The Mentorship Access Guidance in College program held a fundraiser called Defying Gravity: A Night of Inspiration and Giving Friday night in McKenny Hall.
MAGIC provides Eastern Michigan University students who have experienced foster care or homelessness with financial and emotional support. Each student is matched with a mentor and sets up a plan for earning his or her degree.
Megan DeVoe, a MAGIC graduate assistant, said students who come from a background of foster care or homelessness need the support MAGIC offers because they don’t have it elsewhere.
“Generally speaking, as someone who was in foster care themselves, you don’t have the same supportive relationships that your counterpart traditional student might,” DeVoe said.
The program was awarded a three-year grant in November 2012, which was extended this year until October 2016.
Reco Spencer, the guest speaker, spoke to the 40 audience members about his 18 years in foster care. He said when he was in high school, it wasn’t expected that he would go to college.
He now has an associate’s degree in Criminal Justice, a bachelor’s degree in business management and marketing and a master’s degree in leadership with a concentration in sports leadership.
Spencer said the greatest thing you can do in life is “lovingly forgive.”
Four students in the MAGIC program shared their personal stories with housing instability, the challenges they’ve faced in higher education, and how their financial situation is different from that of other students.
“MAGIC has provided me with life skills to live another life after college,” said junior Zollie Cole.
Jim McEvilly, life skills coach with the Fostering and Academic Successful Transition Program at Saginaw Valley State University, a sister program to MAGIC, said he thinks EMU’s program is fantastic.
“This is actually one of the first events like this I’ve been [to] for our program,” McEvilly said. “I think it’s very exciting and a wonderful turnout from the community. Especially since these programs, since they are in the university, they aren’t as visible to the wider community.”
Maddy Day, director of outreach and training at the Center for Fostering Success at Western Michigan University, said the event gives the students in the program a chance to see all the people in the community that support them.
“I think [MAGIC] really elevated the student voice that they have available in their program and this created a great amount of amount of awareness for the community,” Day said.
Hope Pierson, a senior majoring in social work, said the program gives students the tools they need to live on their own.
“MAGIC has helped me on so many levels as far as support, introducing me to a lot of resources that we have here on campus, financially, and also teaching me how to be a self advocate,” Pierson said.
For more information on MAGIC and its programs, emailemu_magic@emich.eduor call 734-487-0899.
