Students, faculty and staff gathered at Florida Atlantic University’s  Marleen and Harold Forkas Alumni Center on Friday to kick off the second annual “Giving Day.”

Giving Day is a 24-hour online fundraising event where anyone can donate money online via a link or QR code. The donations go directly to supporting FAU programs to provide scholarships, research funding and funding to other essential program resources for students. 

Several banners spread throughout the Boca campus advertised a QR code where students and staff could contribute directly to the fundraiser. Of the total 1,048 donors, donations reached $319,406 as of 12 a.m. Friday. 

Alicia DeLuca is the director of the Annual Giving team. She says this event “really encompasses philanthropy” at FAU.

“It’s giving back to programs and services that you love, supporting the university through the act of [donating],” explained DeLuca. 

DeLuca added that donations go to FAU programs that “impact students directly” such as first-generation student success, food pantry, student accessibility services and more. 

Kristine Gobbo was among those who donated. She received her master’s degree from FAU and is currently the executive director of communications for the FAU Foundation. As a first-generation student, she says she “understands some of the challenges students face.”

“Giving Day provides a way for us to collectively [donate] and make an even larger impact on the Florida Atlantic programs that are most important to us,” said Gobbo.

The Annual Giving team operates under the FAU Foundation, and partners with the FAU Alumni Association and Student Government Program Board to host the annual fundraiser, according to DeLuca. 

FAU senior Moica Jean-Pierre is also the student lead for the Giving Day festivities. For this Giving Day kickoff, she says it’s really about “letting students know what Giving Day is. Before today, no one knew about Giving Day, what it was and who ran it.” 

Candace Gago, FAU freshman and business management major, won’t be giving back, but since she goes to FAU on a Bright Futures Scholarship, she thinks it’s important the school is doing events like this. 

“I found out about the event through Instagram and I think what they’re doing is very nice, especially since my dad is an [FAU] alumni,” said Gago. 

This year, the event staff expected about 300 attendees for the party. In the future, DeLuca says the event will be held on the third Thursday of every September. 

“This is the first time we’ve done an on-campus event like this… So we’ll definitely bring something bigger and better next year,” added DeLuca. 

“The kick-off party for Giving Day last year wasn’t as official,” according to Jean-Pierre. Instead of a kick-off party, the only in-person festivity involved the Giving team asking FAU students around the Boca campus general trivia questions and awarding free FAU merch if students got the questions right.

Liam Burke is a contributing writer for the University Press. For information regarding this or other stories, email [email protected].