Putting the focus on Kalamazoo volunteers

Tinashe Chaponda was just a boy when his family moved to the United States from Zimbabwe in 2000. He’s 20 now, a sophomore majoring in human resources and minoring in marketing at Western Michigan University, and he has big plans and big dreams. One dream has already been realized, and Chaponda is carefully giving it shape. It’s called FOCUS Kalamazoo.

When Chaponda’s family came to the United States, they lived in Chicago, but then moved to Battle Creek, and then--Kalamazoo. His mother enrolled in Kalamazoo Valley Community College while his father worked. Chaponda and his brother attended Kalamazoo Public Schools. When his mother died unexpectedly he was in 8th grade.

The world split wide open, but Chaponda wasn’t ready to face it. It wasn’t his way. It wasn’t the way of the culture in which his family was rooted. His eyes dry, he kept that part of his broken heart closed even while he opened the other part.

“I got involved with the Derek Jeter group, Jeter’s Leaders,” Chaponda says. “Being a part of Jeter’s Leaders kept me from straying from my ideals during high school. Jeter's Leaders is a youth leadership, social change program named by the captain of the New York Yankees, Derek Jeter. The program is designed to promote healthy lifestyles, academic achievement, and social change activism among high school students. Reflecting on the Jeter’s Leaders program, I’ve realized how much it has changed me.”

Two events in the group made a lasting impression on Chaponda. Along with the group, he traveled to New Orleans, where he saw the suffering of the people there and the destruction of property after Hurricane Katrina. He was moved to reach out and help others when he returned his own community.

The other event that was transformative for Chaponda was a talk the group attended.

“It was the Leadership Conference during the summer of 2013,” says Chaponda. “Hearing The Three Doctors, Drs. George Jenkins, Sampson Davis and Rameck Hunt, had the biggest impact on me. The three grew up together in New Jersey and helped each other through life to achieve their goal of being successful in what they love to do.”

Chaponda returned to Kalamazoo eager to put the lessons of these events into something uniquely his own. Jeter’s Leaders had taught him about the importance of volunteering, but his experience in high school was that volunteering was drudgery.

“In high school volunteering felt more like a job,” he says. “Telling the students what events they are to participate in, making specific events mandatory, and not giving the students a bigger voice. It didn’t work.”

As Chaponda entered college, he decided the right moment had come. FOCUS Kalamazoo was born.

“FOCUS Kalamazoo strives to break the stereotypes surrounding community service,” Chaponda explains. “We are an organization founded by students for students. We provide community service opportunities with varying levels of commitment for any high school and college students looking to have a blast while giving back.”

Chaponda was bringing the fun back. He believed that helping others should feel good. And, he grins, it was also a great way to make new friends during his first year on campus.

“FOCUS Kalamazoo is for the students,” Chaponda says. “It lets us choose the volunteering that we want to do. There is no commitment required to be in FOCUS Kalamazoo, so the students who attend are there by choice. That results in quality and overarching commitment. We want our environment to be full of purpose-driven individuals who treat each other like family.”

The first event for FOCUS Kalamazoo volunteers was the Bronson 5K Walk & Run 2013. Sixteen students volunteered to be a cheering squad for participants. Then there was the Kalamazoo Holiday Parade as well as the Food Drive 2013, the Woodward Garden Expansion with nearly 50 people helping elementary school children create garden beds. Habitat for Humanity has been a repeat event.

“By 2015, we’d participated in more than 30 events, and we’re aiming to increase that this year,” he says. “Within our first year, we contributed more than 500 hours of community service with about 90 volunteers.”

What FOCUS Kalamazoo does, Chaponda explains, is to take the work of organizing volunteers off the hands of nonprofits. Chaponda and his staff of ten (operations and marketing teams) schedule dates, connect volunteers to the nonprofits that need them, attend group meetings, train volunteers, then supervise them at work. Once the work is done, volunteers gather to offer feedback on the experience and discuss self-development skills.

“Finally, we ask our volunteers how we can make their experience better,” Chaponda says. “And we are working with nonprofits on how to build better relationships with their volunteers. We treat our volunteers like royalty.”

To join as a volunteer, FOCUS Kalamazoo provides an application to fill out, but otherwise has no requirement to fulfill other than to show up when signed up. While the usual volunteer is a university student, Chaponda says he has had volunteers as young as 15.

“I would like to make FOCUS Kalamazoo a 501(c)3 nonprofit,” he says. “That’s one goal. But we are also preparing this spring for a Community FOCUS Tank, hosted by an organization called Raising of Kalamazoo. Community FOCUS Tanks are our way of getting community members to get in a room and discuss issues within the community. For this first FOCUS Tank, we will be discussing childhood development and how to help kids succeed in school and issues of poverty. We want everyone to bring their views, experience and resources together to tackle social issues in the community. ”

With all his work to help others, an interesting thing has happened to Tinashe Chaponda. The grief he pushed back at the loss of mother is finding its way back into his awareness. He thinks he may finally be able to address it in his life.

“You can’t really help others without helping yourself,” he says. “That’s why I tell people that if you have only one hour to give, give it to your community. It has a big impact on you as well as your community.”

To learn more about FOCUS Kalamazoo or to get involved, contact Chaponda and his team visit here or call 269-250-0278.

Zinta Aistars is creative director for Z Word, LLC, and hosts a weekly radio show called Between the Lines at WMUK 102.1 FM. She lives on a farm in Hopkins.