Southern Adventist University hosted their third annual Giving Day on Nov. 7 and 8.
Giving Day lasted 1,892 minutes starting from Nov. 7 at 12:28 p.m. and ending on Nov. 8 at 8 p.m., in honor of 1892, the year Southern was founded. Southern invited alumni, employees, students and friends of the university to share, support and vote.
This year’s Giving Day was different from the past two, because of the inclusion of new unique challenges for those that donated.
Ashley Fox, the annual giving officer at Southern said, “Southern has a hidden scholarship that is made possible by financial gift to The Southern Fund. This fund allows the university to offer tuition to all students below the actual cost for them to attend.”
The new challenge this year was the Academic Area Challenge.
Fox said, “This is a $15,000 challenge that is being directed to academic areas. The School of Social Work received 131 gifts and earned the first place prize of $6,000.”
A returning challenge was the Club Challenge. This challenge is sponsored by Student Association and awards $2,000 to various student organizations. This challenge gave The School of Nursing Club with 142 votes $800 to use in their club, with the Social Work, Enactus, Chemistry and Creature Kind Clubs taking the second, third, fourth and fifth leaderboard positions respectively.
Fox said, “When you make a gift to Giving Day to an academic area. You will get a vote. The votes were used to help the clubs earn votes to receive the funds for their club.”
Awarded clubs had to be active and votes could be seen on the website updated in real time.
Students also could participate by using the hashtag #SAUGivingDay. A booth was set up in the Student Center form 12:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. on Nov. 7 and from 8 to 5 on Nov. 8. Students received gifts for using the hashtag and were able to pay cash and donate to Giving Day and have the opportunity to vote for their club.
The final countdown began at 7:45 p.m. Thursday evening on Nov. 8 in Lynn Wood Chapel. Students were encouraged to join, while the first 175 students received a free t-shirt and convocation credit. At 8:00 p.m. the announcement was made about the club winners. The academic area winners were announced on Tuesday, November 13.
Fox said, “Giving Day is to share, share the message about giving day; support, support your passion on campus, academics area or SM Scholarship; and vote, vote for your favorite club. The small gifts come together and make a big impact, Giving Day is all about participation.”
Image credit: Barry Daly