On Oct. 9, Slippery Rock had the first Athletic Giving Day, where people donated over $90,000 across all athletic programs. Of all the teams, The Rock Baseball team raised the most and beat their target of $25,000 by totaling $31,310.
“The Giving Day was extremely successful and to raise over $90,000 in just one day for our programs was just tremendous and we can’t thank the folks that contributed to it enough, and that money is really important because we’re really limited in the fundraising that we can do right now due to COVID-19 guidelines, so the money was vital to keep us going,” Slippery Rock Athletic Director Paul Lueken said.
Every athletic program took part in the Giving Day and the money raised will help to replace some of the money that the teams have lost without their seasons and the money also helps with scholarships. Of 13 goals, six of those goals were reached including the Rock Athletic Scholarship fund which had a goal of $5,000 and raised $5,900 in total.
“[Taking over the social media] was really nerve-wracking at first, but I kind of just started having fun with it and I got teammates involved, and I felt happy to do it,” sophomore goalkeeper Jordan Barnhill said.
The event was advertised by social media mostly and among those who did things on social media were the women’s soccer team. The team posted about the giving day and tried to get it out there as much as they could. For one of the days, Barnhill was given control over the Instagram page and was able to post about the giving day with teammates. The team received not only monetary donations but also received gifts from the 2015-2020 alumni including cookies with the women’s soccer logo on it and mugs.
“I think that we have such an incredible group of alumni and we have a really long-standing tradition that came from Noreen’s era to mine, so some girls that I didn’t even coach were in on that gift,” Coach Jessica Giegucz said. “They wanted to give the girls a spark and it was just really wonderful and needed, and they came through at the right time.”
The money from the donations will help expenses for the teams, but it will also be used for trips or events in the future. The money made up for all the fundraisers that the teams have missed out on due to COVID-19 and that money from fundraisers is crucial to the teams for things such as team bonding activities.
“I was very pleasantly surprised with how the Giving Day went, because I was so unsure how it would go because we just had a really successful giving day earlier in the year, but I trusted the people in charge and they let us know that people right now are maybe more willing to give because they know they can make an impact,” said Coach Giegucz.
Overall there were 456 donations made to the Athletic Giving Day and every donation was extremely important to these teams. The donations that were made will help to balance out what might have been lost during this pandemic and help the teams prepare for their seasons, should they be able to happen.
