Organizers hope to have 1,000 letters thanking donors to the university by the end of the day Thursday.
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Update on Nov. 9, 2011, at 3 p.m.: With one day remaining in the community effort to thank Elon University donors, organizers say they are quickly approaching their goal and are encouraging students, faculty and staff who have not already done so to consider writing a message of thanks on Thursday, Nov. 10, in the Koury Business Center from 10:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
Door prizes will also be drawn Nov. 10 for those who registered at various events around campus where visitors have been able to write notes.
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Original Story
The academic buildings. The scholarships. The athletics facilities. They all have stories that almost always begin with a gift from a donor, and for three days this week, Elon University students and staff are asking the community to offer a simple “thank you” in the form of a handwritten message.
“A Thousand Thanks” kicked off at College Coffee on Tuesday with dozens of people taking five minutes to compose brief expressions of gratitude to those whose generosity has made Elon what it is today.
The community event continues through Thursday with the goal of reaching 1,000. Cards will be mailed to donors before Thanksgiving.
“We’re really hoping that students, faculty, and staff will help us meet this goal,” said Sara Peterson, director of donor relations at Elon. “It’s not all that many thank you notes when you think about it. If everybody takes five minutes, we’ll have a thousand in no time. And opening an unexpected thank you note will really make a person’s day.”
This is the second year that Elon has organized a note-writing campaign. Led by Amanda Zamzes ’08, a program assistant in donor relations, and Kelly Smith, a university sophomore interning with Peterson and Zamzes, the current effort has drawn support from several student groups, including the North Carolina Teaching Fellows, Pre-Dental Society and SGA.
Also lending support is the Arabic Language Association. Students involved with the association are planning to send donors notes in Arabic for their role in making the King Hussein of Jordan Scholarship a reality.
Students visiting the table on Tuesday at College Coffee picked slips of paper from a fishbowl that had a donor’s name printed to one side of a fold, and their gifts to the university on the other side.
Kileigh Browning, an environmental sciences and statistics double major from Winston-Salem, N.C., was one of the 104 people to write a thank you during College Coffee. Browning is a recipient of the Charles A. Frueauff Foundation Scholarship and randomly selected the benefactor behind another endowed award that helps other students just like her.
“I told the donor that they gave me a lot of opportunities I wouldn’t have had, and that I now have a lot of memories I wouldn’t have had, either,” Browning said. “This campaign is wonderful. It’s great to have a tangible thank you card. People appreciate that.”
Daniel Henke, a political science major from outside of Kansas City, Kan., benefitted from a scholarship that supported an unpaid internship in Washington, D.C., over the summer. He, too, took part in “A Thousands Thanks” on Tuesday and tipped his hat toward those taking part in the planning process.
“It’s a good idea,” he said. “If I was a donor, I’d hope that students would be grateful for what I did.”
Anecdotal evidence from the inaugural campaign in 2010 convinced Zamzes that the project was worth repeating. “We had reactions that went from ‘Wow, there’s someone behind this?’ to ‘We know there’s someone making our dreams possible, and we just want to say thank you,’” she said. “We’re trying to step away from mom yelling at you to write a thank you, and toward educating you about your surroundings which will, hopefully, make you want to write the note.”
For those who wish to take part in the program, “A Thousand Thanks” will be held at the following locations and times:
Tuesday, Nov. 8
9:40-10:20 a.m., Kick-off at College Coffee
5-9 p.m., Belk Library, room 102
Wednesday, Nov. 9
10 a.m. – 2 p.m., Moseley Center, Hearth Lounge
10 a.m. – 2 p.m., Lindner Hall lobby
Thursday, Nov. 10
10:30 a.m. – 3:30 p.m., Koury Business Center, Burbridge Atrium
The School of Law is also participating in A Thousand Thanks at its location.