Y Student Organizations

Save the Children Action Network (SCAN) mission is to spread awareness and advocate in support of issues affecting kids. SCAN-UIUC aims to build bipartisan will and voter support to make sure every child in the U.S. has access to high-quality early learning and that children in conflict-affected areas are protected. The policy priorities of this organization are to expand access to high-quality early learning programs domestically and to protect children in conflict.

Students for Environmental Concerns seeks to educate students and the community on environmental issues and work toward positive environmental change on local to global scales, including advocating for people of color and acknowledging of their disproportionate environmental burden.

Our goals are to:

• Create an inclusive sustainable community on campus
• Work to engage with the stability, integrity, and beauty of the natural world
• Promote and participate in the sustainable food revolution
• Pursue clean energy on and off campus, including holding the university accountable in their participation in the climate crisis
• Advocate for environmental justice and communities of color

In 2025, SECS absorbed the Y-Affiliated organization, Grow2Give. Grow2Give is empowering communities through fresh food access and education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign through building, maintaining, planting, harvesting, and donating fresh produce from garden beds, hosting environmental education programming such as workshops, guest speaker series, and hands-on volunteer opportunities to expand community knowledge of sustainable fresh produce gardening.