Today we are profiling one of our distinguished alumni award recipients, Ben Schumaker, MSW ‘06.
Ben received the distinguished alumni award in 2018 after he founded The Memory Project, an incredibly successful non-profit dedicated to promoting intercultural understanding and kindness among children around the world through school-based art and writing programs. Since 2004, 320,000 youth in 57 countries have been involved in their school-based programs.
From the Memory Project Website:
“The Memory Project gets its name from its first intention, which was to provide handmade, heartfelt portraits as special memories to children in orphanages. Now, our intention has expanded to touching the lives of youth around the world facing many types of challenges, while opening our hearts and minds so they can touch ours in return.”
Ben’s piece of advice to current social work students is:
“You’ve chosen a profession that is based in kindness and compassion, and that means you must treat yourself with kindness and compassion as well.”