BUCS Association and the birth of Exam-AID In September 2004, the founder of Students Offering Support, Greg Overholt, formed the BUCS Association (Business and Computing Students) at Wilfrid Laurier University to assist students in the double-degree program. The birth of the Exam-AID program as an effective charitable initiative followed shortly after the success of the BUCS Association. In the first year, SOS volunteers offered two 1st year Economics courses and tutored over 200 students, raising a total of $5,500 worth of donations for charity. 2005 - 2006: Explosive Growth of Exam-AIDs In 2005, SOS offered three more 1st-year courses in business and calculus. With over 25 volunteer tutors and 100 members of the BUCS association, SOS tutored over 600 students and raised over $31,000 for Free the Children. Through Free the Children, SOS's charitable donation went towards providing accessible education to Kenyan children. This caught the attention of the Waterloo Record, which wrote the first article on the Exam-AID program. 2006 - 2007: Birth of Students Offering Support Charity SOS: Students Offering Support was born in 2006 when the Exam-AID initiative grew too large for the BUCS Association. By offering both 1st and 2nd-year courses, along with a more formal structure and accessible online registration system, SOS aided over 1,110 first and second-year students, raising $65,000 in charitable donations. These results attracted Waterloo Record once again, and another article was written on the Exam-AID program. In 2007, SOS volunteers funded an educational development project and helped build it on the first annual volunteer outreach trip to San Ignacio, Belize. With the help of a local NGO, Proworld, Laurier's team traveled to the small village of Calla Creek and upgraded their run-down elementary school. 2007 - 2008: The National Association is born Trent University, Student's Offering Support's second post-secondary chapter, found success, raising over $8,700 and confirming the SOS model strength to other universities. As a result, the National Association was created and, after its success in four national business plan competitions, generated over $15,000 in funding for national expansion. Trent and Laurier continued to work with the NGO Friend of Honduran Children and ran trips to provide infrastructural support to the Flor Azul orphan farm school. 2008 - 2009: Students Offering Support expands to Chapters in 11 Universities SOS launched chapters in Ontario and Quebec universities, as well as the pilot of a high school SOS chapter in the Waterloo