ABOVE PHOTO: Students Braeden Lange and Maria Winkelman, along with Blaze, the Blue Devil mascot, thank those who supported UW-Stout on Giving Day. The students work for Blue Devil Productions in the Involvement Center on campus.
The Stout University Foundation set its sights high for the fifth annual Giving Day at University of Wisconsin-Stout.
With a goal of $250,000 — $100,000 more than the previous year’s goal — the Foundation asked members of the university community to step up to support Wisconsin’s Polytechnic University.
They did, with 802 gifts and pledges totaling $370,289 on Giving Day, Nov. 28, and soon after.
“This year’s Giving Day triumph at Stout was nothing short of spectacular,” said Jocelyn Matheny, the Foundation’s annual giving officer. “It was a vibrant tapestry of alumni, employees, friends and corporate partners joining forces in a collective celebration of generosity.”
UW-Stout’s Giving Day, also called Stout Gives Back, took place on the National Day of Giving that is celebrated annually on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving.
Matheny thanked the many donors, more than half of whom were alumni, for “making a lasting impact.” Gifts still can be made online or by contacting the Foundation.
The largest gift of the day was $25,000 by OEM Fabricators of Woodville for the Automation Advancement Fund. It will be used to support the future of manufacturing in related programs at UW-Stout, including robots, artificial intelligence, cloud computing and analytics.
OEM also is supporting manufacturing automation with a gift of $30,000 for a new scholarship, which is not part of the Giving Day total. It will help students who are majoring in engineering and the new automation leadership program at UW-Stout.
The OEM gifts were coordinated through OEM President Kelly Ingli.
OEM’s Automation Advancement Fund was one of seven challenge gifts on Giving Day.
