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Read StoryGiving Day 2023: One for the Record Books
If you missed Giving Day 2023, you missed 1,865 minutes (see what we did there?) of exhilarating and impactful donor philanthropy. Held in mid-September and with the support of university donors near and far, this year’s Giving Day event yielded 1,564 gifts for a total of $312,502 raised in the just-over-36-hour event. According to Director of Annual Giving Liz Chirico, “This year’s Giving Day saw the highest number of gift-challenge, gift-match, and leaderboard opportunities in Giving Day history and yielded the most dollars associated with these giving opportunities.”
Explaining her gift-match for the High-Powered Rocketry Club (HPRC), of which her daughter, Reya Truher ’25, is a member, WPI parent and Giving Day donor Tammy Truher says, “The opportunity to work on HPRC has been the highlight of my child’s experience at WPI. It’s as hands on as you can get, and it’s hard to imagine a better experience for an aerospace engineer, or anyone interested in rockets. WPI provides students an education and professional development all rolled up in one. Last year, as an incoming sophomore, Reya was able to travel to New Mexico for an international rocket competition. There is so much opportunity for students who are involved in HPRC.”
As in previous years, committed Giving Day Ambassadors led the call to philanthropic donors in support of their causes. This year, Peter Korfuzi ’24 (for the High-Power Rocketry Club) and Kristen “Ten” Heller ’25 (for the Video Game Club) earned the Top Student Ambassadors positions, and Steve Hall ’87 (for the DeFalco Endowed Wrestling Fund) and Morgan Bell ’17 (for the Women’s Impact Network (WIN)) earned the Top Alumni Ambassadors positions. In recognition of their Giving Day outreach efforts, all four groups these Ambassadors represented received an extra gift.
Of special note this year, was the especially strong student engagement with Giving Day. Fifteen student clubs and groups staffed tables in the Rubin Campus Center during both days of the event where they provided peer-to-peer education on Giving Day and encouraged philanthropic support to their many student groups. Their efforts resulted in 96 student groups receiving at least one philanthropic gift—up from 82 groups last year.
And new this year was the Pie-in-the-Face Challenge. Over a dozen WPI students, alumni, faculty, and staff are so enthusiastic about the university, they agreed to take a pie to the face for their philanthropic cause. Giving Day donors, who were able to cast a pie-in-the-face vote while making their Giving Day gift, gave the most votes to Associate Athletic Director Ann McCarron in support of the WPI American Cancer Society on Campus, Relay for Life. McCarron received her pie in the face—and an extra $600 for her cause—before an excited crowd during Homecoming Weekend.
Ann McCarron gets ready for her pie with Gompei.
If you missed the opportunity to join the excitement by supporting the university during Giving Day, please note that the Goat Nation Giving Challenge in support of WPI athletes and athletic teams will take place in February 2024. Philanthropy is a founding tenant of the university, and WPI would not be the robust, global, and critically relevant institution it is today without the generosity of our alumni, parents, and friends—including students, faculty, and staff. Support your alma mater as part of Beyond These Towers: A Campaign for WPI and do your part to help ensure the university continues to develop the world’s leading innovators, researchers, and leaders.
