Canine Educators Help Lift Spirits and Support on Purdue Day of Giving

Friday, May 3, 2024

a group of students interacts with a dog — Purdue Veterinary Medicine’s Canine Educators quickly commanded the attention of passersby on the Memorial Mall as the dogs and their care team arrived for “Pet-a-Pup” during the Purdue Day of Giving April 24.

You could say the 2024 Purdue Day of Giving, which goes by “PDoG” for short, truly was a “dog’s day” – in a good way – for the Purdue University College of Veterinary Medicine. The 24-hour online and social media-driven fundraising event on April 24 attracted record, world-wide giving from Boilermakers, including Purdue Veterinary Medicine alumni, friends, faculty and staff. As part of the on-campus festivities, the PVM Canine Educators and their care team took center stage, so to speak, on Purdue’s Memorial Mall by Stewart Center, offering passersby the opportunity to “Pet-a-Pup” to brighten their day!

The contented and engaging Beagles and Labrador Retrievers on the Canine Educators’ team helped energize giving to the college as they greeted people crossing the Memorial Mall. By the end of the 2024 Purdue Day of Giving, the college had received more than $3 million in new gifts and funding commitments. Other PDoG highlights for the college included:

A top ten finish on the PDoG Leaderboard for total dollars raised, which put the college in sixth place overall
A eighth-place finish on the “Meet the Challenge” PDoG Leaderboard, representing a 14% increase in overall donor participation compared to 2023
A total of 263 unique gifts received from PVM donors

“It was inspiring to see so many members of the PVM community taking time out of their busy schedules to celebrate the day or offer support while stopping by the Advancement Office in Lynn Hall or hanging out with the Canine Educators on Memorial Mall April 24,” said Mackenzie Martin, PVM director of client development, who helped coordinate Day of Giving details for the college. “PVM’s success that day in boosting the number of gifts contributed compared to last year’s Day of Giving resulted in the college receiving more than $4,000 in bonus funds!”

It also was a historic fundraising day for Purdue University, with a record 32,054 gifts contributed in the 24-hour period, totaling $76.5 million. Purdue Day of Giving encompasses all of the university’s campuses — West Lafayette, Purdue Fort Wayne and Purdue Northwest — as well as Purdue Global. In addition to the money raised from donors, participating programs competed for cash prizes through more than 30 different challenges. Click here to view a PDoG recap that includes access to the leaderboards showing top finishers for the various Purdue Day of Giving challenges.

“As we celebrate the culmination of yet another remarkable Purdue Day of Giving, we are ever grateful for the extraordinary generosity of Boilermakers around the globe,” Purdue President Mung Chiang said. With the benefit of this year’s record-breaking giving level, the Purdue Day of Giving since its launch in 2014 has raised a cumulative total of $497 million.