Among the countless advantages of living in the Brazos Valley, near the top is our access to the talent and dedication of Aggie students, many of whom volunteer with local charities like OnRamp. These students take seriously the sixth and final item in Texas A&M’s core values statement: Selfless Service, giving of oneself for the greater good, without personal gain or recognition. For the dozens of students that worked with us this school year, we can testify that this value of service is not a marketing gimmick or a way to pad a resume, it is a way of life. These students sacrificed substantial time and energy to support and even grow the work of OnRamp in meaningful ways that will bear fruit long after they graduate. Here is an overview of the phenomenal work TAMU students did for OnRamp just this year.

JigSaw 'Em Off

As part of the Business Masters program BUAD 720 Integrated Business Experience class, student groups choose a charity to benefit from a real business they create. This fall, Lily Crawford, Logan Kettle, Steve Olson, Emily Robertson, and Ian Sexton chose OnRamp to benefit from their startup, JigSaw 'Em Off, which sold exclusive TAMU-inspired Benjamin Knox print puzzles. These students spent countless hours developing a business plan, finding a puzzle supplier, licensing the artwork, marketing and selling the puzzles, and then donated all the proceeds to us. They even included OnRamp publicity with every sale to raise greater awareness of our work. This spring, the same group chose OnRamp as their research project for their end-of-degree Integrated Consulting Experience report, and were joined by a second group including Sydney Hunt, Daniel Morrison, Kevin Champagne, and Sean Atun. Their research illuminated multiple areas for improvement at OnRamp including student recruitment, website design, and community engagement. We’ll be implementing many of these findings in the next few months!

180 Degrees Consulting

To hone their consulting skills, students from business, engineering, and economics volunteer in 180 Degrees Consulting student groups to provide high level research and consulting to local charities pro bono. To be honest, I did not expect in-depth work since these students were not receiving pay or class credit for their efforts. I was so wrong! Under the seasoned leadership of Olivia Lopes and Aaron Wang, student researchers Stephen Labuda, Payas Joshi, Avi Bhongir, and Karthik Chitta absolutely blew us away with extensive study, detailed analysis, cogent recommendations, and a viable implementation plan for OnRamp’s expansion efforts as we seek to go national. I am not exaggerating when I say that we will be utilizing their Final Report and Implementation Plan for years to come! I still can’t believe they did all that work for free. And they even connected us with two newer 180 volunteers, Drithi Panyam and Joachim Mampilli who are interning with us this summer.

*180 Consulting students presenting their final report and implementation plan to OnRamp board and staff*

The Strategic Philanthropy Class

Once again, the amazing students of Kyle Gammenthaler’s Business 432 class invited OnRamp to apply for a Strategic Philanthropy grant. After reading through numerous applications and interviews, followed by hours of class discussion weighing the merits of each proposal, they chose OnRamp to receive $20,000! We are so honored by their generosity and trust in our mission. Many former Strat Phil students end up becoming long-term supporters and advocates for OnRamp in whatever cities they move to, meaning that the benefits from this class linger long after the grant money is spent.

*Strategic Philanthropy class presenting OnRamp with a grant of $20,000!*

OnRamp Interns

Finally, we are so grateful to have students intern with OnRamp every year. They freely volunteer their time and skill to our cause, serving in a variety of specialties. This year, we were blessed to have Sarah Cotter serve as our Marketing intern, Jaxon Rutherford serving as our Campus Liaison, and Luke Bowman serving as our Data Analysis intern where he created a system to track and analyze every repair on every car OnRamp has ever touched!