The Our Three Winners Fund has reached its $170,000 goal since its creation in February and will start helping NC State students with financial assistance as early as next semester.
Beta Alpha Psi, NC State Bookstores and the Office of International Affairs worked together on different fundraisers for the Our Three Winners fund.
The Beta Alpha Psi chapter in the Poole College of Management hosted a pie-a-professor toss on the Brickyard Wednesday. The pie toss alone raised about $1,000, according to Gina Miani, president of Beta Alpha Psi and a senior studying accounting.
“We didn’t expect it to be that successful, but obviously students rallied around a great cause,” Miani said.
The Office of International Affairs and NC State Bookstores created a line of “Wolfpack World” products that celebrate diversity through T-shirts and coffee mugs that feature the phrases “Think and Do” and “Wolfpack” in different languages. The proceeds from the products will go toward the scholarship. The T-Shirts and mugs are being sold for $10 each.
A team from University Communications and Campus Enterprises designed the mugs and Fernanda Duarte, a doctoral student studying communication rhetoric and digital media, designed the T-shirts.
“NC State has more than 5,500 international students and scholars from over 120 different countries,” Duarte said. “My intention was to call attention to the plurality of nationalities, heritages and origins that create such rich diversity on campus and remind us all of the unity of the Pack that brings us together.”
Poole College of Management Dean Ira Weiss donated $1,000 on Beta Alpha Psi’s behalf and the organization raised another $1,000 through raffle ticket sales. In total, Beta Alpha Psi raised $3,220 for the fund.
Private donations made up the rest of the funding for the scholarship fund.
NC State started the Our Three Winners Fund on Feb. 19 with an endowment of $60,000. The fund was started to honor the lives of Deah Barakat, Yusor Abu-Salha and Razan Abu-Salha, who were shot and killed on Feb. 10 in their home one mile away from the campus of UNC-Chapel Hill. Barakat and his wife Yusor both graduated from NC State. Barakat finished his studies at NC State in 2013 and was a second-year dental student at UNC-CH. Yusor had just graduated from NC State in December and was planning to begin her studies in August. Razan was a first-year student studying environmental architecture
Three students will receive an Our Three Winners scholarship of at least $2,000 beginning in the 2015-2016 academic year.
“Through the name of the scholarship people will ask what is the fund about, what is Our Three Winners about,” Miani said. “A new generation of students might not know about it. I hope it shows their legacy because it was a tragedy of what happened to three amazing people. Hopefully it will raise awareness about tolerance.”
Donations can be made at ccfn.ncsu.edu/advancement-services/giving.
“The three students were Americans and were devoted to global philanthropic efforts,” said Michael Williams, a freshman studying engineering. “Thanks to this scholarship, students who had the same goals as them will be able to continue on.”
Chancellor Randy Woodson announced the plan to create the scholarship endowment in February at an event alongside members of both the Barakat and Abu-Salha families.
“Our hope is that this scholarship fund will forever honor the memories of three avid —and they were avid— members of the Wolfpack family, while also serving as a beacon to the campus community of the importance of diversity, acceptance, support and inclusion,” Woodson said at the event on Feb. 20.
