curriculum catered individually for each classroom. Our outreach and mentorship efforts strive to make computer science education and opportunities within computer science more equitable, available, and achievable for students of all backgrounds. ANova Fall 2024 We currently reach out to over 120 students at 8 different middle/high school programs. To be considered for our program, each one of these schools must provide above 40% free and reduced lunch. Every site has its own curriculum catered to its own specific needs. As part of our mission, we also host two large events annually: a semester-long college mentorship program (CMP) in the fall, where high school seniors are paired with an ANova mentor to guide them through the college admissions process, as well as ANova Hacks in the spring. Help ANova fund a 24-hour hackathon for under-resourced students and spread the love for computer science! Please make a gift today! ANova Hacks 2024!Thank you for your support! If you have any further questions, comments, or concerns, contact Jeny (jenyalvarado22@berkeley.edu) or Robert (robertnochez@berkeley.edu) To find out more about us, visit us at https://www.berkeleyanova.org/, facebook.com/BerkeleyANova, and check out our Instagram @berkeleyanova!
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Support the future of Women in Medicine! 2024
By AMWA
AMWA Berkeley has supported thousands of female pre-med students on their path. Your support will go directly towards funding programs and events for the club.
AMWA Berkeley has supported thousands of female pre-med students on their path. Your support will go directly towards funding programs and events for the club. AMWA In 1915, at a time when women physicians were an underrepresented minority and in need of cooperative action by women in medicine, AMWA became the first national organization of women physicians. AMWA entered the political arena on behalf of women physicians fighting for policy reform that resulted in career advancement and leadership roles for women doctors. AMWA Berkeley is a local undergraduate branch that is part of the National AMWA framework! We seek to empower our members by giving a loving and supportive platform for voices to be heard and transform ideas into realities. We love to discuss topics of women in medicine, women's health, and gender equity. As a professional and community service organization, AMWA Berkeley offers opportunities for mentorship, professional development, volunteering, and support for individuals interested in healthcare careers. The Berkeley branch of AMWA has both chapter-wide events and specific committees for individuals to thrive and work toward what they're passionate about. We operate through 5 committees: Gender and Sexual Health, Cancer and Womxn's Health, Childhood Nutrition and Education, Diversity in Medicine, and Mental Health. As a part of these committees, members are able to focus their efforts into planning events and campaigns to support or raise awareness for the topics that they are most passionate about. Left: Diversity in Medicine Committee Members making posters Right: Childhood Nutrition and Education committee members at a local farmer's market As the largest pre-medical organization on campus and the largest undergraduate AMWA chapter, AMWA Berkeley has been able to support thousands of female-identifying pre-medical students on their journeys. Your support will go directly towards funding programs and events that will allow our members to develop professionally and support the advancement of women's health. These include our annual pre-health symposium during which physicians, medical students, and various Berkeley pre-health organizations all come together to support the pre-health community, and funding events and programs related to member development (such as our Big-Little mentorship program and our end-of-semester banquet). This year, we are also partnering with the Society of Women in Medicine at UCSF to match AMWA members with UCSF medical students mentors. For our mentorship meetup event, we would need to allocate funds to securing suturing kits, as well as UCSF's Anatomy lab and ultrasound machine, so that Berkeley undergraduate students can gain insight into what it's like to pursue higher education in medicine. The funds will also go to our committees and will be used to support committee specific goals, such as putting together care packages for the pediatric oncology unit at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital, hosting Period Drives and bake sales where all donations and profits are donated to the Women's Daytime Drop-in Center, sharing nutritional recipes with the Berkeley Farmers Market and local elementary schools, providing mentorship to Berkeley High School students, promoting mental health on campus through wellness tabling, and many more projects driven by the creative freedom and passions of committee members. Depending on when the funds arrive but most likely during the spring semester for our main events. We aim to help female students at Berkeley form a community and grow professionally through their journey in medicine. Reaching our goal would allow us to host more events and would allow us to educate the new generation of female doctors more. Detailed Budget Breakdown We greatly appreciate any and all support and we look forward to dedicating your generosity towards empowering women in healthcare! Thank you so much! Learn more about AMWA Berkeley or contact us at: https://amwaberkeley.com/ https://www.instagram.com/amwaberkeley/
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American Institute of Architecture Students Fundraiser
By AIAS
Support AIAS Berkeley! Your donation funds competitions, workshops, and conferences, shaping future architects to innovate and create a sustainable world.
Support AIAS Berkeley! Your donation funds competitions, workshops, and conferences, shaping future architects to innovate and create a sustainable world. AIAS Our Mission The mission of The American Institute of Architecture Students is to strive for excellence in architectural education and practice, foster a passion for architecture and related fields, enlighten communities and welcome collaboration, and urge students to join efforts to advance the multifaceted discipline of architecture. We are fundraising for competitions, workshops, and conferences throughout the school year, and to create a rewarding experience for all our members. We are planning to use the funds as soon as we receive them, since we host events that require funding on a regular basis. They will be used over the course of the semester to host professional and social events and to enhance mentorship connections between members. Recently, we launched a new student publication TRACE and an annual design competition last year and hope to continue providing opportunities for students to express their creativity outside of studio courses and to network with architects. Together, we hope to enhance our members' educational experience, inspire innovative thinking, and empower our members to become leaders in the field of architecture. We are an independently run student organization that depends on the generosity of the Berkeley community. We intend to provide crucial resources such as architecture magazines celebrating student work, free participation in design competitions, travel fee coverage to conferences; additionally, we also aim to provide additional funding to host professional workshops and portfolio review. We have now about 45 members with about 14 traveling to conferences. In this past school year, our organization has spent a total of over $1000 on booking hotels and flights to conferences, $200 on printing magazine publications, and $175 on hosting design competitions. While we have limited internal fundraisers and funding, we would be thankful to receive external support from our community to continue the efforts of our organization and allow it to thrive to its fullest capacity. Budget Breakdown Based on our budget from the previous school year, 45% of our funding went to hosting design workshops and preparing for design competitions. 23% was distributed to printing and distribution of our student led Trace Magazine, 20% on school supplies, 8% on professional social and networking events, and the remaining 5% on ASUC student government chapter dues. As a professional organization whose events rely heavily on funding, we hope to continue our initiative of supporting architecture students, and would like to thank all donors for making all these amazing professional events possible. We will continue to fundraise and run our organization if we do not reach our goals, but your support in the mean time is a crucial for the continued success of AIAS. This budget provides a rough estimate only and actual expenditures may vary. Contact Information: Instagram: aiasberkeley Email: aiasberkeley@gmail.com Linktree (sign-up for weekly newsletters and receive info about our events): https://linktr.ee/aiasberkeley1
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Support Undergrad Moot Court!
By Stephen Dai
Undergraduate Moot Court is a club that engages in competitive oral advocacy at the national level. We're a relatively new club looking for support!
Undergraduate Moot Court is a club that engages in competitive oral advocacy at the national level. We're a relatively new club looking for support! Undergraduate Moot Court Association at Berkeley (UMCAB) is a newly formed organization of over a dozen competition team members and rapidly growing feeder team at UC Berkeley dedicated to fostering valuable legal advocacy skills. UMCAB team members compete in the AMCA’s (American Moot Court Association) regional and national tournaments against over 450 universities across the nation in an experiential exercise that simulates an appellate court proceeding wherein students advocate a position. We are currently raising funds to help pay for our regional and national competition fees, as well as support us in our mission to ensure the longevity of this organization for future generations of Golden Bears! HISTORY: The organization was founded in the Spring of 2021, by 4 UC Berkeley pre-law students. Even through the obstacles of a remote semester, the team managed to recruit 8 competition team members through Zoom auditions and interviews. In its first year of existence, the club sent 6 teams to AMCA regional tournaments, and 2 of these teams were crowned the champions of their respective tournaments. In all, 3 out of the 6 teams qualified for Nationals in January, and 7 out of 12 individual members won awards for finishing in the top 10 best speakers at their respective regional competitions. After just two seasons, our team is now nationally ranked alongside other top schools around the country! WHAT IS MOOT COURT? As law school students and lawyers know, moot court continues to be an important element in American legal education today. Moot Court tasks students with arguing appellate cases in a mock-Supreme Court setting -- both orally before a panel of justices and via written briefs -- debating issues ranging from the freedom of speech, to the 5th Amendment rights to privacy and bodily autonomy, to Congress’s legislative power under the Commerce Clause. In pairs of two, each co-counsel is tasked with arguing on behalf of one of two issues presented in the form of a fictitious case drafted by the American Moot Court Association (AMCA). WHAT SKILLS DO OUR MEMBERS LEARN? How to read and how to brief precedent Supreme Court cases Students read a reported case, identify and summarize the relevant facts of a case, find the rule of law within a decision, understand how a court applies the rule, and finally use precedent effectively in their arguments. Research techniques, specifically as applied in the legal field Students research and write a brief on the legal issue involved in the appellate simulation, selecting helpful texts and other resource materials, and navigating through legal research services, such as Westlaw and LexisNexis. Professional public-speaking techniques Through use of self-evaluation and team feedback during practice and final oral argument sessions, students focus on and improve aspects of various communication and presentation techniques such as vocal variation, articulation, body language, etc. 2021-2022 Two years ago, our teams drafted arguments that concerned the Commerce Clause, which defines Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce, and the Fourteenth Amendment which contains the concept of Due Process. 2022-2023 Last year, our teams addressed arguments that concern the Fourth and Eighth Amendments to the United States Constitution. (Meet Andy and Kit Beyer, the #1 and #2 Orators in the nation last year! Fun Fact: Did you know they were twins??) 2023-2024 This year, our teams are addressing arguments concerning the 1st and 14th Amendments to the United States Constitution. In Issue One, which deals with the 14th Amendment, counsels must argue whether there is a right to privacy enshrined within the Constitution, and, more specifically, whether that right to privacy includes a right to contraception. In Issue Two, which deals with the 1st Amendment, counsels must argue whether the right to free exercise allows individuals to be exempt from laws that promote a general good but infringe upon their religion. WHY SHOULD I DONATE TO UMCAB? When you donate to the Undergraduate Moot Court Association at Berkeley (UMCAB), your donation will help pay for seven teams’ registration fees for regional tournaments and nationals! After succeeding in securing our spot as a nationally ranked team after only one year of competing, our team is asking for your support to help us maintain and improve our ranking! Although last years competitions were online, this year, we are sending our teams across the country to Albany, New York and Lexington, Kentucky! Nationals will be held in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. We need your support to get there! Moot court continues to be an important element in American legal education, and we hope that you can support us in our mission to provide academic support, professional development resources, and career opportunities to our members. A breakdown of how your donations would help us! For more information, check out our website (https://tinyurl.com/berkeleymootcourt), and follow us on instagram (https://www.instagram.com/berkeleymootcourt/) and linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/company/berkeleymootcourt/) If you have any questions about donation matching, long-term sponsorship, please reach out to our Treasurer at stephendai@berkeley.edu.
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Support Indus!
By UC Berkeley
Indus is a non-profit, South Asian student organization that by facilitating cultural events encourages nationwide awareness and education about the community.
