WCU Stories      March 3, 2020

Western Carolina University faculty and staff opened their hearts as well as their wallets and calendars this year to support the university’s fourth annual “I Love WCU” campaign during the month of February.

This year’s campaign, which was a joint effort from the Division of Advancement and the Center for Community Engagement and Service Learning, encouraged participants to volunteer their time to community service projects, as well as to make charitable donations. And it worked. In all, 462 faculty and staff contributed $155,631 in gifts and monetized volunteer hours to areas that were important to them, said Jamie T. Raynor, interim vice chancellor for Advancement, explaining that 300 of those 462 volunteers donated 2,694 hours of time to their local communities within the month of February.

“These gifts are having positive impacts on the university’s ability to increase student support and programmatic support across the institution,” Chancellor Kelli R. Brown told faculty and staff gathered Monday, March 2, at the A.K. Hinds University Center Grandroom to celebrate the end of “I Love WCU” month. “This year’s rendition of ‘I Love WCU’ month, with its focus on volunteerism and service, has shown me that our faculty and staff also are making a big difference in the communities in which they live and serve.”

The “I Love WCU” Giving Champions trophy went to the Division of Athletics.

Other awards given during the ceremony were:

• Highest college participation — College of Business
• Most donors — Division of Administration and Finance
• Most number of community service hours — Division of Information Technology

“We are so proud of our faculty and staff who spent hours volunteering at local food pantries, animal shelters, food banks and educational settings, and cleaning up around our local communities,” Raynor said. “It was so gratifying to see how our faculty and staff engaged so fully to support so many wonderful causes in Western North Carolina.”