How a student organization became a non-profit.
Even the smallest drop can create the biggest wave.
That’s the mission behind the Make a Wave Foundation, a non-profit organization based out of New Jersey and Philadelphia that collects new and gently used clothing, sports equipment, books and toys for children of all ages in foster care. Founded by Alisa Verratti ’18, the creation of Make a Wave originated from a childhood dream.
“I wanted to be a social worker when I was younger, but didn’t think I could handle how emotionally draining the work can be,” Verratti said. “Instead, my mom told me that maybe when I was older and had money of my own, I could find an organization to donate to, or maybe when I got to college there would be a club to be involved in.”
Verratti soon found there wasn’t a club at St. Joe’s which directly related to her mission. Instead of waiting for someone else to take charge, in February 2016 of her sophomore year she created the Make a Wave club on campus.
The organization went through a few name changes before treasurer Alexa Stabile ’18 finally found one that described their mission perfectly.
“I always thought of a wave as a continuous thing, that it never stops. That’s what we wanted our organization to represent, because we want to keep going as help as many people as possible and not stop,” Stabile said.
In the beginning stages, Make a Wave started small, collecting as many donations as possible from the immediate Philadelphia area before packing them into bins and delivering them to social workers in local foster care centers to give to the children.
The first center the club worked closely with was Wordsworth 10, now known as Turning Points for Children, located in southeastern Philadelphia.
“We were able to buy duffel bags because one of the projects Turning Points does is called ‘Care Kits,’ ” Verratti said. “When children are taken out of their homes and put into foster care, a lot of the times they’re not able to take any of their stuff [with them]. So they [Turning Points] try to give every kid one of these Care Kit duffel bags filled with clothes, toiletries, a book, and a toy in hopes they feel they have something of their own when they finally enter the system.”
It wasn’t long after the first donations were given when Verratti knew she wanted to expand Make a Wave to include a larger audience and help even more children outside of the immediate area. In order to accomplish this goal, a bank account was needed to accept the monetary donations they were receiving.
This eventually led to the once small St. Joe’s based club becoming a legal non-profit organization in March of 2017, after a law firm, Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP, worked with the foundation pro-bono, which allowed Make a Wave to expand their future goals, both on the St. Joe’s campus and with foster care centers.
“In the beginning of the school year we talked about in the spring doing a 5K, since we feel that would be a huge event that a lot of people on campus would hear about and actually see,” said Julia DiMarino ’18, the organization’s secretary. “Another thing we were looking into is making a campaign video for Facebook so it could circulate our mission and reach surrounding areas like Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, DC, and Delaware.”
However, Verratti’s overall goal is to one day be able to restore or build new recreation centers or parks in inner city areas so foster children have a safe place to turn, instead of potentially falling on destructive outlets such as violence and drug use.
“I had always wanted to help children in foster care because I feel like sometimes the system, as much as it tries to help them, can also neglect them,” Verratti said. “And a lot of times in inner city areas, which are the main foster systems we try and help, the children aren’t really given the opportunities they should be [given], and our goal is to try and help give them that.”