Indus is a non-profit, South Asian student organization that by facilitating cultural events encourages nationwide awareness and education about the community. Indus is UC Berkeley’s premier, non-profit, South Asian student organization with over 200 UC Berkeley members and a strong alumni network. We seek to spread awareness of South Asian culture and construct a national network of friendly competition and camaraderie through major intercollegiate competitions. By facilitating cultural events, we aim to encourage awareness and education about the South Asian community throughout the larger UC Berkeley campus. UCB Indus Council One of our main events includes Bollywood Berkeley, the West coast's largest intercollegiate Bollywood Fusion dance competition. This annual event brings together dance teams from colleges across the nation to compete and showcase their talent, with over 1,000 attendees expected this year. Last year, teams that competed included Penn Masti, UCSC Kahani, USC Zeher, and SJSU Sahaara all competed. In addition to the main competition, we also hold a mixer for the teams as well as a celebration after the competition that is open to all Berkeley students. Bollywood Berkeley 2023 Another large event we host annually is Raas-Garba, which is an exciting evening full of dance, music and joy. This event is integral to South Asian communities across the world and helps us bring together hundreds in the spirit of community dance. Garba is traditionally a dance done during a nine-day festival in the autumn season. Putting on this event at UC Berkeley allows students to stay in touch with their culture and learn more about different South Asian traditions. Garba 2022 Other events we host include Anahat Acapella, a Cultural Showcase, and mixers through which we hope to integrate the South Asian community on campus, and allow anyone to experience our culture. Anahat is a competition similar to Bollywood Berkeley where 8 teams from across the country are chosen to compete and show off their talent in front of a large audience. We hope that this event will help spread South Asian music and culture across campus and the country! Anahat 2023 These events make up the majority of the costs we have every year. Every dollar donated will allow us to host better, more captivating events and provide a better experience for everyone that attends! Below we have listed the major costs we have to give you a better insight into why we need your donation. Donating to Indus will allow us to host more events, find better venues, increase capacity at events, and even have guest performers! Overall, every donation is used to help our community have a better experience at every event we host! To learn more about Indus, you can visit our website or our Instagram page @ucbindusofficial!
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Support for students in Recovery & campus Harm Reduction
By Becca Gardner
RecoveryatCal is a program for students in recovery from substance use, offering harm reductionist peer support and community.
RecoveryatCal is a program for students in recovery from substance use, offering harm reductionist peer support and community. Recovery at Cal or UC Berkeley's Collegiate Recovery Program (CRP) is a program for students in recovery from substance use as well as those who are currently struggling with alcohol and drug use or other addictive behaviors. We're a community on campus dedicated to supporting students in their recovery efforts by providing resources for recovery, health & wellness, and academic success. With these efforts, we aim to create an inclusive environment and supportive community to help students thrive at Cal and beyond. The collegiate recovery program at Cal is open to students in all stages of recovery and recognizes there are multiple pathways to recovery. We offer a community-based approach utilizing peer support services. We are a harm reductionist program. To learn more about collegiate recovery programs across the University of California system, see the UC CRP summary document which contains system wide standards, goals, and campus data. Our mission Our mission is to promote the personal, academic, and social success of students in or seeking recovery. In this pursuit, we aim to: Foster an inclusive community for students struggling with alcohol and drug use, regardless of financial, cultural, or social barriers. Hold a safe space where students can create community, foster solidarity, and combat stigma attached to recovery. Empower and advocate for students in recovery as a marginalized population, as a university-recognized program. What we offer On-campus recovery meetings Sober social events Individual peer support Recovery advocacy and service opportunities Harm reduction resources and overdose prevention tools (see our Harm Reduction Expansion Project collaborative program with PartySafe at Cal UHS-Health Promotion and FentCheck) Education & training Modest stipends via our Recovery Scholar program This year, with your donations, our goal is to: 1) Increase the reach of our Recovery Scholar program and offer more students funding. Students receive stipends via direct award upon completing program requirements which include attending recovery meetings, being of service to others, and attending sober socials. 2) Bring student staff and leadership to the UC System collegiate recovery working retreat at UC Santa Barbara in February 2024 over President's Day weekend! This retreat enabled our student founders to establish our program, and it is the first year we'll be able to hold this event since the pandemic. $1,000 will cover one student's travel, room and lodging, and food for the three-day event. With your support, we'll break down financial barriers that may have once hindered academic dreams. Your donation will reignite our students' passion and drive to create a more inclusive community, combat stigma, and advocate for recovery. Join us in making a lasting impact and make a testament towards your commitment to students in recovery! Our impact 2.2% of UC Berkeley undergraduate students self-identify as being in recovery from alcohol or drug use. In the 2022-2023 academic year, CRP held 93 total programs (recovery meetings, substance-free social programs): 92% of surveyed participants reported CRP to be helpful or very helpful for their mental wellbeing 7,700 fentanyl test strips were distributed through our Harm Reduction Expansion Project 920 students participated in harm reduction, recovery and overdose prevention workshops We learned of 2 successful overdose reversals from the Naloxone distributed by our program Student testimonials "I no longer feel isolated and alone in my fight against addiction." "I feel safe on campus because I know where to go and who to turn to when needed." "I have received so much unconditional love in this space. It has been instrumental to my sobriety and academic success. So grateful for CRP.” Visit our website. To get in touch email us at recoveryatcal@berkeley.edu or contact Becca directly at beccagardner@berkeley.edu.
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Support The Intermission Orchestra! | Fall 2023
By Kylie Cloutier
The Intermission Orchestra is a fun club that focuses on film, video game, and anime music. We include musicians, artists, photographers, and audio/video staff.
The Intermission Orchestra is a fun club that focuses on film, video game, and anime music. We include musicians, artists, photographers, and audio/video staff. About Us The Intermission Orchestra at Berkeley is a student-run organization dedicated to building a community for film, game, and anime enthusiasts and sharing our passions with the Cal community and broader Bay area through our music and performances. As a group funded through private sources, we depend on the generosity of our donors. Our Goals We are grateful for the opportunities we have had so far to share our music and serve our communities. As we pass through Intermission’s 6th Anniversary this fall, we are working to book a larger venue for our end-of-year Spring concert to allow for more of the community to join us. Furthermore, to deliver a higher quality of performances at our concerts, we hope to upgrade our sound equipment to provide the best audio experience at our concerts, as well as upgrade our photography and video equipment to improve our content for the community to engage with us even when they can’t attend our performances in person. Beyond that, we hope to be able to support our members by subsidizing transportation costs to perform at venues anywhere throughout the Bay. We have even grander visions of one day being able to travel throughout California, the US, and even internationally to show our appreciation for anime, games, and film music that are a worldwide phenomenon. In order to continue growing, we ask for the generosity of individuals so we may perform at new venues, travel to entertain new fans, and upgrade our equipment. As the Intermission Orchestra continues to grow and spread our outreach around the world, we strive to use our performance opportunities and new equipment to teach members new skills and build their repertoire as musicians. Donate Now! During this campaign, we really hope you can join us on this new chapter of the Intermission Orchestra’s journey! Through your support, we hope to raise at least $2,500: $700 to support new audio and video equipment for our performances, $1500 to book Hertz Hall and our usual church for our concerts, and $300 to subsidize costs for travelling. Will you make a tax-deductible donation today to support the Intermission Orchestra and help us lay the foundations for spreading Intermission’s reach throughout the Bay and beyond? Your donations will help make the dreams come true for a one-of-kind community of musicians, artists, audio engineers, photographers, videographers, and film, game, and anime enthusiasts! Thank you so much for taking the time to learn about our orchestra. If you have any questions or concerns please contact us at intermissionberkeley@gmail.com!
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Support STAC's 2023-2024 Launches! | Fall 2023
By Maanas Shah
This year, STAC's hardworking student engineers are launching their latest microgravity expirments (TIME II) and quantum gyroscope (QUBESAT).
This year, STAC's hardworking student engineers are launching their latest microgravity expirments (TIME II) and quantum gyroscope (QUBESAT). Here at STAC we're a group of passionate scientists who want to push the frontier of space research and the space industry. We are not a typical engineering club that focuses on a set competition but rather we focus on making strides in innovating space technologies. We're a student-run engineering organization at the University of California, Berkeley with 60+ highly motivated undergraduate and graduate students focused on developing innovative space technologies and research. We strive to create a collaborative student space platform, incorporating multiple research labs and industry partners, to enable research projects such as microgravity experiments, a CubeSat qualifying and testing a quantum gyroscope, an Autonomous Lunar Rover project, space bioengineering for astronaut health, and the Lunar Hopper rover for exploring lunar landscapes. In addition to innovating and working on cool projects, STAC is committed to energizing the UC Berkeley aerospace community. In 2022, we hosted the third Space Tech Symposium @ Berkeley, with over 200 attendees from all corners of the Bay Area space community. Our events' past speakers have included CEOs and Co-founders of companies like Planet, Astra, Google's Project Loon, Astranis, NASA and UC Berkeley researchers, and investors from venture capital firms. We're committed to continuing our annual tradition of bringing together the best and brightest in space! How you can help! More than just designing projects though, as student researchers, scientists, and engineers, we aim to actually push the frontier of space innovation with each of our projects and provide valuable experience for our members. Our QubeSat is launching to the ISS next year and TIME II will be launching with Blue Origin this winter, and through them and future launches, STAC is eager to send UC Berkeley to space and beyond! And to do that, we need funding! With your support, we hope to be able to finance the launches of QubeSat and TIME II's projects and be able to help realize the fruits of many semesters of labor! We will use 100% of funds to subsidize the equipment and operational costs of our projects. TIME II will be analyzing the effects of microgravity on bacteria and will be launching via Blue Origin sometime this winter, while QubeSat will be testing out a quantum gyroscope created at Cal (Go Bears!) and will be deployed from the ISS sometime next year! Contact Information: Email: calstacexecs@gmail.com
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Space Technologies And Rocketry - Launching to the STARs! FA 2023
By Jingyuan Chen
STAR pushes the barriers of collegiate rocketry with a competition stage separation vehicle, liquid engine flight, and glider payload.
