DePauw’s Day of Giving took place on Wednesday, Nov. 9, and raised $440,891 for student organizations, clubs, and athletic teams.
Day of Giving was a 24-hour period where students took part in different challenges all across campus and on social media to win cash prizes that directly benefited their organization, while also encouraging the community to donate.
This was made possible through generous donations from students, staff, alumni, and friends, and directly benefits student life on campus.
Donors logged onto the Day of Giving website and selected an organization to donate to. Organizations that encouraged the most donors received extra cash prizes. For example, students with the most gifts from donors that graduated in 1970 won a prize, same with the 1980’s, 1990’s, and the 2000’s.
Some of the tasks included hourly selfie challenges broadcasted on WGRE, where students had to use the hints to find Tyler the Tiger in a hidden spot on campus. The task was to try to be the first person on campus to find him and post it to social media with the hashtag, #AllInForDePauw.
There was also a cash cab riding around campus. According to the DePauw Day of Giving website, “57 riders answered DePauw trivia questions, winning $2,000 for their favorite departments, programs, and teams.”
There were other challenges where students posted their best DePauw pride to social media. Some of these included singing the Ballad of the Monon Bell and posting pets in Tiger Pride gear using the hashtag AllInForDePauw.
Senior Lily Jennings said that her experience participating in challenges for the softball team brought her closer with her peers.
“I think that as a team, Day of Giving brought us together in a way that wouldn’t naturally happen on the field or in team meetings and classroom sessions. We were all texting our GroupMe 24/7 to try and win challenges,” Jennings said.
She added that it was fun to hop in cars together for the selfie challenges and interact with DePauw through social media.
“We all got to hang out with different people that we usually wouldn’t surround ourselves with. I think it brings us together because we all have one common goal of raising money for our programs,” Jennings said.
She said the money they raised will help fund the team’s trip to Australia next year, help with travel costs during the spring, and fund team meals.
Madi Lockridge, a sophomore on the softball team, said the first challenge started at midnight the night before Day of Giving started, and the entire team had separate times to try and get the first donation of the day.
“We woke up and had the very first selfie challenge of the day at 9 a.m., and then we tried to find people to donate all throughout the day,” she said.
According to Lockridge, she was running around campus all day to try and win challenges and even got to hop in the cash cab and drive around to answer questions for money.
“It was a really fun activity and our coaches were encouraging us all day. It was super fun to reach out to alumni, previous teammates, and parents, and it was a great way to get the whole community involved,” Lockridge said.
Day of Giving gave the opportunity to every organization to win money while also bringing the DePauw community together.