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Give 4 Garnet tops $4 million mark

Staff Report //April 11, 2019//

Give 4 Garnet tops $4 million mark

Staff Report //April 11, 2019//

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Donations to the University of South Carolina’s second annual giving event topped last year’s total, with 6,576 donors giving more than $4 million dollars to the Give 4 Garnet campaign.

An effort to name the university’s Alumni Center in honor of retiring president Harris Pastides raised around $1 million, according to a news release from the university. An anonymous donor is matching up to $1 million in donations to that cause.

In the event’s inaugural year in 2018, 4,200-plus donors gave more than $3.7 million to the online fundraising campaign.

Donors from all 50 stats made donations Wednesday, according to the release. The fundraising campaign began at 5:59 a.m. and ended at midnight, a span of 18 hours and one minute that references the university’s 1801 founding.

Donations will support 22 university programs, including scholarships, internships, study abroad and research.

“Seeing the whole Carolina community come together like this and support the programs they know make a real difference in students’ lives — that makes Give 4 Garnet a success,” Jancy Houck, South Carolina vice president for development, said in the release. “It’s exciting to see how all these gifts combine to create more opportunities for our future.”

The university’s athletics department and its College of Education shared a $7,500 bonus for bringing in gifts from the final two states, Montana and Vermont, to complete a fill-the-map challenge. The athletics department will apply contributions toward a statue honoring women’s basketball great A’ja Wilson, while the College of Education will fund its CarolinaTIP program, which focuses on teacher retention.

The College of Information and Communications won a $5,000 early bird challenge for receiving the most gifts before 8 a.m. It will fund a campaign promoting reading and news literacy among children.

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