All monies raised during the State College Santa Crawl go to the Pat Boland Memorial Internship Award, a fund set up at Penn State to aid Penn State College of Communications students when they go out on internships.
Pat was a long-time radio news and sports reporter in State College who lost his life to cancer in 2011. Despite enduring a long struggle with the disease, Pat never ceased to have a bright positive outlook on life. He participated in several of our early Santa Crawls so when we decided to leverage our growth toward a good cause, Pat’s fund seemed like a logical choice.
We implemented the wristband cover charge approach two years ago and it has been an overwhelming success. In two years, we’ve raised almost $6000 for the Boland Fund. We were one of the very first contributors to the fund and our initial contribution helped kick start some other fund raising efforts during 2012. Jabco-Maggi Mitsubishi donated a portion of their sales during the month of August. Forever Broadcasting held a mini-golf tournament and memorabilia auction that raised over $10,000 in September. What sets the Santa Crawl apart though is that we are, at least to date, the only annual event contributing to the Boland Fund. We pledge our continued support to the charity.
We were particularly pleased that the $3700 we raised last year was enough to drive the Boland Fund above the $20,000 clip level to formally make it an endowed fund. That number is key because it allows the fund to start awarding grants to worthy students.
Pass the word to your friends and encourage them to come out and support this worthy cause – and have a pretty fun time while doing so.
