In the latest episode of "Elon Beyond the Bricks," the current Elon senior and founder of Milk Club joins President Connie Ledoux Book to discuss the value of student organizations, how milk has become a vehicle for community and the creation of events that have brought hundreds of students together.
What’s one way to bring people together?
For Jacob Bradshaw ’27, the answer turned out to be milk.
During his first weeks at Elon, Bradshaw was eating lunch in McEwen Dining Hall with two new friends when they noticed that all three happened to be drinking glasses of milk. They joked about making it a regular gathering. Days later, Bradshaw brought the idea to Elon’s Organization Fair. Armed with little more than a handwritten interest sheet, he collected 68 signatures in two hours.
What began as a spontaneous idea has since become an award-winning student organization whose events have brought hundreds of students together. But as Bradshaw and President Connie Ledoux Book discuss in the latest episode of “Elon Beyond the Bricks,” Milk Club has never really been about the milk.
“The real magic of the Milk Club is that it’s the relationships that form,” Book said during their conversation. “Milk is really just the vehicle for forming the relationship.”
That vehicle has taken many forms, including Spilled Milk Poetry Night, the Cownival and the Milk Soirée, where roughly 300 students dressed formally to listen to live jazz and drink milk — and dairy alternatives — from wine glasses. The organization also collaborated with Student Union Board on Milk Bingo, filling Sato Commons with roughly 500 students. Book remembered the event, too, because she announced a few of the rounds that evening.
Behind the playful names, however, is something Bradshaw and his fellow club leaders have taken seriously: cultivating an inclusive environment that gives students a reason to spend time together.
Bradshaw said the club’s executive board often begins with an activity and asks a simple question: How can they make it milk-related? Those conversations have helped the students create events around a theme almost anyone can join, regardless of whether they prefer whole milk, chocolate milk, oat milk or no milk at all.
That low barrier to participation has helped Milk Club become a place where students can form friendships and shared memories without needing a particular academic, professional or athletic interest to bring them together. It also connects closely with Elon’s broader focus on well-being.
During the episode, Book connected Milk Club with HealthEU, Elon’s university-wide initiative centered on six dimensions of well-being. For Bradshaw, those ideas have shaped more than the organization he founded.
An Isabella Cannon Leadership Fellow studying neuroscience and psychology on a pre-med track, Bradshaw has also served as an Orientation Leader and biology teaching assistant. He said conversations about the dimensions of well-being through Leadership Fellows helped shape how he approaches his different roles at Elon.
“Trying to integrate all of that has been one of the most valuable things that I have been able to take away from my Elon experience,” Bradshaw said.
That intentionality extends into his everyday life. During the episode’s recording, Book noticed a wall behind Bradshaw covered in colorful sticky notes. For roughly a year, he had been writing down one thing each night that made him happy or grateful that day. The practice gives him another reason to stop and reflect on the people and experiences filling his life.
Milk Club operates on a similar principle. Milk may provide the theme, but the reason students return is the opportunity to laugh, participate and spend time with one another.
As Bradshaw begins his senior year, the organization that started around a dining hall table has become part of his Elon legacy, serving as an example of how even the simplest idea can give people the reason they need to come together.