On March 19, students gave back in a small way to those who have given to them. They expressed thankfulness to donors as part of Generation HU’s “Say Thanks Day,” a day dedicated to showing students the impact donations made to Harding have.
Jordan Roddenberry, young alumni associate and Harding alumna, was the primary event planner and said the goal of Say Thanks Day is two-fold.
“One of them is to educate students about what the donors are doing for them and the other one is to obviously thank the donors,” Roddenberry said. “So the donors get recognition and the students get education.”
Through the education to students on Say Thanks Day, Generation HU aims to spread the message that students only pay two-thirds the cost of attendance due to the financial support from donors.
The day consisted of a variety of activities, which included writing thank you notes to donors, photos with a life-size cutout of President Bruce McLarty, signing a “thank you” banner, buying Say Thanks Day T-shirts, entering a guessing contest, and making personal phone calls to donors. Harding used social media as well and students entered photos for a contest with the hashtag #SayThanks on Twitter. Various alumni, students, faculty and donors documented their experiences during the day, expressing their personal reason to be thankful or how the day impacted them.
Alumnus, donor and Director of Campus Life Logan Light tweeted, “I’m thankful that @HardingU took a chance on me 10 years ago. I’ve been incredibly blessed working here. #SayThanks” (@loganlight).
Freshman Haley Anzalone tweeted a picture of herself posing with Dr. McLarty and a cut-out of McLarty dressed as a scientist with the caption, “My chemical reaction to my moment with President McLarty! #saythanks” (@haleyanzy). Anzalone’s photo won the #SayThanks photo contest set up by the President’s Council (@hardingpc).
The day concluded with “Donor and a Movie,” which included a campus-wide devotional, followed by a showing of “Frozen” on the front lawn. Director of the Mitchell Center Andrew Baker led the devotional and continued the theme of thankfulness with a group of approximately 500 students and donors.
“He had everyone make a phone call to someone in their life that they were thankful for, and it didn’t have to be a donor — just anyone,” Roddenberry said. “So that night people were still saying ‘thank you,’ and it was great that Dr. Baker was able to translate the message into a devotional.”
Roddenberry said her favorite part of the day was standing in the back during the devotional and seeing students engaged and participating.
She also enjoyed proofreading the thank you cards and noted that the content this year was more in-depth and personalized than that of previous years.
The goal for thank you cards was 2,000 and currently students have written 1,889. However, there are still more coming in so the number will not be finalized until next week.
Roddenberry said the day was made possible because of the planning committee and more than 100 students who volunteered their time and efforts. Through her involvement with the event throughout the years, senior Anna Pentecost said she understands the importance of saying thanks.
“Until Say Thanks Day started, I had no idea how much our donors saved us overall,” Pentecost said. “They need to know that we appreciate what they are doing for us. I really hope that everyone understands how important thanking our donors is and how much it means to them to hear a simple ‘thank you.'”
