Barbara Chuburko, a 2005 graduate of the AU Social Work program, recently chose to give a generous check to the department on behalf of her place of employment.
Chuburko currently works as a social worker for Hospice of North Central Ohio. The local organization has a “Jeans for Generosity” program in which employees may pay three dollars to wear jeans to work on Friday. Then, the names of the individuals who wore jeans are put into a hat, and a name is drawn from that hat once every quarter. The person whose name is chosen gets to choose a non-profit of his or her choice in Richland or Ashland counties and donate the total collected money.
This is actually the second time that Chuburko has chosen to donate the “Jeans for Generosity” money to the Social Work department. While a student in the program at AU, she herself was married with two children at home, and she remembers the difficulties that some other students had with juggling multiple monetary responsibilities. It could be an especially difficult situation when a student is both attending college and balancing other items such as working hundreds of hours for an unpaid internship.
“I saw students struggle,” said Chuburko.
She said that by giving the money to the Social Work department, she “would be sure they would put it in the right hands.”
Jayne Meyer, the director of marketing and development at Hospice of North Central Ohio, was also present for the donation of the check and offered her opinion on Chuburko’s decision.
“AU supports Hospice a lot…it’s nice to support them back,” she said.
