To those on campus with “meal plan A” — a required plan for freshmen with unlimited Dobbs University Center (DUC) swipes and 150 pre-loaded Dooley Dollars — having leftover Dooley Dollars at the end of the year might be a foreign concept. However, as students advance through the years, some opt to load their worn Emory ID cards with more of the ever-so-valuable Dooley Dollars, a campus-wide currency that students can load in set amounts on their Emory IDs to purchase food and other items at a discounted rate around campus.
Crissy Hendrickson (16OX, 18C) and Caroline Abbott (16OX, 18C) found a way to repurpose leftover Dooley Dollars at the end of the spring semester by providing a selection of donatable food that students can purchase and subsequently donate at the end of the school year. After they implemented the program at Oxford College in 2015, they’ve now set their sights on Emory’s Atlanta campus.
“What happens whenever the year ends? What happens to all those extra dollars?” Hendrickson asked.
Positive Dooley Dollar balances roll over to the spring semester, but when the academic year ends in May, the remaining dollars are removed from the account and students cannot be refunded. According to Hendrickson, that’s because Bon Appetit is compensated upfront and it is up to the student to use all of their allotted Dooley Dollars.
In reaction to her discovery of the impossibility of financial reimbursement, then-freshman Hendrickson created a program at Oxford that provided the opportunity for students to donate their end-of-semester Dooley Dollars by buying food to donate to a food bank with Dooley Dollars.
Hendrickson and Abbott contacted Director of Auxiliary Operations at Oxford College Margaret Dugan, who set them up with Sodexo’s General Manager (the food vendor at the time) Lynn Tucker. Hendrickson and Abbott held multiple meetings with Tucker to work out the details, later contacting Assistant Director of Student Development and supervisor of the students running Volunteer Oxford Kasey Robinson Harvill. After the food vendors changed from Sodexo to Bon Appetit, the pair worked with the new Executive Director J. Paul Keiser and Head Chef Duke Walsh.
“The system we worked out with dining will have a shelf with donation items, and a student can go and grab whatever items they want, check it out, pay the Dooley Dollars and put it in the donation bin,” Abbott said. “The process was designed with the meal plan and students in mind, making it an efficient, painless and simple process.”
Abbott commented on the difficulties of getting the program up and running. The extensive list of components Hendrickson and Abbott coordinated was daunting, including the challenges of advertising, transporting the donated food and coordinating with the dining staff and food bank. Abbott, however, said making a program to unite a community and create a positive influence was worth the efforts.
At Atlanta campus, the shelf will be located at the Eagle Convenience Store on the bottom floor of the DUC at the end of this academic year.
The student buying the food will have the option to place the items in a bin to either The Atlanta Community Food Bank, the largest food bank in the city, or Bread Coffeehouse, an organization designed to help with food insecurities and act as a refuge on campus. Abbott said that the option to donate to two organizations is meant to entice students, and to help them pay forward to the specific cause they are passionate about.
In the first year, 2015, on a campus of about 900 students, the “Dooley Dollars Donation Project” brought in around $1,090. The second year, 2016, the program raised about $700 according to Abbott and Hendrickson.
Raquel Solla (17OX, 19C) said the program has a strong presence on the Oxford campus.
“It was very well publicized [via Facebook] … people were kind of enthusiastic about it,” Solla said.
The pair said that they have high hopes for the program at the Atlanta campus. Abbott said that the increased campus size promises more donations, with nearly seven times more students than Oxford.
Ruipeng Liu (17B) was receptive to the idea of the program coming to Emory, confessing that having extra Dooley Dollars on his account is a problem he will likely face in the upcoming weeks as the semester comes to an end and he prepares to graduate.
“[The donation system] applies exactly to people like me,” Liu said. “I think it’s a great idea … It’s not asking too much.”
Cecily Spindel (18C) said that last year she used her extra Dooley Dollars at Emory to purchase snacks, but that the snacks she bought might have had a better use in a charity donation bin, instead of in her room.
Abbott and Hendrickson hope to make the program permanent at Emory in upcoming years, as they did at Oxford and ease the integration of the program into campus life by merging it with an existing club, making it potentially more stable.
“It’s merged with [Volunteer Oxford], so we’re hoping to get it to the same point here,” Hendrickson said.
The pair is unsure which organization will be merged with the program, but Hendrickson said they are open to suggestions.
Liu said that despite the need for the program, he had some doubts about the willingness of students to donate, and how offering a small “thank you” prize may reap major benefits.
“If [the students] don’t get rewarded [the program] it might not persist,” Liu said.
Abbott and Hendrickson have been working directly with executive members of the Oxford Campus dining team to create flyers to promote the club. They believe that with the increased size of target audience, and the right amount of publicity, the program may continue successfully. Hendrickson and Abbott maintained their initial philosophy of enacting change where they can, in this case, to help fill the stomachs of those not fortunate enough to be able to fill themselves.
“It’s the little things we do that make a big difference,” Hendrickson said.
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