By Aleksandra Sidorova
More than 2,000 alumni, friends, faculty and staff pitched in almost $2.5 million in gifts to support life on campus, from scholarships to outside seating.
The Plattsburgh College Foundation’s Cardinals Thrive campaign ran from Jan. 1 through June 30. It gained full traction when ’76 alumna Cindy Kansky pledged a $1 million donation if the foundation could match it. The foundation met that goal — and then some.
Aubrey Bresett, executive director of advancement, said the campaign stands out because it supports student needs that research determines to be key to thriving in college: financial, physical, emotional, social, intellectual, spiritual, occupational and environmental.
About $500,000 supports scholarships, which are part of several categories.
“An impressive figure,” Plattsburgh College Foundation Executive Director Anne Whitmore Hansen wrote in an email response.
The financial category — the largest with more than $1 million raised — also supports the Plattsburgh Fund, Student Emergency Grant Fund and the Cardinal Cupboard food shelf.
The social category was the second largest, with almost $250,000 in donations. It funds scholarships and supports initiatives by the Global Education Office, Campus Housing and Community Living, Fraternity and Sorority Life and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
One of the donations, from an alumni couple, funded the 125 bright red Adirondack chairs placed across campus, Hansen wrote.
Ten of them, set outside Beaumont Hall, will be used for DEI’s monthly Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation healing circles.
The same donor is also funding activities and decor in the two courtyards in Hawkins Hall — meditation sessions in the Lisa Lewis and John Ettling Meditation Garden and red picnic tables outside Einstein Bagel Bros.
“The hope is that students will enjoy eating outside on warm days,” Hansen wrote.
Alumni, friends, faculty and staff contributed to the campaign and chose which category to contribute to when they made their gifts — “an area that was special to them and dear to their hearts,” Bresett said.
Karen McGrath, vice president of enrollment and student success, contributed $5,000 — according to a college news release from July.
“I love this campaign because it’s very strategic to each priority and how we can really make sure that we are meeting students’ needs holistically — that is where we’re going to find success,” Bresett said. “It really feels good that we are doing what we can to really enhance our students’ wellbeing and overall success into the future.”
