MSU Law Student Leads Nonprofit Supporting Michigan Communities 

In March 2020, while quarantined and recovering from COVID-19 in the basement of his parents’ house, Jousef Shkoukani, ’21, crafted a plan to help his fellow Michiganders to cope with the crisis. With a passion for service and past experiences in the nonprofit sector, Shkoukani rallied a group of his fellow Oakland University grads and friends to found Unified Under Hope.

Through understanding his own experience navigating the pandemic and observing the stark differences in those of other families in minority and low-income Michigan communities, Shkoukani and his team have sought various ways to provide support. Their first project benefited the Flint Hurley Medical Center, for which they collected and donated more than 3,000 masks. They’ve since worked with Enjoy Detroit, Wayne County Healthy Communities, and, most recently, the Washtenaw Refugee Welcome.

In the last weekend of February, after crowdfunding initiatives helped them to raise $2,000, Unified Under Hope distributed five trucks worth of essential goods to 35+ refugee families. “We purchased basic household necessity items. Items that are easily overlooked but so critically important – deodorant, dish soap, laundry detergent, female hygiene products – items that a family might be struggling to purchase but isn’t going to ask somebody for that sort of help,” Shkoukani explained. “That’s what we did, just to get them through. It’s not going to change their world, but it is going to hopefully make their day, their week, and their month a little more feasible.”

Since its inception, Unified Under Hope has raised a total of $20,000 in donations to support local communities. The organization’s progress and its increasing impact have been rewarding for Shkoukani to watch grow over the last year. “Every single donation and event has snowballed and gotten bigger and bigger,” he said. “I think that’s what is most exciting because Unified Under Hope’s vision is to create a more equitable Michigan and it might be incremental, marginal steps, but together, collectively, and throughout these donations, we’ve been able to really see it – on a small scale, but a scale nonetheless.”

Shkoukani elaborated on the meaning behind the name Unified Under Hope, acknowledging that during turbulent times, like those of the last year, when there is so much fear and anxiety, we must remain unified and allow hope to lead and comfort us. 

Michigan has always been home for Shkoukani and giving back is “incredible and humbling,” he said. Shkoukani will graduate from MSU College of Law in May and is set to take the Missouri bar exam ahead of joining Shook, Hardy, and Bacon’s corporate litigation practice in Kansas City. While his career will soon take him out of Michigan, Shkoukani knows that Unified Under Hope will continue to thrive, and perhaps grow to reach beyond the Great Lakes State.   

“It all starts with that hope,” he said. “If that hope is there, then really the possibilities are endless.”