STAR pushes the barriers of collegiate rocketry with a competition stage separation vehicle, liquid engine flight, and glider payload. We are UC Berkeley's premier high-power rocketry team. With an illustrious history of successful launches, STAR proudly holds the record for the longest and most accomplished launch history on campus, having completed a total of eight vehicles, numerous liquid engines, andover our impressive half-decade lifetime. Our mission is to enable students from all backgrounds and majors passionate about aerospace to gain hands-on experience through intensive projects – developing valuable engineering skills including developing simulations, manufacturing, operations management and more – while representing UC Berkeley at international competitions. Furthermore, through our education and outreach programs we pass down knowledge and help support the next generation of engineers in our community! To this end we have began a scholarship program with NextGene Girls projected to award more than 50,000 USD to underserved communities. By contributing to our cause, you will play an integral role in propelling our team's ambitions to new heights and launch us to the STARs! 4th Place (10k International 2023) at the Experimental Sounding Rocket Association (ESRA)’s Intercollegiate Rocket Competition (IREC) with our vehicle “CalVistor” featuring novel airbrakes allowing us to get within 24 ft of our target apogee. Honorable mention for most commercializable payload for our custom IREC vibrational art payload.1st Place (10k 2021) at Friends of Amateur Rocketry’s 1030 competition and 17th place (10k International 2021) with our vehicle Bear Force One featuring custom muon detector and microbial fuel cell payloads.18th Place at NASA’s Student Launch 2017 with our vehicle Ursa Major featuring a nose-mounted camera with smart detection algorithm to deploy landing legs and ensure upright payload landing. Numerous campus records including the current campus altitude record achieved with Berkeley’s first minimum diameter rocket “MINDI”, as well as being the first Berkeley team to launch a two stage rocket. We are also one of the few collegiate teams worldwide who have successfully hotfired a bipropellant liquid engine. The inaugural launch of our Stage Separation rocket (SSEP) took place in September 2022, marking a significant milestone in our research and development efforts. This pioneering endeavor, affectionately named "Pinkbeary," served as a proof-of-concept project to assess the efficacy of a two-stage airframe design and a spring-actuated separation mechanism, which is triggered by the detonation of pyro bolts. Notably, this endeavor showcased novel recovery methods and airframe architectures, firmly establishing UC Berkeley's prominence in the field of successful staging rocket launches. Building upon this initial triumph, our team is working hard on the second iteration of our stage separation vehicle which will also be our entry to the international IREC rocketry competition. Anticipated to reach a projected apogee of 10,000 feet, this forthcoming mission will incorporate enhanced structures, novel recovery techniques, and an exciting new payload. Our first-ever flyable liquid-powered rocket is currently in the testing and optimization phase! Our airframe and recovery teams have completed their preliminary designs and are working to physically test their conceptual component assemblies on the ground, validating our analysis of in-flight structural dynamics. On the propulsion front, we’re working on scaling our hotfire-tested LOX/ethanol development engine into the flight vehicle space and energy requirements envelope (integrated hotfire tests ahead!). The avionics team is shifting focus from propulsion ground support build-out to flight module design, including Printed Circuit Board component/stack optimization, onboard harnessing and power distribution. As we continue to integrate subscale projects between each subsystem, we’re working hard to maintain thrust and flight simulation accuracy to reflect the predicted physics of launch. We are currently on schedule to launch this foundational liquid-powered rocket in Spring 2024 in the dollar-per-foot competition at the Friends of Amateur Rocketry launch site in Southern California and eventually integrate liquid propulsion into our future IREC competition vehicles in the Student Researched and Developed liquid categories. For the past 7 years, STAR has attended local events to teach children about rocketry and space technology - meeting with thousands of students ranging from elementary to high school to inspire the next generation of thinkers, innovators, and golden bears! We have also expanded our outreach efforts through our scholarship program, designed to give meaningful support to local students who are struggling to access education. Our scholarship program is dedicated to supporting and championing the academic aspirations of low-income women of color pursuing science degrees. We partner with NextGene Girls to empower talented young women who face systemic barriers, offering them the means to pursue their dreams and contribute to the scientific community. Our goal is to provide a supportive network of mentors to our scholarship recipients, in addition to supporting them financially. Each recipient receives a $2000 scholarship, along with the continued support from our outreach program, where we run workshops on college fundamentals (such as LinkedIn, resume-crafting, etc). By investing in their education and unlocking their potential, we not only shape the future of science but also foster a more inclusive and equitable society. We are also aiming to expand our program and increase the number of scholarships we can provide. STAR sees projects from both short-term and long-term perspectives. We have big dreams of launching each of our unique and complex rockets! However, to do so, we need all the help we can get! We would greatly appreciate any support that our donors can provide! And to give back to our donors, we have cool prizes that range depending on the amount donated. Feel free to check them out! We love the work we do at STAR and are always happy to talk about it! To contact us or learn more about us, you can visit: Email: contact@stars.berkeley.eduWebsite: https://stars.berkeley.edu/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/calstar Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ucberkeleystar/ STAR featured in… The Daily Californianhttps://dailycal.org/2023/09/13/starhttps://dailycal.org/2023/09/15/job-fair-issue-2023 Berkeley Engineering https://www.instagram.com/p/CxnpEqYO7cm/?hl=en
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Support ReUSE, the only on-campus thrift store!
By Johnny Luu
ReUSE is an on-campus thrift store, student-run and volunteer-based, in need of funds to maintain the upkeep of the store.
ReUSE is an on-campus thrift store, student-run and volunteer-based, in need of funds to maintain the upkeep of the store. ReUSE is the *only* on-campus thrift store located on the 1st floor of MLK Student Union that prevents a myriad of items from entering the waste cycle. We are a non-profit organization whose sole purpose is to give back to the larger Berkeley community with the majority of our clothes for $3 or less. It is sustained by Berkeley students who openly volunteer and get involved with ethical, green second-hand practices to provide a proactive space for affordable clothing, materials, and events for the larger Berkeley community (students, faculty, residents, non-students, etc.)! Almost everything in the store is donated. Towards the end of every semester, the profits we receive are donated to our selected charity (i.e. Dorothy Day House, another non-profit dedicated to helping the houseless community)! Our student-run store!**Last school year (2022-2023), we were able to donate a whopping $2971.51 to charity, while simultaneously redirecting roughly 1112.3 pounds of items for a renewed purpose! Without everyone's involvement, this milestone would not have been possible. As our organization and store continue to prosper, we are finding ways to support this growth!** Front of store! What will your money go towards? As the store continues to stay open, there will be an impending need to clean and reorganize it. A huge portion of these funds will go towards cleaning supplies, like bins, Lysol wipes, Nitrile gloves, trashbags, new hangers, and many more. As others are not aware of ReUSE, we would also love to allocate these funds to the production of flyers and posters to promote awareness of our organization. Socials are an amazing way to keep our community strong--we plan to use some donations for upscaling old clothes, tie-dyeing, and repair services. That said, our main goal is to be an accessible outlet for every-day school supplies. We would love to use these funds to be able to afford school items to give back to the community for free! Here is a rough budget breakdown: Thank you so much for your consideration for ReUSE! As ReUSE is a non-profit, student-run, and donation-based organization, we fully rely on the larger Berkeley community and beyond for advocacy. Your support will allow us to keep the store afloat, helping us pay for items necessary for the management and cleanliness of the store. We will also be using these funds to give back to our members, as well as advertise and market to raise awareness of ReUSE's existence! 2nd Sunday Clothing Swap! Our wonderful community bringing their own clothes to swap! Check out our socials! <3 Instagram: @reuseberkeley Tiktok: @reuse.berkeley Website: reuse.berkeley.edu Feel free to contact us! Email: ucberkeleyreuse@gmail.com Location: First floor of MLK Student Union, UC Berkeley! Our ReUSE community! With Love, ReUSE
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2023 Public Health Alumni Association Diversity Fellowships
By UC Berkeley
PHAA provides scholarships to allow diverse students to attend the School of Public Health
PHAA provides scholarships to allow diverse students to attend the School of Public Health The UC Berkeley Public Health Alumni Association Board of Directors is excited to launch our annual crowdfunding campaign to support diversity in public health with a goal of raising $12,000 to fund 6 fellowships for underrepresented students attending Berkeley Public Health. Thanks to the generosity of alumni and friends, we have exceeded our goals for the past 6 years and would love your support in making an even bigger impact and funding even more fellowships this year! Diversity is vital in public health and the development of a diverse public health workforce must be centered in schools of public health. One of the values of Berkeley Public Health is “Strength Through Diversity,” which our community embraces in education, research, and service. While our underrepresented minority student population has increased in recent years, we could be doing more to create an inclusive, equitable environment for graduate students from these diverse backgrounds. One real and tangible way to do that is by providing fellowships to students from underrepresented backgrounds. Supporting underrepresented students in their public health education is a key step in addressing health inequities in the long term. We are asking alumni, faculty, family, and friends of the School of Public Health to support these students by donating to provide the financial aid that they need to thrive while in school and in their future public health careers. Please donate to support 6 underrepresented minority students, each with a one-year, $2,000 fellowship for the next academic year. If we exceed our goal, we will be able to fund additional fellowships! Last year the Public Health Alumni Association was able to fund 6 fellowships through this crowdfunding opportunity. (Please note that there is a campus-imposed 5% gift fee on all donations and a 2.5% processing charge for credit card transactions but the remaining entirety of the donation goes towards student fellowships). One huge hurdle to achieving diversity in education is the increasing cost of tuition and the many expenses associated with being a student. High costs can have an even greater impact on underrepresented students (who may be particularly susceptible to the financial hardships created by the COVID-19 pandemic) and financial aid can be a deciding factor for many. We want to ensure money is not an obstacle to pursuing a degree for those interested in careers in public health. Below are some testimonials from fellowship recipients! The Public Health Alumni Association (PHAA) Board of Directors is a group of alumni volunteers who represent all alumni of Berkeley Public Health. We help alumni support the mission of the school and strengthen personal and professional relationships among public health alumni and students. One of our particular goals is to support diversity in the field of public health and ensure an inclusive, welcoming climate at the school for all of our students. For any specific questions, please contact us at PHAA@berkeley.edu
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Support Molecular & Cell Biology Undergrad Student Association!
By Sabine Cismoski
mcbUSA hosts professional development workshops, Medical School Night, Summer Opportunities Symposium, group discussions with faculty, & mentorship programs.
mcbUSA hosts professional development workshops, Medical School Night, Summer Opportunities Symposium, group discussions with faculty, & mentorship programs. The Molecular and Cell Biology Undergraduate Student Association, or mcbUSA, is the oldest original MCB student organization sponsored by the UC Berkeley MCB department, and is a committee-based undergraduate organization, entirely driven and operated by a group of passionate and hardworking biology students. We strive to provide resources and opportunities for students who are enthusiastic about biology by exploring the diverse career paths in healthcare and industry, fostering relationships between students and faculty, and more! Spring 2023 end-of-year banquet Each year, we hold a wide array of events, such as various professional development workshops, Medical School Night, Summer Opportunities Symposium, student-faculty mixers, community-building socials, mentorship programs, and alumni panels. We also run the Summer Undergraduate Research Program which connects students to biology-related labs. This semester, we are excited to introduce our first annual Research Symposium, offering students the chance to practice creating and presenting research posters! Your support will go directly towards these various events and programs run by mcbUSA! 100% of contributions will aid in covering: Venue rental costs Purchasing essential materials like poster boards Facilitating faculty-student luncheon mixers Supporting mentorship program activities Every contribution, regardless of size, will help us continue to build a sense of community, provide growth opportunities, and elevate biology undergraduates at Cal! mcbUSA's new officers this fall Learn more about mcbUSA at https://mcbusa.berkeley.edu/
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Support Maya at Berkeley!
By Aarabhi Achanta
Maya at Berkeley is an Indian classical fusion dance team that incorporates classical styles, including Bharatanatyam, Kuchipudi, Kathak, and Odissi.
Maya at Berkeley is an Indian classical fusion dance team that incorporates classical styles, including Bharatanatyam, Kuchipudi, Kathak, and Odissi. Maya at Berkeley is an organization dedicated to facilitating the synthesis of Eastern and Western classical dance forms for students. Our mission is to provide a platform that enables students to explore, choreograph, and learn various dance styles collectively. With a strong emphasis on classical styles such as Bharatanatyam, Kuchipudi, Kathak, and Odissi, Maya incorporates these traditional dance forms into our performances. Additionally, we infuse elements of fusion by integrating Bollywood and hip hop music, creating a unique and captivating experience. Our group offers invaluable opportunities for members to develop their choreography skills, teach others, and expand their knowledge of diverse dance styles. By fostering a collaborative environment, Maya at Berkeley encourages artistic growth and cultural appreciation among its members. Through our performances and workshops, we aim to showcase the beauty and richness of both Eastern and Western classical dance forms, creating an engaging and enlightening experience for our audiences. Join us on this captivating journey as we celebrate the harmonious blend of dance traditions and cultural diversity. Donations will go towards costumes (80%) , performance opportunities (10%), and socials(10%) for the team. CONTACT US: Instagram: @mayaatberkeley Gmail: mayaatberkeley@gmail.com
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Support South Asian Classical Music At Cal!
By UC Berkeley
Laya hosts free concerts of Carnatic and Hindustani Classical music, ancient art forms from South Asia, for Cal students, alumni, and the greater Bay Area.
