First annual Philanthropy Fair comes to Pacific to celebrate Giving Tuesday

“Basically, philanthropy fair is just a way of kind of giving back to the community,” STAT president senior Charisse Pudiquet said. “Part of STAT’s mission is to educate students about philanthropy and make them aware of giving back to the community, as well as the university that they are a part of, as well as being an exemplary alumn. So this is a way they can be an exemplary alumn; by giving back.”

They chose to hold the fair on Dec. 1 as a way to commemorate Giving Tuesday. STAT members were excited to see the turnout of people eager to give for their first year.

“We talked about this at the beginning of the school year, toward the end of August so we didn’t really start planning until September,” Pudiquet said. “It did take a while, but now that we see the outcome of it, it’s worth all the hard work that we put into it.”

Both students and community members were able to see the diversity in charity work available on campus.

The different booths on campus ranged from making tie-blankets to making

holiday cards. Over a dozen groups reached out to STAT to participate in this event.

“Honestly, we weren’t expecting it to be this big,” Pudiquet said. “We were just hoping to get you know as much as we can, maybe a handful would have been nice. But we have been able to get a lot more than we expected and so we were all pretty excited about that.”

The students involved in the fair were impressed by the turnout of students, as they saw it as an effective way to get charitable foundations more well-known.

Senior president of the Residential Hall Association (RHA) Sophia Nation expressed how this was a great way to represent one of their philanthropies, Project Linus Portland/Vancouver.

[Project Linus] is an organization that provides blankets to children who need them,” Nation said. “We’re giving to the Portland one, so they go to a lot of hospitals and different centers and shelters and things like that. We just thought it would be a great kickoff to the holiday season.”

This event not only showed how giving the Pacific student body can be, but also what kind of alumni current students will be after they graduate.

“We’re just trying to get the ideas of the importance of giving back and trying to communicate that to students,” senior vice president of STAT, Andy Amick said. “Because then it establishes that they’re going to be really great alumni, they’re going to be involved with Pacific, they’ll be involved with their communities.”

While many Greek chapters participated in the event, many clubs on campus came to represent their philanthropies as well.

“I think that this is great, bringing all of the opportunities for people to see what philanthropies that people are doing and to be involved in the philanthropies,” senior Mari Cobb said. “You don’t necessarily have to be in Greek life to do philanthropy-type work.”

STAT is already making plans for the Philanthropy Fair to become an annual event. They also stress that anyone who wants to participate with STAT is open to do so.

“If you want to know more, come out to STAT meetings,” Pudiquet said. “We have them Mondays at 8:45 p.m. in Scott 205, so if you want to learn more, go ahead and come to our meetings and if you guys want to join next year, reach out to us. Don’t be afraid.”