Money raised will improve access to education for students via bursaries, urgent aid, innovative programming and cutting-edge instructional equipment.
While launch events were held Oct. 5 at NSCC campuses for the public phase of the campaign, Burridge (which includes the college’s learning centre in Digby) actually began its fundraising effort this past winter and was the first of the college’s campuses to do so.
“The way the college decided to do it is they chose one campus to be the first out of the gate, so we started in February,” said Burridge principal Mary Thompson.
The overall target for the Make Way initiative, which began two years ago, is $25 million and the college has surpassed the $21-million mark in money raised or pledged.
Burridge’s fundraising goal is $350,000 and, thanks to some big donations, they already were almost halfway there as of Oct. 5. The latest major contribution -- $50,000 from Web.com – was announced that morning by Karen Churchill, vice-president of operations with Web.com and chair of the Burridge Make Way campaign team.
Addressing a gathering of students, staff and guests in the Burridge gymnasium, Churchill noted that Web.com, which now employs about 600 people at three Nova Scotia sites – Yarmouth, Halifax and New Glasgow – began here in 2001 with a dozen employees, most of them local NSCC graduates.
“NSCC is a great partner with Web.com and our community,” Churchill said.
Burridge also has received a $75,000 contribution from Mike Trask in the name of the Trask family.
Money raised will remain in the local area and be invested in campus-specific priorities, the NSCC says.
Thompson said the NSCC Foundation, which helps students in need and works to improve access to education, is supported by the college, “so there’s no administration fee. Any money that we raise goes to students.”
The NSCC’s Make Way campaign began in 2015 with a $4.6-million donation from the Joyce Family Foundation. Recently, members of the Sobey family committed $6.5 million, pushing the total pledged to date past $21 million.
In an NSCC release, Don Bureaux, the college’s president, said the campaign has been “garnering tremendous response from people who care deeply about helping students and creating a better province for everyone.”