Laya hosts free concerts of Carnatic and Hindustani Classical music, ancient art forms from South Asia, for Cal students, alumni, and the greater Bay Area. Laya (n.): speed or tempo, the union of sound Laya of Berkeley is a unique music club at the University of California, Berkeley. Founded in 2015, we aim to bring the intricacies and flows of Carnatic and Hindustani classical music to the diverse, cosmopolitan environment of Cal and the larger Bay Area. Comprised of vocalists and instrumentalists, we perform pure classical pieces as well as fusions with other classical and Western styles. We also invite and host professionals and performers in free lectures and concerts. In all our endeavors we hope to find and foster the rhythm of Berkeley and bring different parts of the world together through our art. Free concerts organized by Laya of Berkeley make live Carnatic music accessible to the public and provide a unique cultural and musical experience that is not widely available in mainstream events. However, these concerts are not cheap for us to put on and our biggest challenge right now is the artist fees. Artist fees for Carnatic and Hindustani professional musicians are high and we often have to turn down artists because we can't afford to host them. We also do not ticket our concerts to eliminate any barriers for the community to experience the wonders of classical music. In addition to paying artists, we also pay for concert venues. With your donations, we can rent bigger event spaces to accommodate for more concert-goers and give artists the stage they deserve for sharing their music with us. This semester, we would love to make merchandise such as t-shirts and sweatshirts to sell at our concerts to raise funds and foster a stronger sense of community among our members. Thank you for taking the time to learn about our club and hope to see you at a future Laya concert or performance! If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us via the email below. Website: https://laya.berkeley.edu/ Contact: layaofberkeley@gmail.com
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Promote access to healthcare and education on kidney disease FA23
By Tanvi Yalamanchili
NEW GOAL! $1200! KDSAP provides free kidney disease screenings & awareness events in underserved communities to reduce rates of kidney disease in the Bay Area.
NEW GOAL! $1200! KDSAP provides free kidney disease screenings & awareness events in underserved communities to reduce rates of kidney disease in the Bay Area. Who are we? We are the Kidney Disease Screening and Awareness Program (KDSAP) of UC Berkeley! Our organization addresses the issue of chronic kidney disease (CKD) in the Bay Area. The services that we provide are open to all, but the populations that we most commonly see and are actively reaching out to are Asian Americans, African Americans, Latinx, and other underserved populations. These communities often have poor access to healthcare and are at a higher risk for kidney disease due to various systemic issues. We aim to help low to moderate-income families as healthcare in the United States is a privilege many cannot afford. As a student organization, we rely on fundraising and community grants in order to carry out our mission. CKD is known as a silent killer because its symptoms are undetectable until the final stages of the disease, at which point the damage to patients’ kidneys is irreversible. Due to unequal access to healthcare in the United States, people at risk for CKD are often unaware that they may be at risk until it is too late. Furthermore, dialysis and kidney transplant, the two treatment options for kidney disease, are often unavailable to patients, as it is very difficult to find a match from the transplant list. Dialysis is a costly procedure both in time and money. Our efforts of working towards providing free screenings grant free consultations with physicians to those who may not have access to healthcare services so that they may plan their next steps. What do we do? As an organization, we have two primary objectives: to hold free kidney screenings throughout the Bay Area and organize awareness events for the public to learn more about maintaining kidney health. Our work addresses and advances health equity by ensuring that all the services that we provide (e.g. screenings and awareness events) are free and open to everyone. We distribute information about these events to as broad audiences as possible. We make targeted efforts to reach the underserved in our community by working with community centers, churches, and other non-profit organizations to publicize our services to those who need them the most. For our screenings, we partner with physicians who provide one-on-one consultations with patients. We are also mentored by physicians from UCSF who help educate us on kidney health and work with us to organize our screenings. Our free kidney screenings hold the following stations: 1) Registration 2) Urinalysis 3) Blood Pressure 4) Blood Glucose 5) BMI/Waist-Hip Ratio 6) Nephrologist Consultation 7) Wellness & Nutrition with a Renal Dietician We are a rapidly growing organization, and in the past years have expanded both the number of screenings we hold per year as well as the locations in which we hold them. We plan to hold 10 screenings a year, but due to the cost of screening supplies in conjunction with advertising, transportation, and other costs, our current sources of funding will not be sufficient to reach this goal. We would greatly appreciate your help as we work towards increasing engagement with the community and making a positive impact on more people’s health. What will your money go towards? Your donation will go towards the purchase of supplies such as urinalysis (urine test) machines, gloves, and glucometers (to measure blood sugar) that will allow us to conduct health procedures at our screenings, as well as train the volunteers who staff our screenings. We plan to use funds to print outreach pamphlets and promotional fliers and boost our social media advertisements to publicize our screenings and awareness events to a broader audience. By donating to our organization, you will help provide the public with more information about an often overlooked disease, and will help people all around the Bay Area improve their health! Stay connected with us: ucberkeleykdsap.com Instagram: @berkeleykdsap #BerkeleyKDSAP
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Increase Diversity & Belonging for Berkeley’s Graduate Students!
By Inclusive Excellence Hub
The Inclusive Excellence Hub is the first campus-wide community space exclusively dedicated to increasing excellence through diversity and belonging.
The Inclusive Excellence Hub is the first campus-wide community space exclusively dedicated to increasing excellence through diversity and belonging. Inclusive Excellence Hub Increase Diversity and Belonging for Berkeley's Graduate Students! You can change the diversity profile of tomorrow's leaders! Known for its diversity in students and thinking, UC Berkeley graduates more underrepresented students than any other Ivy League caliber research institution. Graduate students at Berkeley become thought leaders and innovators in their fields while improving our community and our world. By increasing diversity in graduate students, we are building diversity into the leadership of tomorrow. The Inclusive Excellence Hub is the first campus-wide community hub exclusively dedicated to increasing academic excellence through diversity and belonging at Berkeley by housing transformational programs that lead the nation in inclusivity and belonging. The Hub is a vibrant home to current students with programs that also attract highly qualified prospective graduate and undergraduate students from underrepresented backgrounds as they tour campus, becoming a highly visible example of Berkeley’s mission as a beacon of opportunity for promising students from every background. Our goal is to raise $2,000 to support four Diversity & Community Fellows for the Fall 2023 semester. Programming and Support you'll find at the Hub: Diversity & Community Fellows – graduate students who serve as peer mentors providing a listening ear and developing programming to build community for graduate students navigating their academic programs and campus life Path to the Professoriate – a learning community to promote and encourage students from groups historically underrepresented in higher education with preparation for faculty positions Dissertation Writing Workshops – to provide dissertation writing support and scaffolding Resident Faculty Mentors of Color – faculty members in residence to mentor graduate and undergraduate students and lead by example Transfer Student Research Intro – workshops and mentoring opportunities in partnership with the Transfer Office specifically designed to introduce undergraduate transfer students to the campus research landscape and graduate education possibilities Increase diversity and belonging for Berkeley's Graduate students to change the leadership of tomorrow! Thank you :) Learn more by visiting the Inclusive Excellence Hub website or email grad.diversity@berkeley.edu
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iGEM at Berkeley: An Open-Access Synthetic Biology Hub 2023
By Guru Rajesh
NEW STRETCH GOAL: $5,500! iGEM is a student-led research org that enables undergrads from all backgrounds to conduct synthetic & computational biology research.
NEW STRETCH GOAL: $5,500! iGEM is a student-led research org that enables undergrads from all backgrounds to conduct synthetic & computational biology research. NEW GOAL: $5,500! Thank you all so much for your support! We're hoping to keep the momentum going, and raise $5,500 to enable our undergraduate students to acquire state-of-the-art wetlab equipment and high-performance computing resources. Our Story iGEM at Berkeley is a student organization that began with the goal of giving students the creative freedom to explore questions and conduct research in the field of synthetic biology with the ultimate goal of competing in the annual global iGEM (International Genetically Engineered Machines) competition. However, our organization’s mission has evolved to increase accessibility of the synthetic biology and bioengineering community to students of all backgrounds and research experience levels at Cal. By cultivating every student’s technical skill set, fostering collaborative experience in team settings, and encouraging passions for niches of bioengineering research, iGEM has grown to support and train a community of over 400 members; our Training teams, educational resources, and events are open to all general members without any selection process. Some of our experimental and new ideas teams presenting their work at our End-Of-Semester Symposium! Our One-of-a-Kind Structure We break away from the traditional iGEM team format through our emphasis and dedication to accessible research training through education materials and providing lab space for building foundational skills and preparing to conduct supervised, undergraduate-initiated research. We have created a specialized Training Team, a student-powered program which provides students with a semester-long crash course in synthetic biology. Our members have created an entire curriculum to teach new members everything from basic laboratory skills to designing and testing scientific questions of their own. A student in our faculty advisor's lab participating in our new training program. With the knowledge they gain from their time in Training Team, members are then transitioned into either a New Ideas team or an Experimental team. As of Fall 2023, over 80 members participate in iGEM’s project teams, which are entirely student-initiated. In New Ideas teams, students explore areas of synthetic biology and perform extensive literature review, identify gaps in current knowledge, and ideate unique ways to solve their questions. Once their idea is shown to be scientifically sound and viable, New Ideas teams can then transition into Experimental teams, where students are provided resources to carry out necessary experiments and gather data. Our organization currently has 7 Experimental teams: 4 wet-lab teams and 3 computational biology teams. These teams are exploring questions such as creating more efficient ways to perform traditional cloning methods, and developing a pipeline for mining and processing chemical reactions from published scientific literature. Experimental members can receive research credit through iGEM at Berkeley through BioE 99, 199, H194, and 196. We are also creating a wet-lab training program, where students will be trained to do basic synthetic biology techniques in the lab setting, before transitioning into an experimental team. A wet lab experimental member plating her cells as part of our training program. In the following graphs, we reflect on the statistics of our membership over the past five semesters we have been active. We are a rapidly expanding organization, which reflects the undergraduate population’s demand for accessible, quality research experiences. Total Membership: reflects experimental, general, training team, and administrative members of our organization Experimental Membership: reflects members on active project teams (wet-lab or computational biology teams) General Membership: reflects members that have access to all of our events (workshops, training team, educational resources, and more) Unit Takers: experimental or Training Team members that opt to take research units for their training and experimentation Donations Every aspect of running our lab space, from writing grants to conducting experiments, is done by students. This means every dollar donated is critical to our operations. Our budget includes thousands of dollars in material costs, equipment purchases, and competition fees. Your donations go directly towards supporting these expenses, and allow students to bring their bioengineering ideas to life. Our Vision Our ultimate goal is to create a physical biomakerspace for the Berkeley undergraduate community: a space that provides necessary resources and support to anyone with a bioengineering idea. Existing biomakerspaces are models for our vision of a community where students can gain hands-on exposure to solving bioengineering problems outside of the classroom, engage in spontaneous discussions, and spearhead their own ideas in collaboration with other Berkeley students. Under the supervision of Dr. John Anderson, who graciously is mentoring our teams and providing his lab space for our organization’s use, iGEM at Berkeley wants to take this first step in making this physical environment a reality and meeting this student demand through additional equipment and funding opportunities for external scientific communication. Responding with substantial steps toward growth, we hope to cement Berkeley’s iGEM team as a community-oriented success for other universities to model and scale student experience, both crucial for impactful postgraduate careers in bioengineering or adjacent fields. A photo from one of our monthly all-hands meetings where all our members convene to share progress. Stay In Touch Our social media and website are constantly updated with our newest projects, progress, and events. Check us out on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter or igem.berkeley.edu to follow our journey! If you have any questions, contact us at directors@igem.berkeley.edu.
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Game Design and Development at Berkeley (Fall 2023)
By UC Berkeley
We're dedicated to fostering a community for aspiring game developers, providing a support pipeline that will enable everyone to work on their own games!
