Learning That Matters

June 15, 2026

Learning That Matters

How SVSU Students Are Gaining Real-World Experience and Improving Their Communities

For many college students, coursework lives in the classroom. At Saginaw Valley State University, programs like SVSU Cardinal Solutions are changing that equation.

The difference is practice. Students don't spend the semester learning about client relations in the abstract - they serve actual clients, navigate real feedback, and deliver work with genuine stakes. In some cases, that work has helped drive multimillion-dollar community initiatives.

One recent project with the Hunger Solution Center illustrates exactly how powerful that kind of learning can be.

A Classroom Without Walls

When Jim Dwyer, an SVSU retiree and longtime advocate for experiential learning, stepped in to lead the fundraising effort for the Hunger Solution Center (HSC), he quickly realized the scale of the challenge ahead.

With a mission to combat food insecurity in the Great Lakes Bay Region, the Hunger Solution Center grew from a collaboration between two organizations in downtown Saginaw: the East Side Soup Kitchen and Hidden Harvest, a food rescue and redistribution organization, both located in downtown Saginaw. After 20 years in operation, HSC had outgrown its facility, a direct result of surging demand for food assistance -a four-fold increase since 2004.

To meet the need, the organization launched an ambitious capital campaign with an $8.7 million goal to fund the addition of modern facilities and expansion of the existing infrastructure. The vision was clear. The framework to execute it was not.
"We had a committee. I'm the chair," Dwyer recalled. "We had no project manager, we had no website, we had no logo, we had no strategies."

The organization needed more than funding. It needed a clear story, a recognizable identity and a strategic way to communicate its mission to donors and the broader community. For Dwyer, the solution was also an opportunity - one that aligned perfectly with SVSU's hands-on approach to education.

Students Step Into the Role of Professionals

Dwyer reached out to J. Blake Johnson, SVSU professor of art and director of Cardinal Solutions. In this unique program, SVSU students and faculty from various disciplines work directly with businesses and organizations to develop marketing solutions. The work students do through Cardinal Solutions transcends the typical classroom assignment, with students providing real services to actual clients. Cardinal Solutions operates under university contracts administered through SVSU Sponsored Programs, and the student consultants are compensated with scholarships funded by their clients.

For the HSC project, Johnson assembled a team from across disciplines - design, writing, photography, strategy - with each student stepping into a defined professional role.

Working across those specializations required students to do what professionals do: communicate across areas of expertise, advocate for their decisions, and hold each other accountable to shared deadlines and client expectations.
Students took professional responsibility for all aspects of the project. They met with clients, navigated feedback, managed timelines and delivered work that would ultimately be seen by major donors and community leaders.

Turning Learning Into Impact

In 2024, 11 SVSU students from across disciplines got to work on the HSC fundraising campaign, a multipronged initiative that involved brand development, fundraising appeal messaging, video production, website development, social media presence and more.

The first task was developing a cohesive brand identity that unified two separate nonprofits under a single campaign message and logo. Then the students went deeper, creating a variety of communication elements. They built a website, produced campaign videos, crafted donor messaging and created the social media presence the campaign needed to gain traction with major donors and the broader community.

Every deliverable required students to think beyond theory. They had to ask: Who is the audience? What motivates a donor? How do we communicate urgency and impact? How do we design something that a non-technical client can actually use?
For students like Karsyn Kasper, a 2025 graphic design graduate from Freeland, success meant becoming client-focused.

Kasper applied her understanding of the client's goals, objectives and audience to her web design skills. She built a modern and visually appealing website that was also intentionally built, so the Hunger Solution Center team could manage it independently moving forward.
SVSU graphic design student Lily Larsen, of Saginaw, it meant uniting multiple organizational identities into one cohesive visual story as she designed the project's logo and brand
Rather than doing low-stakes practice work in the classroom, these students were undertaking high-stakes, real-world work that mattered.

Experience You Can't Replicate in a Classroom

Cardinal Solutions projects like this offer something traditional coursework often can't: unpredictability. Clients change direction. Constraints emerge. Timelines shift. The soft skills that develop through that friction - professional communication, collaborative problem-solving, accountability to people outside the classroom - are exactly what employers consistently say they find missing in new graduates.

Students in Cardinal Solutions projects learn those skills in real time, and they see the direct results of their efforts because there's no grade to soften the feedback. For the students involved in the HSC project, the campaign wasn't an exercise - it was real work for a real organization needing real help, on a real deadline.. And the stakes were high: Their work would be central to the campaign's outreach - used in donor presentations, shared across the community and instrumental in building momentum toward the goal.

"Cardinal Solutions taught me to adapt, communicate and think critically under real pressure," said Caylee Schneider, a 2026 professional and technical writing graduate from Saginaw.

For Larsen, the logo designer, the team structure was eye-opening. "Working with interdisciplinary teammates helped me understand collaboration in the professional world," she said.

As with any professional project, client satisfaction is paramount. And Dwyer, the volunteer who stepped up to lead this significant fundraising initiative, was a happy client.

"I don't know how I would have survived without them," he said.
Building Careers While Building Community

By the time the project neared completion, many of the students involved had graduated and entered the workforce.

These students graduated with something most job candidates can't claim: They had shaped a real capital campaign, collaborated across disciplines and contributed to a project that raised nearly $9 million to benefit the Great Lakes Bay Region. That portfolio entry doesn't come from coursework. It reflects a broader mission at SVSU - preparing students not just to complete a degree, but to enter their fields ready to contribute from day one.

A Model for Meaningful Learning

The partnership between Cardinal Solutions and the Hunger Solution Center is more than a success story; it's a model.

It shows what's possible when education moves beyond theory and into practice, when students are trusted with responsibility, when university talent is connected with community needs.

"It showcases how SVSU students can lead and manage high-stakes, regionwide efforts with real-world consequences," said Johnson.

The Hunger Solution Center fundraising campaign has raised more than $8.5 million - a total recognized with the 2026 Saginaw Future Economic Excellence Award, presented to the Hunger Solution Center Capital Campaign Committee. The student deliverables were part of what made that possible.

Their work lives up to the motto of SVSU Cardinal Solutions: "From idea to finished project, your success is our goal."

At SVSU, that's not a tagline. Helping the Hunger Solution Center create a successful fundraising campaign is how 11 students spent a semester - and what they helped create is feeding families.

SVSU students involved in the project were:

• Adrian Sanchez, a graphic design major from Holland, served as a videographer.
• Lily Larsen, a graphic design major from Saginaw, served as a logo and brand designer.
• Sarah Fairchild, a professional and technical writing major from Frankenmuth, served as a social media writer.
• Lita P. Weekley, a professional and technical writing major from Mason, served as a web writer.
• Karsyn Kasper, a graphic design major from Freeland, served as a web designer.
• Kylie R. Clark, a graphic design major from O'Fallon, served as a social media designer.
• Caylee Schneider, a professional and technical writing major from Saginaw, served as a social media and print technical writer.
• Mandy S. Brown, a fine arts major from Standish, served as a photographer (one-day shoot).
• Alex K. Lorenz, a fine arts major from Midland, served as a photographer (two-day shoot).
• Nicholas J. Baumgarten, a graphic design major from Saginaw, served as a project manager.
• Amber Schuler-Torimoto, a music education major from Reese, served as a photographer (one-day shoot).