Service, one of Tarleton State University’s core values, was embodied by the student body during Tarleton’s annual Week of Service. During this week, students had the opportunity to participate in three different service events; Round Up, Day of Giving and Service Day.

Round Up allows students, faculty, staff and members of the community to work together to help the Stephenville community. The Day of Giving gives people the opportunity to donate gifts of any size to a specified or unspecified college, organization or program in need. Service Day allows Tarleton student volunteers to use what they have learned class in order to serve the community.

“Part of service is the giving of treasure. As fundraisers, we often talk about the giving of time, talent, and treasure,” Jennifer Hawthorne, Director of Development, said. “Round Up is that giving of time, Day of Service is truly the giving of talent because it’s what [students] are learning and hope to do as a career path and the Day of Giving is that giving of treasure that allows us to provide things for our students.”

According to Hawthorne, contributions to this year’s Day of Giving surpassed last year’s by approximately $84,000. So far, during this year’s Service Week Tarleton received about $22,541.75 with numbers still coming in. Hawthorne stated that Tarleton contributions came from many different sources and not all just from the Stephenville and Tarleton area. Donors were students, faculty, staff, alumni,
as well as local business from all over; including some from Granbury and Fort Worth.

The contributions and donations Tarleton receives are given to a broad spectrum of university and student programs, including athletics, student life and individual colleges and departments. Overall, over 128 different programs will endowed in some part by these contributions.

“Gifts ranged everywhere from $5 to a $26,520 check from the First National Bank in Granbury. [Day of Giving] really was about what different organizations can do, and that all adds up to really lovely day,” Hawthorne said.

Hawthorne noted that the large contribution from the First National Bank has set up a $25,000 scholarship fund that will help future students with tuition costs. She went on to say that since it takes over a year for that money to develop into lasting funds to support a continual scholarship revenue, the bank also gifted the other $1520 to be used as a scholarship during the upcoming fall semester.

Donation can still be made online through tarleton.edu/giving with the same options available during the Day of Giving, Hawthorne says. Choices are broken up into different categories, from student life to an unrestricted fund. She explained that the unrestricted fund goes to the President’s Circle, which funds many programs on campus that otherwise may not be funded or are underfunded by the university.

According to Dr. Denae Dorris, Director for the Center of Academic Outreach and Engagement, Service Day was equally a success.

“Through exercising Tarleton’s core value of service on Service Day, students applied course content while building professional networks, increased their marketability, strengthened their social skills and found meaningful ways to share their academic talents and interests,” she said.

With final numbers still rolling in, there were over 3,100 students that participated in more than 118 projects.

Even though the numbers show a slight drop in participation, Dorris said that they were focused on academic connections rather than more general service project compared to last year.

Students from all over campus were able to apply their knowledge to give back to the people of the community. Students participated in projects ranging from free income tax assistance from students of the College of Business Administration in Fort Worth to rural water testing from those in the College of Science and Technology.

Hawthorne urges volunteers to spread the word when contributing using #TarletonGives, which she says will be used in the future, not only for the Day of Giving, but for all other service events.