Over 1,300 members of the Rollins community came together to celebrate Rollins Giving Day.
Giving Day is an annual fundraising event held at Rollins to raise money for departments across campus in need of support. Giving Day 2023 took place on Feb. 14. Andria Silvia, the senior director of Annual Giving and Advancement Marketing said, “our primary goal is really about community and bringing the community together to participate and to show what happens when we all come together.”
Silvia is responsible for leading the overall concept and structure of the event, which includes overseeing and managing the team that plans and executes Giving Day.
“I have an amazing team who I work with to create programs, and implement and manage the rollout of Giving Day,” Silvia said. This year was the fifth consecutive Giving Day at Rollins. The concept of this event is a common strategy that has been put into practice by higher education and nonprofits to encourage a culture of philanthropy. During 2013 to 2015, Rollins held Giving Days, but stopped hosting the event annually until 2019.
Once the areas of need have been established, they look for donors who would be willing to contribute challenges that will inspire others to donate to these areas.
This year, Silvia and her team collaborated with Hume House, the Theatre & Dance Department, and WPRK.
This year marked the first time in WPRK’s 71 year history serving the greater Orlando community that the radio station was included in Giving Day. WPRK hosted the Fun Drive in KWR which included live performances from artists while people donated online through the Giving Day website.
“I got to work with the team to plan and strategize on how we were going to come up with the funds, how we were going to meet our goal, and what our objectives were for Giving Day,” said WPRK Station Manager Musenya Ngoma (‘23). “That was successful, we met them by large margins and it’s the first time that’s ever happened at WPRK so I’m very happy to have participated.”
Ngoma and Director of Student Media Greg Golden also had the opportunity to interview Rollins College President Grant Cornwell on-air. “[W]hat [Giving Day] means to me, is an opportunity. It’s an opportunity to just show appreciation. For me, personally, it’s showing appreciation to WPRK and what we did with the fun drive bringing artists in, and having that whole atmosphere of community. I think that was great for us and just having people come in here, come out, and just enjoy what we had going on. It’s rare that we have such things going on, so I thought that was great and, if we could do that again, that would be amazing.” Ngoma said.
At the end of Giving Day, 1,364 donors had donated to departments such as Athletics, Financial Aid, the Hamilton Holt School, and so forth, raising more than $458,963. Silvia said, “community is what Giving Day means to me and it’s what we are focused on. With my team we look for different ways to engage the community and you know whether they’re students or they are parents or they are alumni or they are faculty and staff we look for different ways. I’m just in awe of a number of those members of the community that come together and participate in Giving Day. It’s truly inspiring.”
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