We're dedicated to fostering a community for aspiring game developers, providing a support pipeline that will enable everyone to work on their own games! Game Design and Development Club at Berkeley Game Design and Development at Berkeley is a club dedicated to helping those interested in game design and development understand the common tools and work environments present in the industry. We encourage students from all backgrounds, as there are a variety of facets involved the production of a game including, but not limited to, programming, art, music, and project management. And since our goal is to help students learn, we require no prerequisite knowledge either. Our three goals as an organization are: Creating a space to foster a community for those interested in game design and development. Getting more people interested in game design and development. Providing a support pipeline that will enable everyone to work on their own games, including industry events, workshops, and game jams. The specific programs we run are the following: the mentor program where we run teams centered around different game design themes. In the decal, we teach game development fundamentals through the Unity Game Engine. The funds will also support community-building events and trips to game industry conferences like the Game Developers Conference. Funding Plan: Outlined below is our plan for how we will use the proceeds from crowdfunding donations: Events Throughout the Semester: Recruitment Events Sproul Tabling: Sproul tabling is our main form of recruiting new potential members, where we set up our table on Sproul Plaza, and pass out flyers to interested students as well as going up to and talking about what GDD does as a plan (primarily the party system and the decal system) and navigating them to our club’s discord if they are interested. Info Sessions: An info session where current members of GDD talk about what GDD does as a club, and as a decal, where more information regarding how to join, what the party system is, what type of events are planned for the semester, etc are provided to potential members who come to the session. GDD Info Session / Cal Day Project-Centered Events Bear Jams: Bear Jams is our once-a-semester 45 hour game jam! A game jam is a game development marathon, where developers work together or alone to design, develop, and publish a game over the course of a limited timeframe – in our case, one weekend! GDD staff then streams every game over the course of the next week, giving our feedback as seasoned game developers. General Meetings: GDD has two general meetings, the first one being a bit more social where we announce each party mentor, what type of video games we would be creating, and then playing board games to break the ice between mentors and other party members. The second is where we announce who got into which party, and then provided some party bonding activities, such as playing board games and party formation is finalized GDD Second General Meeting, Fall 2023 Playtests: The party system’s playtests invite the general Berkeley community to come and test the games the parties are working on! This is an incredibly important step of the development process, as people working on the games can get tunnel vision and it’s hard to visualize from the perspective of a brand new player. It is also a fun way to get people excited about the games in development! End-of-Semester Showcase: Our big, fancy, end-of-semester Showcase! This is our largest event by far and is a way to show what members of the Berkeley game development community have achieved over the course of the semester. There are individual booths for each game allowing students to playtest and enjoy the results of everyone’s hard work, creativity, and dedication. Fall 2022 GDD Showcase Industry Events Industry Speakers: Industry speaker events are where we have prominent members from big-name video game development companies come out talk about how it is working in the industry, how to break into the industry, and going over what each role contributes to a team, as well as providing a way for members to connect and network with the speakers. Workshops: Workshops hosted by our in-club mentors where they go over general topics for interested students, and topics can vary from character design to programming to music. These are designed to be very beginner friendly and serves as a way for members to gain some basic foundational understanding of the topic. Social Events Saturday Socials: Every Saturday our club holds board game socials on campus, where staff and students can decompress and appreciate “acoustic” gaming. Playing games in a non-digital medium is a great way to learn game design principles and what makes a game fun, even without flashing lights and sound effects. Movie Nights: Movie nights are a way for staff and students to hang out without any work or looming deadlines. We rent a room, set up a projector, and watch a relaxing movie together. These movies typically showcase 3D Graphics or are related to gaming in some way! Internal Social: An internal social for executive members where we play various party games on Discord as a way to getting to know each other in a more informal and social environment, as a way to build team-working skills and create a more casual bond amongst the board members. Game Tournaments: A social event where current and interested students engage in a casual, fun game tournament. The games primarily consist of 1v1 video games, hosted at UC Berkeley’s own Esports LAN Center, and is done via bracket. It is a fun and laid-back way of members interacting with each other and getting to know each other. Round 1 Trip: At the end of the semester, the club takes a trip to the nearest Round 1 Arcade for a change of pace! Round 1 Trip Our Social Media: Follow us on Social Media! Website: https://gamedesign.berkeley.edu/ All funds and proceeds raised through this project will go towards making the club experience for our members even more enjoyable and will allow us to host more events! Gifts of any size will make a significant impact towards helping us reach our goal and will be sincerely appreciated. If you could spread the word about us and our project, that would be greatly appreciated too! We hope we can count on your support. Thank you! Feel free to send us an email at calgamedesign@gmail.com if you would like to ask us any questions!
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Formula SAE (Fall 2023)
By Henry Morse
Formula SAE is a student-run club which designs and builds a single-seat formula style racecar for competition against other universities.
Formula SAE is a student-run club which designs and builds a single-seat formula style racecar for competition against other universities. Who We Are We're so happy you took the time to visit our page! We are Berkeley Formula Racing, a student-run organization that designs, builds, and races a single-seat car each year against 100+ other universities from around the world. Our goal is to give our members an opportunity to use what they learn in the classroom in a real-world application. We're thrilled to be able to inspire students and showcase our engineering knowledge. We rely heavily on the donations of people like you to be able to build our car. Since the team’s founding in 2001, we have expanded from a small team to one of the best in the nation, with 2nd place out of 120 teams in Autocross highlighting our recent achievements. We're proud to have ~65 active members this year from a variety of majors and different backgrounds. Our team is made up of 9 subsystems: Aerodynamics, Brakes & Driver Interface, Business, Chassis, Drivetrain, Engine, Electrical, Suspension, and Vehicle Dynamics. We work to ensure that everyone is welcome on our team, regardless of experience or background. During the Fall semester we enter into the Design Phase in which each subsystem undergoes multiple design reviews with sponsors and alumni to ensure that they are working efficiently toward the goals they set at the beginning of the year. Once design is complete, we begin our Manufacturing Phase. During these two months, student machinists make over 300 unique parts for our vehicle and student welders weld our steel space frame chassis. The rest of our members assist by preparing and assembling steel tubes for chassis welding and fabricating foam molds and carbon fiber sheets for the aerodynamic devices.Once we assemble all these components, we move into the Testing Phase where we work to debug the car, validate our designs, and tune the car for optimal performance. At the end of Testing we will be to able to go to Competition fully prepared in May of next year! STEM education is important to our members because we strive to create opportunities for innovation and education outside of the classroom, which not only help to improve our car for competition but also help improve the our knowledge in design and project management. This would not be possible without sufficient funding so we thank you for your time and consideration. Berkeley Formula Racing is riding a tidal wave of performance, with a vast majority of our major achievements in our 22 year history coming in the last couple years. With a little extra help, we earnestly believe we can contend to be the #1 Formula SAE team in the nation, a monumental achievement for us. Your support is so important, now more than ever, to help get us as close as possible to that goal. We hope that this crowdfunding campaign will fund us to get the support and parts we need to continue through our design and manufacturing process for B24 this year. Where Your Donation Will Go We need $10,000 to be able to complete our car. To see exactly where your money will go, we’re breaking it down: $3500 - Wheel Package Assembly Our drivetrain team is working on optimizing our wheel centers and machining them using a 5 axis CNC. We need enough sets of wheel assemblies to comfortably test with and run at comp with a set of wets as well! $4000 - Chassis Manufacturing Manufacturing our chassis to our design specifications requires a lot of precisely cut tubes, jigging, and welding. A well made chassis is the foundation of a successful race car. $1000 - Engine Exhaust System We are focusing a lot of attention on our exhaust system this year as we struggled to past to balance noise level and engine performance. We are exploring several strategies to reduce noise without limiting the power of the engine. $1500 - Vehicle Dynamic Sensors e.g. IR Rotor Temperature Using simulations to design our car is only the first step of a successful vehicle. Validating that our designs work in the real world and behave how we expect is essential for safety. Sensors like a brake IR rotor temperature sensor also help to tune the car so we can optimize the performance of the car. We would not be able to succeed without the generosity of our community, and we are thankful for anything you are willing and able to donate. Please reach out to us with any questions or comments. Thank you again for your time and support! For any questions or concerns, feel free to reach out to us at calfsae@gmail.com. Check our website out at fsae.berkeley.edu, and follow us on Facebook (facebook.com/calracing) and Instagram (@calformulasae).
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2023 Fall Fashion Show Fundraiser
By Camilla Nguyen
FAST nurtures students interested in the fashion industry, and presents Berkeley's one and only fashion show featuring the original designs of Cal students.
FAST nurtures students interested in the fashion industry, and presents Berkeley's one and only fashion show featuring the original designs of Cal students. Who We Are: At Fashion and Student Trends (FAST), we are dedicated to providing opportunities for students interested in fashion or the fashion industry to learn from other students and experts in the field or find a community during college. We hold a 100% student-led semesterly fashion show, featuring student designers and student models. While striving to provide our students/audience with professional industry experience we also invite experts in the fashion industry to talk to the students about future career development and opportunities. We believe that fashion is not just about clothing but a powerful form of self-expression and creativity. This semester our show at the Clark Kerr Campus Krutch Theater will have 200+ guests. Don't miss this semester's theme, Devotion, meaning love, loyalty, or enthusiasm for a person. What We Do: Student-Led Fashion Shows: We organize 100% student-led semesterly fashion shows that feature the incredible talent within our student body. These events are a melting pot of creativity, showcasing student designers and models, and allowing them to gain real-world experience and exposure. Professional Industry Insights: Our club invites experts from the fashion industry to share their knowledge and insights with our members. These sessions provide invaluable career development opportunities and a glimpse into the dynamic world of fashion. Our Upcoming Event: This semester, we are thrilled to host our fashion show at the prestigious Clark Kerr Campus Krutch Theater, with over 200 eager guests expected to attend. Our theme for this semester's show is "Devotion," a celebration of love, loyalty, and enthusiasm for the art of fashion and self-expression. How You Can Help: To continue providing these experiences to our members and the broader community, we need your support. By contributing to our crowdfunding campaign, you'll be helping us further provide fashion education and help us maintain the high standard of our events. Your contribution will help us: Secure a stunning venue for our upcoming fashion show. Cover production costs, including lighting, sound, and stage design. Bring in guest speakers from the fashion industry to inspire our members. Provide scholarships and resources to talented but financially constrained students. Thank you for being a part of the FAST community, and together, let's make this semester's fashion show an unforgettable experience! Any questions, comments, or concerns please contact calfastinternal@gmail.com. Instagram: @fastcal LinkTree: https://bit.ly/m/FASTCal Sign up for our mailing list!
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Support the Debate Society of Berkeley!
By Murtaza Shiyaji
The Debate Society of Berkeley is UC Berkeley's largest academic debate team, competing internationally in the British Parliamentary Format.
The Debate Society of Berkeley is UC Berkeley's largest academic debate team, competing internationally in the British Parliamentary Format. The Debate Society of Berkeley is UC Berkeley's largest academic debate team, competing internationally in the American and British Parliamentary styles. Over the years we have grown to be one of the best public university debate teams competing in British Parliamentary debate, having our competitors advance to elimination rounds at tournaments such as Yale, Stanford, and the Western championships. In order to maintain and improve our position and continue representing UC Berkeley on the international debate circuit, we hope to send students to the most competitive tournaments around the world. While the competition is fierce, the greatest challenge our students face is not strong opponents but rather having to personally pay for expensive flights. This fall, we will send five teams and four judges to represent our school in the 2024 United States University Debate Championships in Geneva, NY. We hope to continue to be able to represent UC Berkeley in the tournaments nationally and globally. However, travel, housing, and registration costs severely limit the number of students we can send to any tournament, especially ones on the other side of the globe. Your donation would make it possible to keep up and excel against the competition. As part of our membership in the national and international circuits for APDA (American Parliamentary Debate) and BP (British Parliamentary Debate), we are a part of a tremendous and diverse group of students from the world’s premier academic institutions. We’re a young team, but we are extremely grateful for the world of debate. As such, we love giving back to the community that inspired us. Every year, we host two tournaments, one for high school students competing in parliamentary debate, and the other for university students from the BP circuit. These tournaments give us the chance to inspire young students to continue their debate journey as well as actively engage our own team members, but hosting these events would simply not be possible without the support of our dearest donors. Here's a breakdown of how your generosity would be put to use for our team! Your donation could help show the international debate community just how strong the Debate Society of Berkeley is, as well as give a debater the opportunity of a lifetime to compete on behalf of their university and enrich their education. The Debate Society of Berkeley is already one of the most successful British Parliamentary debate teams from a public school in the country, and your donation will take our success global. Your support makes all these possible. Thank you so much for your generous donations! If you have any questions or would be interested in learning more, please visit our website at https://debate.berkeley.edu/ or get in touch by email at contact@debate.berkeley.edu.
