Grateful for garnet
Give 4 Garnet 2019 tops 6,500 donors and more than $4 million in gifts
Posted on: April 11, 2019; Updated on: April 11, 2019
By Diane Parham, parhamdv@mailbox.sc.edu, 803-777-7547
Another successful Give 4 Garnet closed at midnight Wednesday, with 6,576 donors making $4,028,859 in gifts during the University of South Carolina’s second annual giving day.
The number of donors surpassed Give 4 Garnet’s participation goal of 6,500. The event featured 22 different online campaigns, allowing donors to choose where they wanted to direct their gifts.
A special campaign to honor retiring university president Harris Pastides raised $2,545,561 during Give 4 Garnet, including a $1 million challenge gift from an anonymous donor. The initiative got a major midday boost from a South Carolina alumnus who was inspired by the $1 million challenge and made a $500,000 gift. These funds will be dedicated to naming the university’s Alumni Center in honor of Pastides, who has led a period of tremendous growth at South Carolina since he became president in 2008.
“Seeing the whole Carolina community come together like this and support the programs they know make a real difference in students’ lives — that makes Give 4 Garnet a success,” said Jancy Houck, vice president for development. “It’s exciting to see how all these gifts combine to create more opportunities for our future.”
While the majority of donations were made online, more than 300 people made cash gifts on Greene Street, where Give 4 Garnet hosted an outdoor street fair with appearances by women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley and giving day co-chairs Marcus Lattimore, director of player development for South Carolina football, and Lou Kennedy, CEO of Nephron Pharmaceuticals.
Seeing the whole Carolina community come together like this and support the programs they know make a real difference in students’ lives — that makes Give 4 Garnet a success.
Jancy Houck, vice president for development
Donors from all 50 states made gifts during the Give 4 Garnet giving window, which began at 5:59 a.m. Wednesday and ended at midnight. A successful Fill-the-Map Challenge earned a bonus for athletics and the College of Education, which shared a $7,500 prize for bringing in gifts from the last two states, Montana and Vermont. The giving day project chosen by athletics was raising funds for a statue to honor women’s basketball standout A’ja Wilson. Education focused its giving day initiative on its CarolinaTIP program, which provides resources to early career teachers.
The College of Information and Communication won an Early-Bird Challenge for the most gifts made before 8 a.m., earning a $5,000 bonus for its campaign, Project Literacy, to promote reading and news literacy among children.
Final results from all Give 4 Garnet campaigns are available online. Funds raised will support a wide range of university programs, including scholarships, internships, study-abroad and research opportunities, and experiential learning opportunities. Last year’s event raised $3.7 million from about 4,200 donors.
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