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

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.

Writer(s): Kevin Doerr | pvmnews@purdue.edu

Recent Stories

PVM Professor Emeritus Jan Hawkins Receives Prestigious Award from ACVS

The American College of Veterinary Surgeons (ACVS) and the ACVS Foundation have announced the recipients of several prestigious awards, and one of the awardees is Purdue Veterinary Medicine Professor Emeritus Jan Hawkins, DVM, DACVS. The ACVS Board of Regents selected Dr. Hawkins as the recipient of the Al and Carolyn Schiller Distinguished Service Award in recognition of his exceptional contributions to ACVS through decades of dedicated volunteer leadership and service.

Retreat brings together Veterinary Technology team members

Members of the Purdue Veterinary Technology Distance Learning (VTDL) Program team recently traveled to Purdue’s West Lafayette campus for an in-person retreat where they could work together and explore new opportunities for teaching, learning, and student success. The two day retreat focused on strengthening collaboration between the program's remote and on-campus teams, and represented a significant milestone for the program.

Annual Purdue Veterinary Conference draws veterinary professionals from across the country for learning and fun

The 2026 edition of the annual Purdue Veterinary Conference attracted attendees from around the U.S. for three days of educational sessions covering an array of topics. With the overall theme of “One Health: Modern Veterinary Medicine,” the conference September 23-26 on the Purdue University campus drew more than 450 veterinarians and veterinary technicians, plus faculty, staff and students. Sessions taught by a total of 65 speakers, including many Purdue Veterinary Medicine clinicians and veterinary technicians/technologists, enabled conference-goers to earn up to 23 continuing education credit hours.

Significant Gift from Jordan Smelski Foundation will fuel Purdue Veterinary Medicine research on deadly brain eating amoeba

A researcher in the Purdue University College of Veterinary Medicine’s Department of Comparative Pathobiology has received a generous gift of more than $100,000 from the Jordan Smelski Foundation for Amoeba Awareness and Mr. Steve Smelski to support research of the deadly amoeba Naegleria fowleri. Christopher Rice, PhD, assistant professor of parasitology and principal investigator of the Rice Research Group, leads a research team seeking to discover and repurpose drugs against primary amoebic meningoencephalitis (PAM), a rare but typically fatal infection caused by Naegleria fowleri.

Purdue veterinary student receives Sir John D. Spurling Scholarship awarded by AKC Humane Fund

The AKC® Humane Fund, Inc.℠ has announced the 2026 recipients of the Sir John D. Spurling Scholarship, celebrating the human-canine bond, and one of the recipients is Purdue veterinary student Tiffany Chang of the Class of 2027. Chang is one of only five students chosen for the scholarships.