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Help Fund the Nationals-Winning Cal Cricket Team! 2023
By UC Berkeley
Cricket Club is a student organization that competes in regional and national tournaments and seeks to spread awareness of the sport of Cricket.
Cricket Club is a student organization that competes in regional and national tournaments and seeks to spread awareness of the sport of Cricket. Cricket Club of Berkeley: A Legacy of Excellence Established as a pioneering initiative, the Cricket Club of Berkeley stands proud as the first and only cricket club of the college. Over the years, our club has evolved into a hub for cricket enthusiasts, fostering both the spirit of competition and the love for the game. While we indulge in recreational matches that allow members to enjoy the game in a relaxed environment, our competitive edge is undeniable. Last year, our dedication and prowess were evident as we clinched the title at the Nationals and emerged as NationalVhampions. This victory was not just a testament to our skills but also a symbol of our unwavering commitment to the sport. But the club is not just about playing; it's about living and breathing cricket. We regularly host watch parties, turning major cricketing events into festive occasions for our community. These gatherings are not just for the seasoned fans but also for newcomers, ensuring everyone gets a taste of the thrill that cricket offers. Our mission extends beyond the boundaries of the college. We are passionate about spreading the game and introducing it to diverse groups of people. Through various outreach programs and events, we aim to share the rich history, rules, and nuances of cricket, making it more accessible and relatable to all. Furthermore, we are one of the best cricket clubs at any college, which is evident by our numerous victories in the Regional and National Tournaments, yet we are one of the very few that are not funded by the University. Here is a picture of the team after we won the National Tournament last year: To learn more about us, visit: https://www.instagram.com/calcricketclub/ To view a breakdown of how funds donated to the club will be used, please see below:
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Support Combat Robotics at Berkeley on Discovery's BattleBots!
By UC Berkeley
CRB competes on the BattleBots TV show and regional combat robotics competitions to develop our students' engineering skills.
CRB competes on the BattleBots TV show and regional combat robotics competitions to develop our students' engineering skills. Combat Robotics at Berkeley competes on the TV show BattleBots (HBO Max, Discovery), where 250 lb robots fight to the death in a tournament style bracket! We've represented Berkeley students on the show for 2 seasons with our robot Glitch, and need your help to do it again! Our Program Glitch Team Celebrating After Making it into the BattleBots Tournament of Champions Since the team's founding in 2020, we have quickly made opportunities for our members, building 14 robots in 3 years, 5 for BatttleBots and 9 for regional competitions. We truly believe that this quick design cycle, as well as the creative freedom of combat robots, has truly given our members some of the best hands on experience there is. Not just in engineering, but also in creative problem solving, teamwork, and dedication (countless all nighters!). We love competing at combat robotics events since there's an intensity that comes with needing to repair your robot before the next fight. The team has learned tons from the diverse group of competitors, from seasoned engineers to hobbyists who have a knack for hands on building. It has been an essential experience for our careers and we hope to extend this opportunity to as many Berkeley students as we can! New Member Program CRB's First New Member Class Our team supports around 20 members each year in our new member program. Experience members help teach them about combat robots, engineering skills, and we fund their 15 lb combat robot for an annual competition! Our team strongly believes in this program, since allows new members with no experience to contribute, and gives the teams creative control of their own robot! How Your Support Will Help! Glitch's 60 lb Tool Steel Weapon Cracked After a Fight Unfortunately combat robots can be expensive, and destructive matches lead to a lot of broken parts! We plan on dedicating any crowdfunding support to these 3 categories: $1000 - Brushless Motors: Large brushless motors in combat robotics can cost up to $1000. High performance is key in quickly spinning up our weapon, which stores roughly the same amount of energy as a motorcycle on the freeway! $1000 - Motor Speed Controllers: One of the most fragile elements of combat robots are the electronic motor controllers, but they are also the most key. After breaking a lot of controllers at fights in BattleBots Season 7, we need to rebuild our stock. $3000 - New Member Program: We support all of our new member teams with the funds to create their own combat robot! It gives them the opportunity to have full creative and decision making control of their own bot, which is a rare experience for new members in an engineering club. Tier 3 Perk! Please feel free to reach out to us with any questions at info@crberkeley.org, or follow our Instagram and Facebook at @glitch.battlebots! Thank you for the support!
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Help Students Find Their Way: Support L&S First-Year Pathways
By UC Berkeley
To help ease the transition to college life and Berkeley academics, the College of Letters & Science has launched the First-Year Pathways program.
To help ease the transition to college life and Berkeley academics, the College of Letters & Science has launched the First-Year Pathways program. Ensure new students successfully transition into academic life through programs like L&S First-Year Pathways. UC Berkeley attracts the best and brightest students, but our university’s size and complexity can be overwhelming for new students, especially those who are the first in their families to attend college. To help ease the transition to college life and Berkeley academics, the College of Letters & Science has launched the First-Year Pathways program. This innovative program allows first-year students to take interdisciplinary courses and enjoy immersive learning experiences with a small cohort.L&S First-Year Pathways allows students to: Explore compelling and timely topics through an interdisciplinary lens Join small cohorts of up to 25 students in hub courses and in discussion sections of lecture classes Form personal relationships with emblematic faculty members Enjoy learning and bonding activities outside of the classroom Progress toward graduation through the completion of L&S breadth requirements We launched Pathways this fall with a capacity for 125 students, and we need your support to help more scholars find their way at Berkeley. The cost for each student's Pathways experience is approximately $3,120. Your contribution to the L&S Leadership Fund will help expand L&S First-Year Pathways and similar efforts to improve the new student experience, such as the On the Same Page program, Big Ideas Courses, and additional advising resources.The first semester of college is often the most challenging time for our undergraduates. Tilt the scales toward success with a timely gift to the L&S Leadership Fund. Visit lsfirstyear.berkeley.edu for more information about the L&S First-Year Pathways program, and email any questions you may have to lsgiving@berkeley.edu.
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CalTV Equipment Fundraiser FA ‘23
By UC Berkeley
CalTV's implementing a two-day weekend bootcamp for all members, where they will learn the basics of video cameras, Adobe Premiere Pro, & content production.
CalTV's implementing a two-day weekend bootcamp for all members, where they will learn the basics of video cameras, Adobe Premiere Pro, & content production. CalTV is the premier source of news, entertainment, and cinematic content for all things UC Berkeley! We started as a student-run television station in 2005 and have been dedicated to broadcasting the best content that Cal has to deliver ever since. Our four departments: News, Entertainment, Studios, and Marketing aim to give you the inside scoop on relevant topics within the University community and the wider Bay Area. As a group of passionate content creators, we are always in need of professional production equipment. Access to high-quality gear allows our club to produce equally high-quality content that we have been delivering for years. This year, we are taking our production heights to new levels. We are extremely proud of our dedicated team of directors and members who hit the ground running to deliver fun, informative, cinematic videos this semester. A few of our projects in the works include an exclusive interview with English DJ Fatboy Slim, a CalTV x Air Bears skydiving video (yes, one of our directors jumped out of a plane for this), various news stories about hot button campus events, and three short films of different genres thanks to our Studios department. We are asking for your help in raising funds to continue providing out members and directors the opportunity to take their production to new levels. Lots of learning went down at CalTV's first ever bootcamp! We hope to use 100% of all funds raised for the purchase of new equipment like: Gear for our Black Magic cinema cameras Interview microphones for our News department Tripods Batteries And of course, more cameras This year, CalTV received the most applications of any semester, meaning our club has expanded significantly. We thank you for your support in our pursuit to deliver the best content to Berkeley students and beyond! Follow along with our content on Instagram @caltv, TikTok @caltvofficial, and YouTube @caltvofficial
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CalSol - UC Berkeley Solar Vehicle Team FA ‘23
By Eddie Kang
Driven by a vision for sustainable technology, CalSol is a team of 100 students who design, build, and race high-speed, street-legal solar vehicles.
Driven by a vision for sustainable technology, CalSol is a team of 100 students who design, build, and race high-speed, street-legal solar vehicles. Striving for a more sustainable and greener future, CalSol is a team of undergraduate students who design, build, test, and race high-speed, road-legal, fully solar-powered vehicles. Historically composed of over 80 students from a variety of disciplines, we provide our members with hands-on experience in engineering, project management, supply chain interactions, teamwork, problem-solving, and more. We’ve built a team that welcomes students from all backgrounds and experience levels. This year, we’ve seen the highest turnout of new members in years: more than 50 new students have joined the team in the past few weeks. We’re eager to introduce them to the world of cutting-edge solar and renewable energy technology. Some of our team at the Richmond Field Station (2022) We have built nine generations of racing vehicles, enhancing our designs with each generation. Tachyon, our 9th generation vehicle, has had a long and successful career. We’ve raced Tachyon at the 2019 Circuit of the Americas race in Austin, Texas, finishing second in two years in a row. In the 2019 Bridgestone World Solar Challenge, the world’s most prestigious international solar car race, Tachyon placed 13th. Last summer, we raced Zephyr (our 8th generation vehicle) in the Formula Sun Grand Prix and the American Solar Challenge, placing 4th in both. Due to the multitude of university-related transportation issues that we have been facing since last Spring, the team struggled to travel to Richmond Field Station, where we are building Excalibur, our 10th generation vehicle. Still, we found ways to spend almost all weekends and many weekdays in the summer to have Excalibur road ready (thanks to all our motivated and committed members!). However, we need your help. Currently, we are crowdfunding to cover the cost to finish manufacturing Excalibur and to start building our 11th generation vehicle. Excalibur is said to be the fastest and most efficient vehicle our team has built since its conception with a unique mono-chassis and carbon fiber shell. Our $8K goal will primarily go towards paying for the transportation fees and purchase of foundation materials for the new vehicle that we will be building. With your contribution, we can provide more opportunities for members to tackle hands-on design and manufacturing work and finish Excalibur to continue our legacy of success. Testing the Dynamics of Excalibur Will you make a tax-deductible donation today to support CalSol and make it all possible? Your donation will contribute to the manufacturing of Excalibur and our 11th generation vehicle, which will aid the development of solar and renewable energy technology and the education of brilliant engineers. Expenses of Excalibur Your contribution means a lot to us and our goal for a better future. Feel free to contact us on our email or social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter: @BerkeleyCalsol Email: calsol-me@berkeley.edu Thank you and Go Bears!
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Support Future Advocates | U.C. Berkeley Mock Trial Fundraiser
By Chris Ying
Cal Mock Trial is UC Berkeley's premier mock trial team, traveling to over a dozen tournaments across the United States.
