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Impact Stories

Our alumni, community, faculty, staff, and partners are dedicated to supporting the success of current and future Catamounts. Western Carolina University is committed to sustaining and improving individual lives through education and by enhancing the economic and community development of our region. Discover the philanthropy and the people who make this happen...

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Giving Tuesday 2020

Thank you for making GivingTuesday a success this year in support of the Center for Service Learning and Community Engagement and the Whee Are One Fund! We are so proud of our community. When we come together, we can truly make a difference.  

Anne Aldrich

A Passion for Literacy Leads to Cross-Cultural Service, an “I Love WCU” Story

Once a week for nearly three years, Anne Aldrich has left her home in Balsam and driven 35 minutes to western Buncombe County to scratch an itch she has for literacy. An avid reader since the age of 4, Aldrich is committed to helping others understand the meaning of words, even if English isn’t their first language.  

giving tuesday

Catamount Nation Answers the Call on Giving Tuesday

For the fourth time in as many years, Western Carolina Athletics and its fundraising arm, the Catamount Club, put out the call as part of the National Day of Giving, #GivingTuesday. And once again, the generosity of the Catamount Nation brightly shined through. Through fundraising efforts stemming around the Dec. 3 Giving Tuesday initiative, a total of 254 generous supporters ranging from the West Coast to the Southeast – and points in between – answered the Giving Tuesday challenge by raising a record-setting total...  

Dwight Ryland

Colorado couple endows scholarship in effort to save environment through education

Dwight Ryland has seen some glorious views in his day, having climbed all 54 of Colorado’s 14,000-foot mountains — some of them more than once—and skied his native state’s majestic slopes. But a dark cloud on the horizon has redirected his gaze and nudged the 77-year-old Ryland to put his money where his heart is: saving the environment through education.  

Jack and Judy Brinson

Highlands residents pledge $2 million for Honors College, undergraduate research

Thanks to the ongoing generosity of a husband and wife who divide their time between Highlands in the Western North Carolina mountains and Hilton Head Island in the South Carolina Lowcountry, Western Carolina University is one step closer toward its goal of being able to provide scholarship assistance to every Honors College student with financial need. Make that 1 million steps closer.  

Donna Winbon

Donna Winbon: We all have the power to make an impact on the next generation

In 1980, I graduated from Western Carolina University. I was an average student with a modest background and a deep appreciation for the faculty and staff who helped me get through four years of college. I knew even then that my time at WCU had prepared me for a good life, but I had no grand vision of becoming rich or famous.  

POTM Field

Giving Tuesday efforts to focus on band’s trip to Macy’s, student-athletes

WCU will kick off the season of generosity five days after Thanksgiving with Giving Tuesday. This year, the focus will be on two special projects – upgrading the student-athlete computer lab and sending the Pride of the Mountains marching band to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in 2019.  

Brinkley Weigh Room

Catamount student-athletes benefit from generosity of alumni

David and Marie Brinkley believe in the Catamounts so much they donated $400,000 to improve the weight-lifting facility at Western Carolina University, their alma mater, which benefits all WCU athletes. Yes, they’ve been blessed with money, they say, but the joy is in helping others.  

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