(March 22, 2019) The Department of Chemistry would like to extend a heartfelt thanks to all of our donors who participated in Giving Day 2019.

An annual event, Giving Day began this year at noon on March 19 and ended at noon on March 20th. During last year’s inaugural event, the department received just over $3,000 in gifts from 23 donors. This year, we were amazed by your generosity after receiving over $18,000 from 80 donors. While the final official numbers are still being tabulated as lingering gifts are included, we wanted to offer our profound thanks.

Giving Day is special for a number of reasons. Between cash match and participation challenges and the excitement that comes from watching the numbers climb, Giving Day is an unique opportunity to bring Hokies together to make a direct impact on the programs that set Virginia Tech apart.

This year, we were grateful to have three challenges pledged to the department’s annual fund and especially thankful that all of the challenges were met. The first challenge was the Department of Chemistry Donor Participation Challenge, sponsored by alumni Jennifer Rolland (‘02) and Jason Rolland (‘01), which saw $1,000 donated to the department once 25 donors made a gift to the annual fund. The second was the Department of Chemistry Faculty Match which was a pledge by the faculty to match all the gifts made to the annual fund, dollar-for-dollar, up to $6,000. These first two challenges ran concurrently, and once one was met, the third one began. The last challenge was a dollar-for-dollar match up to $1,000 by alumnus and Department of Chemistry Advisory Council member Frank Akers and Jan Akers. We were thrilled to see that the donor participation challenge was completed within the first three hours of Giving Day and the second two were completed overnight! Thank you to all who gave to the Department of Chemistry Annual Fund to make this possible.

Gifts made to the Department of Chemistry Annual Fund directly support departmental activities including undergraduate research, graduate education, weekly seminars, outreach and service events, faculty recruitment and so much more. Simply put, without your gifts, we would not be able to continue to offer the high quality chemistry programs that have come to be synonymous with Virginia Tech Chemistry.

To read more about Giving Day from across the university, read the VT News article here.