Piggy Banks for Collecting Change

Decorated paper mache piggy banks lined a table on the Taggart Student Center patio earlier this week.

The Aggies for Change club held the College Competition event, where students were asked to donate their spare change and put it in piggy banks throughout the week.

“We have piggy banks for all eight colleges and students donate to the college they are in or that they want to be in,” said Blake Nemelka, the Aggies for Change student giving chairperson. “That money will be given back to the dean and they decide what to do with the money.”

The donated change goes back to the students in the form of school sponsored trips or is used for student scholarships, according to Nemelka.

“No donation is too small and all of the proceeds will be used for student scholarships in our college,” said Beth Foley, dean of Emma Eccles Jones College of Education and Human Services.

The college that collected the most money will win a trophy called the “philantro-pig” to keep for the next semester until the next College Competition event. Along with the pig trophy, the winning college will also have the donated funds matched by the administration, according to Nemelka.

“We thought, ‘we need to get students involved in this,’ but it’s unfair to ask students to donate a lot because we already pay tuition and fees,” he said. “I don’t think students realize that our tuition really is cheap and it needs to stay that way. The only way it is going to happen is to have donors. In order to have donors later, we need to get students accustomed to donating now, just in small amounts.”

“Most of us have spare change,” said Weston Packard, the marketing chair for Aggies for Change. “The biggest thing we try to do is encourage students to give back to their colleges that give a lot to us.”

“We think Aggies for Change is a great way for faculty, staff and students to give back to the college and get involved in philanthropy, even if in a small way,” Foley said.

The College Competition is not the only event Aggies for Change members raise money for.

“The one other thing we’re in charge of is the senior gift,” Packard said. “We had a booth over in the grad fair collecting donations from the seniors.”

The gift the seniors chose to give to the school is a drinking station to be put near the Quad on campus. According to Utah State University’s website, the water station will include at least one drinking fountain and a water bottle filling feature to encourage health and wellness for students.

For information regarding donations for the senior gift, go to www.usu.edu/seniorgift.