ACU’s largest fundraising drive for student scholarships has reached its half-way point.
The Partnering in the Journey Campaign began in June 2010 as an effort to raise $50 million to create more scholarships for students. In June 2011, the campaign began contributing to ACU students’ scholarships.
“It’s by far the largest scholarship campaign that we’ve ever pursued, so it’s a bold goal,” President of the University Phil Schubert said. “But God continues to provide people who are passionate about what we do at ACU and desire to help in our journey.”
Donors contribute to the campaign by giving the university endowment gifts which are invested in earnings for a year. After one year, the gifts are then able to be used as scholarship money for students.
The funds are being used to build a wide variety of new scholarships- both need-based and merit-based, unrestricted and departmental. They are also used to increase the size of existing scholarships.
Since the beginning of the campaign, almost 400 individuals have made first-time donations to endowment scholarships.
Rendi Hahn, campaign coordinator, said she was surprised by the number of first-time endowments.
“It’s just marvelous to see how people have banded together and stretched to make gifts that they’ve never made before,” Hahn said. “It’s sacrificial and exciting to see.”
The largest donation the campaign has received was made from the estate of a woman who never even attended ACU.
After Virginia Heacock’s death in May, $4.5 million of her estate assets were contributed to the campaign. These funds were used to grant more than 220 new scholarships.
Hahn said she hopes students will be thankful to the people who make their scholarships possible.
“I hope the students understand that there are people out there that care about them. They don’t know them but they care about them,” Hahn said. “Most of our students couldn’t be here without these scholarships. I think it’s amazing we have people out there who have generous hearts and want to do something great that is long lasting for a student.”
