In December, Manhattan Prep took part in three separate holiday drives. We collected non-perishable food to be donated to New York’s City Harvest with a goal of collecting a minimum of 100 pounds of food items and/or the estimated equivalent in monetary donations. We also collected children’s toys to be donated to the Marine Toys for Tots Foundation with a  goal of collecting a minimum of 50 new toys to be distributed to needy children in NYC. Finally, we collected warm clothing to be donated to the  New York Cares Coat Drive. We aimed to collect as many new or gently used coats as possible to be distributed to those affected by Hurricane Sandy in Staten Island, the Rockaways and other hard hit areas. After a month of collections, we surpassed the goals for both our food and toy drives in addition to collecting over a dozen coats for those in need. Furthermore, our sister company mbaMission, graciously matched our food donation to City Harvest with an additional $250 donation. Thank you to all of our staff, instructors and students who participated!

Last month, Manhattan Prep created a Penny War Challenge in order to raise money for UNICEF, an organization dedicated to child survival and well being. Staff members and instructors were divided into departmental teams, assigned corresponding team jars and provided the following rules: 1) Pennies count for +1 point, 2) All silver coins and dollars count as negative points based on their face value (example: $1 = -100pts), and 3) The team with the most points wins!

The competition jumped off to a frenzied start with teams strategically putting loose silver change in rival department’s jars. The activity heightened as employees began to bring in their saved pennies from home, slowly growing their team totals. After four weeks of displaying tallied team totals to help spur the competition, we entered the final countdown! Kim Moy, a member of the winning HR/Tech department team exclaimed, It was coming down to the wire with departments neck and neck. The underdogs darted to the finish line, while we battled it out on the penny field! It was a close call, but we all came out winners in the name of charity.

Thanks in part to both our dedicated employees as well as our company’s matching gift program, we raised a grand total of $616.74! Oh, what a difference a little friendly competition can make!

Last month, a few Manhattan Preppers headed to Brooklyn to partake in our second New York Cares Day.  In the spring, New York Cares Day aims to clean up city parks, gardens and public spaces all around the five boroughs. This year, there was a special focus on the city’s waterfront, and volunteers set out to restore 10 miles of coastlines to make the areas more sustainable for plant and animal life and more accessible for city residents.

We were assigned to paint a mural at the Jersey Barriers near Cobble Hill – someone must have heard we have a great artist on our team (shout out to Jon S!). Leading up to the event, the rest of us were crossing our fingers that it would be a paint by numbers mural, and we were definitely relieved to find out that we would be utilizing stencils. After given a brief tutorial on the vision of the mural, we set out to paint the barriers to resemble a lush forest landscape.  It was awesome to work beside other great companies, such as ZocDoc, who also sent out a team of volunteers. There were even a few passers-by, out on their morning run, who stopped to help with the community project! By the end of the day, we had made a few new friends and also left our artistic touch on a part of Brooklyn.

New York Cares Day has become one of our favorite volunteering activities in the office, and we are looking forward to another New York Cares Day this fall! For more information on New York Cares, you can visit their website at newyorkcares.org.

I love teaching, but I also love to travel. In 2009, I took a year off to travel around the world. And the thought that kept returning was, What would have been different in my life if I’d done this ten years ago? So Loop Abroad was born.

Loop is a high school travel program that brings students to Southeast Asia. Amidst traveling and volunteering, we connect students to with NGOs and other inspirational leaders who are passionate about what they do.

Two organizations we love are the Elephant Nature Foundation (ENF) and the Save Children in Asia Foundation (SCAO). The ENF is working to rescue and rehabilitate Asian elephants who have been abused in the logging and trekking industries. The Elephant Nature Park in Thailand is now home to almost 40 of these gentle giants. This year, the ENF has been granted a portion of a record-breaking one-million-acre wildlife preserve in Cambodia upon which elephants will be able to interact as if in the wild. This is a huge and exciting step toward replenishing the Asian elephant population. And because elephants require so much continuous land to thrive, replenishing their habitat means saving the habitats of thousands of other species and, in the process, preserving an entire ecosystem.

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On February 3rd, the team at Manhattan Prep joined together and wore red for the National Wear Red Day. This annual event is sponsored by the American Heart Association. Additionally, Manhattan Prep held its first Give A Heart drive. Throughout the month of February, Instructors and staff donated money towards the purchase of paper hearts. All funds were donated to the America Heart Association.

Manhattan Prep is a proud supporter of heart health, in addition to overall wellness. The company promotes an active and healthy life-style, encouraging employees to participate in company exercise initiatives and organizing healthy lunch programs each month. We are proud to support such a wonderful cause. Thanks to all that were involved!

