St. Joseph’s University, New York is gearing up to host its sixth annual Giving Day this Wednesday, April 17, with more than 20 projects set to benefit students.
The annual event brings alumni, faculty, staff, students, parents and local community members together to make a difference and help support the collegiate endeavors of the University’s students.
Over the past five years, the University’s seen 3,365 donors give more than $400,000 to various crowdfunding projects on Giving Day, celebrating the students and their educational pursuits.
“Giving Day has become an exciting SJNY tradition,” said Flavio Bollag, assistant vice president for advancement and engagement at St. Joseph’s. “This year, several new projects — many of them led by students and student organizations — are looking for vital funding.
“It is always so moving to see how the St. Joe’s community steps up and responds to these needs to enhance the student experience in and outside the classroom,” he continued. “We appreciate everyone who participates, donates or shares the information with their networks.”
A Look at Last Year
The Long Island Campus’ NSSLHA (National Student Speech-Language Hearing Association), a student subset of the national organization ASHA (American Speech-Language Hearing Association), collected approximated $2,400 last year. The funds allowed nine speech communication majors, all members of NSSLHA, to attend ASHA’s annual international conference in Boston in November.
“The experience was transformational on both a personal and professional level,” explained Lisa Tafuro, Ph.D., associate professor of communication studies, who led the students on the trip. “Personally, for some, this was their first time off of Long Island. For others, it was the first time truly socializing with other students in the program.
“Professionally, it opened their eyes to the vast opportunities afforded by this career track, evidenced by the hundreds of workshops that were available to them,” she added. “They also got to experience their mentor (me) present on a stage larger than they’d ever seen before. I believe this brought a sense of pride and excitement to the group.”
Last year’s fund created on the Brooklyn Campus by Michael Burke, Ph.D., associate professor of philosophy, is being used this year to help send honors students to Japan to study abroad this June.
BASIC (Brothers and Sisters in Christ ), a non-denominational Christian club with a chapter on the Long Island Campus, will be using the funds they collected to help send them to BASICCON, a biannual conference of BASIC groups nationwide, on April 12-14. They are also fundraising again this year.
The Long Island Equestrian Team secured $2,000 in gifts in a bid to send riders to summer training sessions. This year, their goal is to collect $2,500.
