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Supporters Line Up to Champion Â鶹´«Ã½ in Third Annual Giving Day Event

 

February 17, 2023

The stakes are high, and so is the enthusiasm and excitement as supporters of Alaska’s three public universities put more than $900,000 on the line during the University of Alaska’s third annual Â鶹´«Ã½ Giving Day - 49 Hours for Alaska, taking place February 22 and 23. 

This year more than 75 donors, representing alumni, community members and business supporters, are offering a record-setting amount in challenges and rewards to encourage broad community participation in giving to Â鶹´«Ã½A, Â鶹´«Ã½F, and Â鶹´«Ã½S. 

Faculty, staff and student Champions are important to the success of Â鶹´«Ã½ Giving Day, and there’s still time to sign up! help unlock matching gifts, and ensure that more people will see, hear and read messages about Â鶹´«Ã½ and its impact on students and on our state. 

A few examples from the nearly 100 challenges include: 

• When 149 people make a gift to the Troth Yeddha’ Indigenous Studies Center, it will unlock a collective gift of $30,000 from Heather Kendall-Miller and Lloyd Miller and the Legacy Committee.
  
  
• When ten donors support Â鶹´«Ã½A’s ConocoPhillips Integrated Science Building Planetarium Support fund, one anonymous donor will chip in $5,000.
  
  
• Â鶹´«Ã½S employees and alumni Michael Ciri and Jeri Cary will match up to $10,000 in donations to the new Â鶹´«Ã½S GED Achiever scholarship. Ciri and Cary, both GED recipients, want to build a welcoming path to higher education for those with a GED. 
  
  
• Helga and Bill Watterson and Watterson Construction are challenging Alaska’s construction industry statewide to match their $50,000 for Construction Management Workforce Development Support, a fund that benefits construction training programs at all three universities.

The full list of challenges is available at the Â鶹´«Ã½ Giving Day website . 

To promote social media sharing, Â鶹´«Ã½ President Pat Pitney is awarding $500 per university and a round-trip travel voucher on Alaska Airlines, courtesy of Alaska Airlines, in a random drawing from among those who share the #49HoursforAlaska hashtag on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter or TikTok in a public post tagging Â鶹´«Ã½A, Â鶹´«Ã½F or Â鶹´«Ã½S. 

The Â鶹´«Ã½ Giving Day website, , has tools to help faculty, staff and students share messages about their support of their favorite programs and track dollars raised in real time.

Last year, participation in Â鶹´«Ã½ Giving Day was worldwide, raising more than $1.06 million from more than 1,690 donors from 42 states and 12 countries. The global outpouring of support demonstrates the Â鶹´«Ã½ system’s reach through its alumni, faculty, staff, donors and friends.