This past Tuesday, Feb. 21, was “Love Your Longwood Day,” an online 24-hour event designed to raise money for the university. Love Your Longwood Day is just one of a week-long series of fundraising events for Longwood from Feb. 21-28.
“Love Your Longwood Day” featured two spots for collecting funds from donors; one in the Dorrill Dining Hall and one at the Ruffner Fountain, alongside the website.
The Ruffner Fountain area had a tent with two members of the Longwood faculty, Jill Manning and Jennifer Conkwright. Manning is the Office of Development’s leadership gift officer, while Conkwright is an administrative assistant of institutional advancement.
“This is the second annual ‘Love Your Longwood Day,’ and it will become an annual day of giving,” said Manning.
However, Manning clarified that this event was not about finances, but participation.
“We do not have a financial goal for this day, but we do have a participatory goal,” Manning said.
In reference to the year that Longwood was founded as the Farmville Female Seminary Association, the university has a goal of 1,839 donors participating in "Love Your Longwood Day".
Manning and Conkwright both agreed they had already surpassed last year’s participation rate by 2 p.m. that day.
Each year, the school specifically raises money for different initiatives, they said. This year, it was the College of Business and Economics and the junior class. Last year, there was no specific initiative beyond just raising money for the school in general.
“I think we’re almost at 30 percent of our (funding) goal already today,” Conkwright estimated.
The fundraiser was turned into a competition between various groups. For example, the green class, students who came to Longwood in an odd-numbered year, and the red class, students who came to Longwood in an even-numbered year, competed against each other to see who could raise more money.
Several academic departments, such as the psychology and anthropology departments, had challenges for people to beat, as well. The junior and senior classes and various faculty members also had challenges. People were able to watch the progress of the fundraiser in real time on Longwood’s website, on the love.longwood.edu subdomain.
At the end of the fundraiser, 1,405 donors contributed to the campaign, according the website. This resulted in a sum of $126,000 for the school. The red class won with 511 donors and $33,003, compared to the green class’ 417 donors and $27,246.
