Not many groups at Hopkins can tout themselves as philanthropic ventures. Girl Up, a recently approved campus group, which works through the Center for Social Concern, is just that. At its heart, Girl Up looks to bring attention to the plight of girls around the world.
The group is the passion-project of freshman Hilary Matfess, who, even though she does not have much experience in the philanthropic world, is making strides to hone the United Nations Foundation’s Girl Up model into a campus tailored organization.
“I don’t have a lot of background in it, but I don’t think that just because you haven’t done something in the past doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try now,” Matfess said. “And there’s no better place to try and start something new than Hopkins. We have all these incredible resources and really motivated, intelligent people. So, I thought why not give it a whirl.”
Matfess first read about the United Nations Foundation’s effort Girl Up last summer. She took the initiative to contact the organization. “I got in touch with a couple of the women that are active in it to see if they wanted a campus branch model to be created,” Matfess said. “They said they hadn’t had one or developed one, so it was kind of up to me. They didn’t know what framework to develop.”
Matfess has been creating her own infrastructure and figuring out what works and what does not in terms of a campus branch of the organization.
“We’re kind of just winging it,” she said. “It’s incredibly different. The UN foundation works with the UN to promote UN ideals and programs throughout the United States, and so the UN Foundations program Girl Up is doing a lot of fundraising efforts. They’re also going around the country to increase awareness of the plight of girls around the world.”
Matfess and group Vice President Briana Last both see Girl Up as something incredibly beneficial to the Hopkins community.
“It’s a great cause and it’s something I believe in, and the stats prove it can be incredibly beneficial in an international development,” Matfess said. “I decided that Hopkins is definitely a place that could benefit from that type of group and could be beneficial to the UN foundation’s outreach.”
In much the same way, Last looks at Girl Up as filling a void that Hopkins and the greater Baltimore community lacked.
“What I liked about this effort was that although it has this aspect of ‘we can help finance girls around the world,’ it was also spreading awareness, and I think that was something that was missing from the Hopkins community and I also think missing from the local Baltimore community,” Last said.
The group is supported through the Center for Social Concern and has a mentor through the political science department, Professor Siba Grovogui.
“I at first considered applying to have Girl Up as an SGA group,” Matfess said. “While the SGA is a great organization, and a lot of the clubs that go through it are wonderful, I feel that our place is at the Center for Social Concern just because there is a more philanthropic-minded community there.”
Through the Center of Social Concern, the group receives many benefits and support, Administrative Assistant at the Center Susan Chase said.
“We support them — they apply for money and then we help them manage their budget and we do simple things like their ordering,” Chase said. “They can use our office equipment, they can use our vans for free. Our director and associate director also act as sorts of mentors to them.”
Because the group is only in its first semester of existence on campus, Matfess said that one of their major goals is to establish themselves and create an environment and infrastructure that ensures the group’s longevity.
“This year, a lot of it is going to be getting our name out there,” Matfess said. “Just establishing ourselves as a group on campus that’s willing to work with other groups. I’d love to get some good fundraising in, some good awareness campaigns.
“I also want to establish ourselves as a group on campus that isn’t going to fade away in a semester or two — I want to work on really providing a good infrastructure for the club to continue working.”
Though the group is mainly focusing on establishing themselves, they already have projects planned. They recently completed a “Cookies for a Cause” bake sale and are in the middle of sending out solicitation letters to get items for a raffle.
One of their largest initiatives is to go into Baltimore area schools and give presentations on the awareness of girls’ issues. Matfess said the group has been in contact with the Greater Homewood Community to see what schools would potentially be receptive to the idea. They are also working on completing lesson plans.
“We’re trying to get into Baltimore schools, and I think that will be a great way to spread civic duty and these efforts to younger students,” Last said.
While the Hopkins brand of Girl Up is dedicated to the same things that the UN Foundation’s organization does, Matfess said that does not necessarily mean that they will be donating all the funds they raise to Girl Up.
“In the one fundraiser that we’ve had so far — the ‘Cookies for a Cause’ bake sale — we donated to the Greater Good Foundation with the purpose of sending Afghan girls to school,” Matfess said.
“And I’d like to keep it centralized and focused like that,” Matfess continued, “so that when we donate the money it’s not to a broad, all-encompassing organization that dishes it out in ways that it sees fit.”
Matfess said that the group is taking the direction of donating to very specific causes because of the personal nature of donating to something specific, rather than something general.
“We’re seeking to have very specific donations just so that it feels a lot more personal when you’re asking people to give you some of their very hard-earned money. It’s a lot easier to convince them if you can have a very specific image and then the facts related to it,” Matfess said. “It’s hard to just say 600 million girls in the developing world have issues; we need to help them.”
The group, Matfess said, is open to all sexes. It’s not just a group for girls.
“We’re an ecosystem and ignoring women’s issues because you think that they’re soft or feminine is ultimately going to be detrimental to your own rights and experiences,” she said.
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