Feeling a sense of connection to one’s surroundings is meaningful, and in the wake of the pandemic, community has never seemed so important. That sentiment resonates deeply with McGill’s annual fund donors, who contributed generously to faculty funds, student initiatives, community service programs and clubs that prioritize outreach to communities, near and far. Through various mechanisms – including grassroots projects featured on the McGill Crowdfunding platform – donors have demonstrated that every dollar counts when it comes to building stronger communities.
McGill Community for Lifelong Learning
Since 1989, the McGill Community for Lifelong Learning (MCLL), part of the School of Continuing Studies, has promoted accessible and flexible learning for seniors. MCLL participants cherish the educational and social stimulation gleaned from taking classes and attending social gatherings. In fact, many MCLL learners depend on this community as a source of interaction with others: nearly 46% of the more than 1,000 members live alone.
When the pandemic struck, the in-person gatherings at the heart of the MCLL experience were cancelled. The increased isolation created a sense of urgency to bring the community into the homes of seniors. The response of MCLL’s leadership – all volunteers – was first to shift its programming to exclusively virtual offerings, then to figure out how to deliver these activities to seniors, many of whom were not versed in technology, did not own a video camera, or had never used Zoom.
Donors were integral to helping MCLL support its members so they could remain intellectually and socially stimulated in safe ways. “We knew our members would be particularly vulnerable to isolation, and a fair number of them didn’t have the resources or the know-how to participate in online activities,” says Lorne Huston, President of MCLL at the time and current Chair of the Community Outreach Committee. “It was critical that we address this need immediately and engage the larger community in helping us.”
Contributions large and small allowed MCLL to suspend registration fees for one semester as a way of encouraging members to give the online experience a try. “If we hadn’t been able to offer free registration during that crucial Spring 2020 semester,” notes Huston, “the MCLL community would not have been able to bounce back like it did.” Gifts from donors also made it possible to host online discussion groups and virtual social gatherings, and to offer good old fashioned telephone support – all important avenues for seniors to stay engaged.
MCLL now offers a hybrid model of programming, allowing members to decide whether to learn from home or to engage in-person in the program’s campus classrooms, which can accommodate hybrid learning thanks to donor support. MCLL has also placed more emphasis on digital literacy for seniors, including the donor-funded Senior Digital Literacy Campaign, which provides confidence-boosting training for remote communication tools. Whichever way they choose to connect, the result is the same: learners and friends have rediscovered their community.
Shaping service-minded practitioners and leaders
For more than 20 years, the Service to the Community program in the Faculty of Dental Medicine and Oral Health Sciences has provided essential dental services to underserved communities in Montreal, as well as a critical hands-on learning experience for students. Funded almost entirely by donors, the program offers free and reduced-cost oral health care through community clinics in and around the city and gives students the opportunity to engage with professionals, alumni volunteers, instructors and, most importantly, neighbours in need.
“Our Service to the Community program mutually benefits our community members, our students, our faculty, and our University,” says Dr. Frances Power, Director of Community-Based Dentistry and Dental Public Health. “Thanks to donors, this program is able to provide our future dental practitioners with an educational and clinical experience that teaches them valuable skills, social empathy, and the importance of community service.”
The generosity of donors has enabled the program to operate several clinics in and around Montreal. These include the Jim Lund Clinic, which provides services to individuals without dental insurance such as the unemployed or unhoused; the Mobile Dental Clinic, which offers care through community organizations; the Oral Health Clinic for the Neurodivergent Community, which offers specialized care to adults with neurodiverse conditions such as autism; and two pediatric clinics, one of which serves immigrant and refugee children.
Many of the program’s contributors have shown their support by giving directly to initiatives created by current students. From Sweating for a Healthy Smile to Dentistry Class of 2024-2025 Gives Back, outreach projects featured on McGill Crowdfunding allow Dental Medicine students to advocate for their patients and for valuable educational experiences.
The Library weaves a tightly knit community
Gifts to the Library support resources used every day by students and faculty alike. From expanding the Library’s collections to creating greater access to digital resources, donor funds facilitate a wide range of services that enhance learning and scholarship. They also help make the Library more than just bookshelves and databases; they transform it into a community space through events like “Knitting in Code”.
The brainchild of historian and knitter Kristen Howard, “Knitting in Code” was spearheaded by the Library’s rare collection departments, known as Rare & Special Collections, Osler, Art, and Archives (ROAAr). The event is part of an ongoing series of programming featuring equally interesting topics (think “Victorian Sensation Novels and the News” and “Magnifying the Royce Gale Miniature Book Collection”). “Knitting in Code” took place in conjunction with the seventh edition of McGill24, the University’s annual day of giving, which was once again a tremendous show of collective support for students and researchers across McGill.
“‘Knitting in Code’ is a great example of fascinating and creative scholarship,” says Jacquelyn Sundberg, Outreach & Special Projects Coordinator at ROAAr, who co-organized the event. “Inspired by items in the ROAAr collections, Kristen designed a talk that explored the role of knitting in wartime to disguise or amplify messages.”
Besides carving out a space for creative reflection and dialogue that united a virtual community of library lovers, historians, knitters, and scholars, the event came with a goody bag. “The added layer of interest is that Kristen created something entirely new out of the old: an illusion knitting pattern inspired by the ROAAr collections,” notes Sundberg. The pattern is available for free online and can be accessed by knitters worldwide. Hundreds of knitters around the world have viewed and downloaded Howard’s pattern, as well as another she created for a similar presentation sponsored by the Library in 2021: a cowl inspired by medieval illuminated manuscripts available in the ROAAr collections.
Annual gifts through The McGill Fund are a critical source of unrestricted funding for the University, supporting scholarships, wellness initiatives, emerging priorities and much more. In fiscal year 2021 these contributions accounted for $12.7 million – $2.1 million in gifts of $250 or less – on the strength of 23,000 donors.