Cal Mock Trial is UC Berkeley's premier mock trial team, traveling to over a dozen tournaments across the United States. Hello! Berkeley Crowdfunding is upon us, and we’re so excited to launch the fundraiser for Cal Mock Trial, UC Berkeley’s premier mock trial team. Thank you so much for your interest in our organization! What is Cal Mock Trial?Cal Mock Trial is UC Berkeley’s Official Mock Trial Team. As of 2023, CMT is ranked 20th in the nation. Since its founding in 1999, Cal Mock Trial has been a nationally ranked program and has consistently competed at the top levels of collegiate mock trial. As part of its competitive season, Cal Mock Trial regularly travels across the country to compete in tournaments. Recent years have seen the Golden Bears competing and winning trials at locations such as Washington D.C., New York City, Memphis, Chicago, Seattle, Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, and more. Cal Mock Trial is a constant presence at the National Championship Tournament each year, often qualifying two separate teams and placing among the top ten programs in the nation.Our ask:Over the past several years, travel costs have risen exponentially. Tickets that used to cost hundreds of dollars now cost thousands. Your donation is what allows our team to continue compete at the highest levels of mock trial. It’s what enables us to book plane tickets, hotel accommodations, printing supplies and pay for registration fees. Our goal this year is to raise $5,000. Of that $5,000, $3,000 will go towards plane tickets, $1,000 to hotels, $650 to printing our materials and visual aids, and $350 towards gas. We truly appreciate any support that you can give. Without your help, Cal Mock Trial would be unable to travel the country and represent our university with the passion and excellence for which we are known. When you contribute to Cal Mock Trial, you’re also investing in the growth and development of our talented students who are poised to become the legal leaders of tomorrow. Your support means the world to us. You can contact at anytime with questions at calmocktrial@gmail.com.Thank you again for your time and support,Cal Mock Trial--Chris Ying, PresidentDarius Parakh, Vice-PresidentJeffery Fang, TreasurerEmma Wu, Travel Coordinator
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The Cameron Institute 2023 Challenge
By Cal Athletics
This fund will allow Cal Athletics to provide its student-athletes with the tools and support they need to flourish during and after their time at UC Berkeley.
This fund will allow Cal Athletics to provide its student-athletes with the tools and support they need to flourish during and after their time at UC Berkeley. Cal Athletics Welcome to our month-long crowdfunding effort to support The Cameron Institute for Student-Athlete Development at the University of California, Berkeley. We hope to raise $25,000 in the month of October from our loyal alumni, student-athlete parents, Golden Bear Network Members, and everyone in between! The Cameron Institute is a world-class model for growth and achievement in Intercollegiate Athletics. The institute is guided by the vision of positioning 900 student-athletes to perform to their full potential and thrive for a lifetime through The California Way model. Launched in Fall of 2020, the Cameron Institute was founded thanks to a generous $12.5 million endowment established by C. Bryan Cameron. Led by an 12-person team grounded in the values of excellence, trust, growth, and clarity, the Cameron Institute strives to be an exemplary student-athlete development model within Cal Athletics and college athletics departments throughout the country. The California Way is delivered through high-impact specialized services across three pillars: Career Development, Community Engagement & Partnerships, and Mental Performance & Leadership Development. The services are delivered in the following formats: : 1:1 Advising/Consultation, Small Group & Team Sessions, Experiences, and asynchronously through Online Platforms: The Golden Bear Network, Community Engagement Hub, and the Calm app. Services are delivered to meet or exceed the expectations of student-athletes and coaches and are guided by an exceptional group of practitioners from various backgrounds and professional experiences. To the right you'll see a menu of opportunities that your gift to the Cameron Institute could support. If you don't see the gift size you'd like to contribute, don't worry, you can make a gift of any size! It's all truly appreciated! Thank you and Go Bears! Career Development Community Engagement & Partnerships Mental Performance & Leadership Development Learn more about the Cameron Institute. WEBSITE CalBears.com/CameronInstitute TWITTER @CalCameronInst INSTAGRAM @CalCameronInst YOUTUBE CalBears.com/CameronYT NETWORK GoldenBearNetwork.com COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT HUB calbea.rs/community-hub EMAIL CameronInstitute@berkeley.edu
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Berkeley Women in Business
By Julianna De Paula
We host events that assist undergraduates develop their professional skills & learn about women in the workforce: retreats, socials, & mentorship opportunities.
We host events that assist undergraduates develop their professional skills & learn about women in the workforce: retreats, socials, & mentorship opportunities. About Berkeley Women in Business (BWIB): Berkeley Women in Business [BWIB] was founded in 2005 and now is a well established organization on campus that hosts around 50 active members. Berkeley Women in Business empowers women in the workforce through professional development and discourse on gender equity. We strive to develop our members into well-rounded individuals with the skills necessary to succeed in their careers. Yearlong, we host events that assists undergraduates to develop their professional skills as well as learn about women in the workforce. We also host retreats, socials, and mentorship opportunities throughout each semester. Our members develop a sense of belonging and trust within our community that allows for, not only professional development, but personal growth. Our organization is open to all students, all majors, and all genders who are in support of women in the workplace. BWIB Community: The BWIB community hosts different professional development events every week. In addition, here at BWIB we have a tight knit community who support each other. We host retreats, banquets, and other events that bring us together. Women in the Workforce Conference: BWIB annually hosts the Women in the Workforce conference for young individuals to meet and listen to powerful women leaders in the business industry through workshops and keynote speakers. Through networking and discourse, individuals will learn about women's empowerment in the workplace and engage in conversations with respected industry leaders who are truly changing the world and breaking the status quo. Although improving, the discrimination and inequality women face in the workforce is undeniable. Men hold 62% of manager positions compared to the 38% women hold. 35% of women face some type of sexual harassment in the business field. 29% women feel that their gender is an obstacle to advancement. To break these facts and stereotypes, the Women in the Workforce educates and brings insight to young individuals from respected women in the industry and their stories. The conference had around 100 members attend. Past keynote speakers include of Gioia McCarthy, SF Market President and Northwest Division executive at the Bank of America as well as Jenny Dearborn, founder and CEO of Actionable Analytics Group and former Chief Learning Officer at SAP. Workshops were led by individuals such as Marjolein Cuellar, the managing director at Boston Consulting Group, and Alta Sparling, director of campaigns at Sephora. In order to reach out to as many Berkeley individuals (both female and male) to attend this conference, we launch this crowdfunding campaign. BWIB hopes to continue making a change in gender equity in the workforce and we believe the way to do so is to inspire and influence as many people as possible. By donating to our project, we will be able to scale this conference and make a bigger impact in the community and hopefully reach out to more people across colleges all over the USA. Budget: The budget for our yearly conference is approximately $3000. Please see our allocation below. Learn More about Us: Website: http://www.berkeleywomeninbusiness.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BerkeleyWIB/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/berkeleywib/
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Support the Berkeley Scientific Journal! FA’ 23
By UC Berkeley
BSJ, the premier undergraduate research journal, publishes Cal undergrad research, interviews with faculty, and features articles on science topics.
BSJ, the premier undergraduate research journal, publishes Cal undergrad research, interviews with faculty, and features articles on science topics. Who we are: Berkeley Scientific Journal (BSJ) is the premier undergraduate research journal of the University of California, Berkeley. Every semester, our undergraduate staff publishes independent research done by undergraduates at UC Berkeley, interviews with faculty members, and features articles on current issues in science. All research papers and features articles are reviewed by faculty members. The initial purpose of the journal was to provide an official forum in which Berkeley undergraduates could publish their independent research. But since its inception in 1996, the purpose of the journal has expanded to give the Berkeley scientific community a better understanding of how events here at Berkeley impact global concerns. The focus of the journal is broad, spanning scientific disciplines ranging from ecology to engineering, and from astronomy to biochemistry. Our intended audience includes, but is not limited to, UC Berkeley students, faculty, and the surrounding community. A new issue of BSJ is published twice a year on eScholarship, Issuu, and our website! This semester, we also want to launch our inaugural magazine, The Hypothesis, that will feature more short-form content for our readers!Club Social Event on Campus with our members! This year, with your donations, the dream of our editorial team is to: 1) Increase BSJ readership as much as possible both inside and outside the Berkeley community 2) Host large-scale guest speaker events on campus 3) Secure enough funding to publish our issues in print. Each BSJ issue represents the dedication and talent of our students who produce interesting and high-quality work To break it down further, $1000 will go towards printing and shipping costs, and the remaining $500 will go towards guest speaking events and other outreach events to educate the community about science through journalism. Make a gift today to help make this a reality for BSJ! Distributing copies of our journal on the Berkeley campus!Our members at the Bay Area Science Festival! Learn more about us through our social media! Website: bsj.berkeley.edu Instagram: @bsj.berkeley Facebook: Berkeley Scientific About our Members: Here are some fun facts about our members! Our majors: Our favorite science publications: Where we're from: Please reach out to bsj.berkeley@gmail.com if you have any other questions!
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BERC Climate Action Campaign
By Hillary Hoffstein
BERC Climate Action Campaign is a unique initiative at Berkeley, attracting students across all UCB schools (from undergrads to PhDs) to take climate action.
BERC Climate Action Campaign is a unique initiative at Berkeley, attracting students across all UCB schools (from undergrads to PhDs) to take climate action. Berkeley Energy & Resources Collaborative (BERC) connects, educates and motivates students, alumni, faculty and industry professionals to address the world's energy and resources challenges. BERC hosts conferences and events covering key topics within energy and resources, including the annual Energy Summit, Resources Symposium, monthly BERCshops and regular social gatherings. We provide our members with opportunities to engage with cutting-edge research and current industry applications through programs such as the Innovation Expo and FieldTreks to visit with climate oriented organizations across the Bay Area. BERC relies on grants and donations in order to maintain FREE MEMBERSHIP for anyone interested in energy, resources, or climate action more broadly. Help BERC live out its mission by joining our climate action campaign! 100% of donations will go towards the operational costs of hosting our biggest events of the year: BERC Resources Symposium, October 30-31 2023 BERC Energy Summit, February 8-9 2024 Want to join BERC? Sign up for our Weekly Newsletter & Monthly Dispatch here! Get in touch! BERC Website | BERC Instagram | BERC LinkedIn | Sponsorship Email
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ANova Hacks 2024
By Melissa Salazar
ANova Hacks is a free overnight hackathon for students from under-resourced high schools, designed to change the way they view computer science.
