UConn students tabling for their organizations in order to raise funds for their activities. (The Daily Campus/Kush Kumar)
Fundraising effort UConn Gives raised $324,140 from 4,724 donors over a 36-hour period last week, with the funds going to UConn organizations ranging from the regional campuses to sports teams to fellowships and scholarships.
The fundraising started on March 27 at 7 a.m. and ran until March 28 at 7 p.m., according to the UConn Gives website. The amount of money raised beat last year’s amount by more than $64,000, according to a press release sent out by the UConn Foundation.
“Donations poured in from supporters across the country and around the world, illustrating how much the University’s reputation has grown over the years,” the press release said.
The recipient of the largest amount of money was the Jeffrey D. Fisher Health Behavior Change Research Fellowship, the website said. The fellowship is a gift awarded to a continuing graduate student who is working on a dissertation and has a record of outstanding achievement in health behavior research, according to the InCHIP website. The fellowship received $26,055 of donations, the UConn Gives website said.
The recipient of the second-highest amount of money was the 100% UConn Law Challenge, which received $20,975, according to the UConn Gives website. The 100% UConn Law Challenge is a competition between law firms and corporate legal departments that employ 10 or more UConn Law graduates to increase funding for scholarships and the Law School Dean’s Fund, the website said.
Extension Master Gardeners, an Educational Outreach Program that is part of UConn Extension, received the highest number of donors with 424, the website said.
“The program started in 1978 and consists of horticulture training and an outreach component that focuses on the community at large,” the Extension Master Gardeners website said.
The program is followed by Think About the Link Resources for School, which received 290 donors, the website said.
Think About the Link is sponsored by the Department of Educational Psychology and helps promote the teaching of health initiatives in schools, according to the website.
“Donations will help us support child well-being through initiatives such as production of a WSCC [Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child] toolkit that assists schools in linking learning and health initiatives to facilitate whole child success,” the website said.
The UConn Gives website described the event as “a way for UConn Nation to show its strength, pride and spirit by supporting the university we love.”
“For 36 hours in March, UConn Nation will come together to celebrate our accomplishments and lift up our passions,” the website said. “Groups across all five campuses will connect with their supporters around the world to raise funds for the programs and causes important to them.”
Second-semester engineering student Nayara Zainadine told the UConn Foundation that she donated to the SPARK program, which works to reduce the gender gap in STEM fields. Zainadine is a graduate of the program and a current mentor for others, she said.
“I want to show the next generation of women in STEM that engineers break barriers and they can help break the mold,” Zainadine said.
Gabriella DeBenedictis is a senior staff writer for The Daily Campus. She can be reached via email at gabriella.debenedictis@uconn.edu.