We are excited to announce that we are now accepting applications for our Winter 2012 Social Venture Scholars (SVS) program. For those unfamiliar with the program, it was launched in 2007 with the goal of making GMAT prep more accessible to MBA-hopefuls working in the non-profit sector. The very first SVS class was taught by our founder, Zeke Vanderhoek. Over the past 5 years we have run 6 SVS programs and helped dozens of deserving individuals get a step closer to business school. Past SVS students have gone on to gain admission to competitive business schools (such as Columbia and Duke), and have used their degrees to advance and found organizations dedicated to positive social change.

Recipients of our SVS scholarship receive free enrollment into a dedicated Live Online GMAT prep course (a $1090 value). Up to 25 scholarships will be awarded to applicants who (1) currently work full-time in an organization that promotes positive social change, (2) plan to use their MBA to work in a public, not-for-profit, or other venture with a social-change oriented mission, and (3) demonstrate clear financial need. This year’s SVS course will begin on Monday, February 20th.

For complete details and application requirements, visit our Social Venture Scholars page. Applications for the Winter 2012 program are due on February 1st. Good luck!

This December, the team at Manhattan Prep ran its first holiday season food & toy drive. Manhattan Prep staff, Instructors and students at our New York City headquarters contributed games, stuffed animals, food items, and spare change to the efforts. In just over two weeks, we collected over 100 items of food, donated to City Harvest, and over 40 toys for Toys for Tots.

The United States Marines’ Toys for Tots program collects toys between October and December every year for children who otherwise wouldn’t have any gifts to open during the holidays. City Harvest, a New York-based nonprofit, collects food year-round to support its many community programs aimed at feeding New York City’s hungry. We’re thrilled to be supporting such worthy organizations. Thanks to all who contributed!

On Saturday, November 12, 2011, the Gilda’s Club New York City Associate Board, a volunteer board of young professionals supported by Manhattan Prep staff member Jessica Trujillo, hosted a day of lectures and workshops geared towards health and wellness at the Manhattan Prep headquarters. These lectures and workshops, free to all GCNYC members, promoted techniques for healthy living and included activities for the whole family. The Health and Wellness Day incorporated everything from meditation sessions, nutrition lectures, hair and beauty makeovers and family portraits. Gilda’s Club New York City creates welcoming communities of free support for everyone living with cancer “ men, women, teens and children “ along with their families and friends.

The following is written by Manhattan Prep College Marketing Associate Kristen Pittard.

New York Cares Day is a day dedicated to service for in-need elementary schools around the five boroughs, where people volunteer their time to renovate schools by painting, restoring playgrounds, organizing libraries, planting flowers, etc.

Last month, a group of Manhattan Preppers made their way to PS 137k, a school that has served the Brooklyn community for over 100 years, to participate in the rejuvenation of the interior by focusing on repainting the main hallway. With rollers and paint brushes in hand and a mint green color picked by the school principal, we were ready to go. After nearly 7 hours of painting, we had transformed an intense red and yellow hallway, into a calming mint green one, just in time for the students to arrive back to school the following Monday. Though we might be better at Data Sufficiency and Reading Comprehension than painting, it was a great experience for our staff to get together on a weekend to give back to the community.

New York Cares Day was a perfect fit for Manhattan Prep due to our core belief in helping students reach their educational goals – and who better to help than the children of New York? If you would like to get involved with any future New York Cares’ projects, they have thousands of projects listed on their website, which range from children’s education to working with the elderly of New York.

A while ago we wrote about the Manhattan GMAT Grant program. We are now pleased to announce that we have awarded 2010 Non-Profit Staff Grants to two incredibly worthy organizations.

The first is The Equity Project (TEP) Charter School in Washington Heights (established by Manhattan GMAT founder Zeke Vanderhoek). A number of MGMAT employees had the pleasure of visiting the school during its first year of operation and seeing the impressive progress already made in its 5th grade classrooms.

The second organization receiving a 2010 grant is Coro, an organization that prepares high school students, young and mid-career professionals, and individuals working with immigrant communities to become active civic leaders in their city. The MGMAT team had the chance to attend the 2010 Coro Civic Leadership Awards in New York this year and learn about the wonderful work being done by the Coro Fellows, Youth Ambassadors, and recent program alums.

Both TEP and Coro will receive $5,000 grants from Manhattan GMAT this year. We are thrilled to be supporting two such worthy institutions, and look forward to seeing more great things from them in the coming year!