Giving Day and ‘gotcha’ game raises over $1 million

By Mia Agee

Assistant News Director

This year marked Trevecca’s fourth annual Giving Day and the university’s first year hosting a campus-wide “gotcha” game. The hope was to engage more students in the Giving Day festivities.

Their efforts were successful, as 86 Trevecca students and faculty signed up for the game, according to Peggy Cooning, vice president for university engagement.

“Several of the faculty members said that it was the first time they had seen so much engagement between faculty and students,” said Cooning.

The entry fee to participate in the game was a minimum of $5, though many donated more than that, according to Cooning. The donations from the game went directly towards Rebecca’s House, a food pantry for Trevecca students.

By the end of the game, 140 donors donated $12,829 towards the cause.

In total, this Giving Day, 1,168 donors raised $1,020,669 to go towards various scholarships.

One of the board of trustee members offered a 2-1 ratio, so for every dollar donated towards Rebecca’s House, he would match it with $2 up to $10,000, said Cooning.

Briley Daniels, a student facilitator of the “gotcha” game, had hoped to have around 30 to 50 students participate in the game. She was thrilled when the numbers were almost triple that amount.

“On the first day of signups, we were at 42. By the end, we were at 86,” Daniels said.

Besides the “gotcha” game, this year’s Giving Day also involved a gala dinner – a fundraising event that gave people the opportunity to dress up and raise money for all the different Giving Day causes.

The Giving Day committee also put on a silent auction, which started out as part of the gala event before being expanded to anyone who was a part of Giving Day.

“We had 12 or 13 different items that we auctioned, and we raised just under $10,000,” said Cooning.

Cooning hopes that during next year’s Giving Day – the fifth anniversary –, there will be more student participation in the “gotcha” game and donors who participate in the giving. Specifically, she would like to reach the campus’s goal of 1,500 donors.

“I’m hoping that the hype and the fun that we generated out of playing it this year will make more students become involved with it next year,” she said. “After they graduate and become alumni of Trevecca, they’ll remember that Giving Day is something fun.”