Encouraging Student Athletes to Give Back
Skip to Content
United Way of Greater Milwaukee & Waukesha County

Encouraging Student Athletes to Give Back

Main Content

United Way is recognized as a Panthers Pay It Forward honoree during halftime of a UWM basketball game. Photo (left to right): Pounce Panther, Director of Athletics Amanda Braun, Chancellor Mark Mone, Mary Lou Young from United Way, Assistant Vice Chancellor Joan Prince.

September 21, 2016

Amanda Braun is the Director of Athletics at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) and a member of the 2016 United Way Campus Engagement Cabinet. As part of her role at UWM, Amanda helps organize thousands of community service hours and outreach opportunities for student-athletes and staff members of the university each year.

Q. Can you share an example of a service opportunity you planned that you thought was particularly impactful? Do you have any exciting projects planned for this year?

We hosted a “School Day Game” in conjunction with our UWM Women’s Basketball Team. We invited 2,500 Milwaukee Public Schools elementary students from 15 different schools attend. The students participated in fun pre-game activities where they learned more about UWM then enjoyed a women’s basketball game. Our timeout promotions and half-time entertainment were also geared toward giving these students a taste of the college athletics atmosphere! 

This year we are working to create strong partnerships with a number of organizations so that we can create a consistent and sustained connection with the young people participating in each organizations’ activities and programs. Our goal is to provide a more meaningful and personalized experience for both the young people as well as our student athletes. We are working with include Boys & Girls Clubs, Journey House, Junior Achievement, and Operation Dream.

Q. Why did you decide to join the 2016 United Way Campus Engagement Cabinet?

United Way has such a wide-reaching impact on our community because all donations stay within our community and it is so important to the people who benefit from the donations. It is also wonderful to feel part of something much bigger than myself and to work alongside such dedicated and passionate staff and volunteers.

Q. How do you like to give back to our community?

I enjoy volunteering with organizations that care about the impact that education and participation in sports can have on the growth, development and leadership ability of girls and women.

Have something to say? LEAVE A COMMENT:

The following required items were not provided or are in the wrong format. Please provide the required responses and submit again:

Your email address will not be published. All fields Required.

Name: 
  Please enter your name
  Please enter a valid email
Comment: 
  Please enter a comment

United Way of Greater Milwaukee & Waukehsa County blog and social media presence is designed as a source for information, sharing and collaboration about United Way and health and human service related topics. As part of our commitment to our readers, we expect all posters to abide by the following rules:
 • Posts and comments should be on topic, conversational, and serve to educate or entertain  
 • Posts and comments may not be unlawful, fraudulent, threatening, libelous, defamatory, discriminatory, harassing, obscene or otherwise rude or in poor taste  
 • Posts and comments may not be used for any commercial purpose or otherwise to promote any outside organization or its activities
United Way of Greater Milwaukee & Waukesha County reserves the right, at our discretion, to remove any post or to revoke a user’s privilege to post to our page. Comments found to be in conflict with the guidelines above will be removed promptly.
Comments are not necessarily those of United Way of Greater Milwaukee & Waukesha County and its employees and we do not guarantee the accuracy of these posts.