ANova Hacks is a free overnight hackathon for students from under-resourced high schools, designed to change the way they view computer science. Our team hopes to raise $4,000 for our annual hackathon. We will use the money to provide the best hackathon experience for our students from under-resourced backgrounds. Would you be interested in supporting our cause? A hackathon is rooted in the simple but complex world of “creation.” During hackathons, teams come together to bring one of their own ideas into tangible reality using technology. Regardless of their interest in computer science, students are exposed to the wonders of technology and its impact on our world. Together, we can inspire the next generation of innovators to hack to new heights! Every semester, ANova puts on a hackathon for students in underserved communities. This year, ANova Hacks 2024 will be a fully in-person, overnight, free-of-charge event designed to change the way our students think about computer science. We want to give them the skills and experience necessary to achieve their career aspirations, and spread their ideas to the world through technology. Shay Ma, one of our mentors, helps a hacker at Anova Hacks 2022 The majority of our students have grown up with little to no exposure to computer science, higher education, and the technology industry. We hope to not only transform the spark of an idea into a prototype, but also to ignite a passion for computer science in our participants. By presenting a firsthand look at virtual reality, gaming, web development, and more, we provide students with an exciting look into the forefront of technological innovation. ANova Hacks merges the fundamental computer science techniques taught at our weekly site visits with events geared towards the construction of a project. Panels and workshops about financial aid, college life and the application process inspire students to pursue higher education in one of their passions. We offer students knowledge and advice from successful, experienced industry leaders as well as mentorship from passionate UC Berkeley students. Most of all, ANova Hacks is about forming friendships with our students so that they have the resources they need to achieve their goals. Oftentimes, hackers who attend hackathons have prior experience and have been able to be exposed to the infinite possibilities out there. Computer science has consistently been more prevalent in communities with access to computers and prior knowledge about the tech industry. However, a significant amount of potential computer scientists don’t have access to these opportunities, and that’s where ANova Hacks fits in: a hackathon specially for students in under-resourced communities to show every one of them that they can change the world through the power of technology. We hope to empower our students so that they can transcend any limits and ignite a passion towards becoming an engineer in the future. We hope that you can be a part of this journey and help make this possible for our students! Our hackathon aims to empower our students to use technology for social good. Through ANova Hacks, we aim to give them the skills and experience necessary to spread their ideas to the world. We imagine a diverse tech industry where age, gender and background do not limit one’s ability to pursue computer science, and ANova Hacks aims to make that a reality. To introduce our students to various kinds of technologies they may be able to use throughout the hackathon, we will bring in industry experts and host a variety of workshops. Last year, we held an in-person hackathon and hosted workshops on topics ranging from financial aid in higher education to lessons on design prototyping and mobile development. Our experienced ANova members also led workshops on web development, game development, and introductory Python and Java. At ANova Hacks 2024, we hope to bring even more interesting and enlightening workshops to our students, such as sessions on computer security and machine learning. To make this valuable experience accessible to our students, we host this hackathon free of charge. We ultimately look to raise around $10,000 for our hackathon so that we can provide fun workshops, mentorship, and awesome prizes for our hackers in a safe and spacious venue. The $4,000 from crowdfunding is only the first step in our journey to providing students with a safe, encouraging environment to work, learn, and have fun! Our goal for this crowdfunding campaign is to raise enough money to fund our venue for the hackathon and be able to provide an amazing experience to our students free of charge. If we raise over $4,000, we'll spend that money towards providing students with BART tickets to attend the hackathon! Your support will help make this possible. Please donate today! Every year, several students were unable to attend ANova Hacks due to conflicts with transportation to and from the venue. With extra funding, we’d like to encourage more students to attend our event by covering their transportation fees. We hope that you’ll be a part of our movement to inspire as many students as possible with computer science, mentorship, and a supportive, hands-on learning environment! To truly expose our students to what industry is like, ANova has partnered with industry leaders like Google, Facebook, and HackerEarth in previous years to provide swag and panelists for our hackathon. This year is no different and we plan to seek sponsorships with various industry leaders in order to continue giving our students a first-hand glimpse into the industry. Our sponsors have made previous hackathons possible with their invaluable experience in helping out with workshops and panels to give our students the full experience. We would like to thank them below for making previous ANova Hacks amazing: Facebook Google Microsoft Dropbox Databricks Workday IBM .tech Domains HackerEarth Trader Joe's Chipotle ANova is a registered student organization in UC Berkeley dedicated to improving computer science education in under-resourced communities across the Bay Area. We partner with middle and high school teachers and administrators to develop curriculum catered individually for each classroom. Our outreach and mentorship efforts strive to make computer science education and opportunities within computer science more equitable, available, and achievable for students of all backgrounds. Anova Fall 2023! We currently reach out to over 120 students at 8 different middle/high school programs. To be considered for our program, each one of these schools must provide above 40% free and reduced lunch. Every site has its own curriculum catered to its own specific needs. As part of our mission, we also host two large events annually: a semester-long college mentorship program (CMP) in the fall, where high school seniors are paired with an ANova mentor to guide them through the college admissions process, as well as ANova Hacks in the spring. Help ANova fund a 24-hour hackathon for under-resourced students and spread the love for computer science! Please make a gift today! Anova Hacks 2023 Thank you for your support! If you have any further questions, comments, or concerns, contact Frank(frank.j.liu@berkeley.edu) or Melissa(mmvsal13@berkeley.edu) To find out more about us, visit us at https://www.berkeleyanova.org/, facebook.com/BerkeleyANova, and check out our Instagram @berkeleyanova!
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Berkeley Science Bowl Invitational Tournament
By Ricky Wetterer
Berkeley Science Bowl is a high school outreach quiz tournament hosted by ACS@Berkeley and the College of Chemistry.
Berkeley Science Bowl is a high school outreach quiz tournament hosted by ACS@Berkeley and the College of Chemistry. Who are we? We are Berkeley Science Bowl (BSB) and our excited to launch our crowdfunding campaign for our Fall 2023 invitational tournament with a goal of raising $5000! The BSB Invitational Tournament is a STEM trivia competition for high school students resembling the format of the annually hosted National Science Bowl Tournament hosted by the U.S. Department of Energy. Our tournament is designed to prepare high school students with a passion for the sciences, especially from underrepresented communities, for competitions as well as providing an opportunity to explore UC Berkeley for its longstanding excellency in scientific fields. The competition will occur in early December over the course of a weekend; teams of 4 high school students compete against each other on campus in fast-paced head-to-head trivia to earn the title of champion. Additionally, we provide opportunities to learn more about science by hosting notable guest speakers from Berkeley's faculty and letting students tour the facilities on campus. Currently, we are the only invitational science bowl to take place on the West Coast and we are honored to provide this exciting opportunity for high schoolers to participate in. More broadly, we are the American Chemical Society at Berkeley Student chapter in affiliation with the UC Berkeley College of Chemistry and the local California American Chemical Society Chapter. Our mission is to improve the academic and professional development of all undergraduates here at Berkeley while fostering a sense of community among our members and the UC Berkeley chemistry community. Beyond Berkeley Science Bowl, we provide academic & professional resources through info-sessions, workshops, panels & talks, networking events, and mentoring & advising to anyone with a passion in the sciences. By hosting BSB, we are better able to connect with Bay Area high schoolers to provide them with enrichment and fun oriented towards learning about the sciences. Past Success Our inaugural tournament was hosted last year and saw over 150 competitors with numerous teams from the Bay Area as well as teams from as far as Los Angeles, CA and Irvine, CA. Students competed for a full day and were provided lunch and snacks. The competition consisted of several rounds hosted around many of the campus facilities before we convened for a final single elimination tournament. All questions were designed from scratch by our team of volunteers (and included some fun questions about Berkeley's scientific accomplishments) and equipment was rented in order to provide our competitors an authentic experience. Beyond the competition, high school students were ecstatic to hear from a Nobel Laureate keynote speaker: Professor Randy Schekman and tour the Berkeley campus among our other welcoming events. Overall, it was a resounding success with many schools sending 3 or more teams to compete. As a result, we are projecting a significant increase in interest from high school students and hope to accommodate them by scaling up the competition for this year! What will your money be put towards? As mentioned earlier, last year's Science Bowl was extremely successful for an invitational tournament and we would love to be able increase the size and presence of the competition to better accommodate more teams! Since our tournament is staffed by volunteers, your donation will be targeted towards increasing the capacity of the event, increasing the number of additional events adjacent to the main competition, increasing outreach to more high schools, and providing support to a larger range of schools both locally and far away. A large portion of our budget will be allocated towards renting larger spaces across campus as well as providing more materials for our competitors to ensure the tournament environment is fair, safe, and enriching for all involved. We are expecting 250+ attendees this year from schools all across the West Coast eager to visit Berkeley. We would greatly appreciate any support you could provide in order to help build an amazing tournament for this year and for future years to come! Stay connected or check out the other events we host! We constantly update our Website, Facebook, and Instagram with our most recent and upcoming events even beyond Berkeley Science Bowl! If you have any questions, contact us at acsberkeley@gmail.com or connect with us on through our LinkedIn!
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Support America's ToothFairy at Berkeley!
By UC Berkeley
America's ToothFairy at Berkeley is an oral health advocacy organization. Students actively engage with youths and underserved people in the Berkeley community.
America's ToothFairy at Berkeley is an oral health advocacy organization. Students actively engage with youths and underserved people in the Berkeley community. Who We Are America's ToothFairy at Berkeley is a new student-run organization that wants to educate young children about their oral health and give back to our community. Our mission is to help children understand the importance of dental hygiene while providing interesting and fun activities during the learning process. In addition, we would like to deliver accessible oral hygiene resources to underserved children. Our Plan We embody our mission through meaningful action. Our students craft informative pamphlets and deliver teach-ins, both contributing to our educational approach. The goal of our lesson is to inform children about how to properly look after their teeth and teach them how to properly brush their teeth. We hope that the information we present will keep them motivated to maintain their oral hygiene habits. Through dedicated fundraising, we procure necessary instruments for assembling dental hygiene kits, which are thoughtfully distributed during our events. Here's a link to the most popular presentation we use for elementary school-aged children: Let Your Teeth See The World Your donations will 100% go towards purchasing the materials needed to assemble the oral hygiene kits! The hygiene kits cost around $5 to build and include a toothbrush, toothpaste, and floss. We hope to make 500 kits! Future Plans As more UC Berkeley students engage with our club, they bring their unique ideas for enhancing our community impact. We look forward to integrating these innovative ideas into our future endeavors. Our most recent initiative involves an expansion of our educational outreach efforts, to reach adults on campus, residents in elderly care homes, and communal spaces within our community. Check out this educational pamphlet we recently made, tailored to UC Berkeley students: Social Media Instagram: @berkstoothfairy Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/americastoothfairyatberkeley Email: americastoothfairyatberkeley@gmail.com Website: https://americastoothfairy.wixsite.com/berkstoothfairy/about
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Democracy Camp 2024 | Fall 2023
By Matsui Center
Democracy Camp is a life-changing program for Cal Bears committed to enhancing democracy through public service.
Democracy Camp is a life-changing program for Cal Bears committed to enhancing democracy through public service. Matsui Center Help Students Answer the Call to Public Service! Democracy Camp is an alternative spring break experience designed to empower UC Berkeley changemakers and enhance our democracy. During this four-day intensive program, undergraduate students gain knowledge and skills to chart their path to a meaningful public service career. Democracy Camp is entering its seventh year and we have big plans for this year's cohort! Please make a gift today and support the next generation of public service leaders! About Democracy Camp Democracy Camp is a bootcamp that gives students first-hand exposure to different facets of public service: legislative paths, community organizations, local and state government, legal professions, research, and philanthropy. Students learn directly from guest speakers about the opportunities available in these fields, and take a field trip to Sacramento to experience work and life in the state capital. 2023 Democracy Camp participants pose for a photo with Santa Rosa City Manager Daryel Dunston.In addition to meeting with public-service professionals, students participate in skill-building workshops, including networking and resume writing. Participants have the opportunity to put these skills to practice by networking with speakers and exploring public service internship opportunities on campus and beyond. Many Democracy Camp alumni go on to pursue summer internships and careers in public service. The 2023 Democracy Camp cohort explores Sacramento. We believe that building pathways for students with varied perspectives and life experiences will enhance our democracy and ensure a more effective and representative government. To that end, this program is designed to be inclusive and accessible to all Cal students, including first-generation, non-traditional, and transfer students. How You Can Help Democracy Camp is made possible by generous gifts from donors. With your help, we hope to raise $5,000 of our $7,500 budget to fund the 2024 Democracy Camp in Berkeley program. (The Institute of Governmental Studies has committed to contributing the remaining balance.) We strive to make our programs accessible and FREE for participants. Donations will go towards the cost of learning materials and transportation to Sacramento, as well as three meals a day for all Fellows for the duration of the program, to support students who may otherwise experience food insecurity during Spring Break. We are accepting donations between now and October 31. No gift is too small, and your support will ensure that we are able to provide the best experience possible for UC Berkeley’s motivated changemakers! Receive a 'Thank You' from a Democracy Camp Alum! Allow us to show our appreciation! For donations of $25 or more, we will post a shoutout on social media, and for donations of $100 or more we will share a 'thank you' message from a Democracy Camp student. For gifts of $500 or more, donors will receive a personalized 'thank you' video from a Democracy Camp student. Democracy Camp is sponsored by the Institute of Governmental Studies (IGS) and the Robert T. Matsui Center for Politics and Public Service at the University of California, Berkeley. IGS stands at the forefront of research, teaching, and service in California and American politics and policy. Interdisciplinary and non-partisan, we foster thoughtful discussions of issues across party lines that focus on solutions – not just problems. Our mission is anchored by a belief in the transformational power of public service. To learn more, visit our website.
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