What exactly is Notre Dame Day, and how does it affect you?
‘The way you spend your money says a lot about a person’
Most of my peers have a negative view of Notre Dame Day, and I used to be one of them.
To many students, Notre Dame Day is just another way for the university to get money from us to pour into the clubs or projects that we all know and hear about all the time (i.e. Campus Crossroads). However, after speaking with the Notre Dame Day Director, I came to realize that there was a lot more to Notre Dame Day than I had realized or even cared to pay attention to.
So what exactly is Notre Dame Day and how does it affect you?
Three years ago, in April of 2014, Notre Dame Day began. The purpose of Notre Dame Day was to help student groups who, when tasked with fundraising on their own, had miserably failed (not for lack of effort, but more a lack of effectiveness) and to provide a location for donors to know where their money was going.
While a certain amount of money is required to be raised every year, some of that money has to be undesignated, but who is willing to donate when they don’t know where their money is going? After chatting with officials from Columbia, our own team formed what is now Notre Dame Day.
The premise is that anyone, anywhere can donate $10 to any club, student organization, team, anything. There is a $1 million pot that is raised by Notre Dame Day Aaron Wall and his team.
When you donate $10, you also get five votes to decide how that $1 million gets split up. Every $10 after your initial donation counts as one more vote. The votes do not necessarily have to go to the group that you donated the $10 to.
Last year, every vote was worth approximately $14.83, which means that the $10 that any one person donated was actually worth $84.15! A great example of how Notre Dame Day makes a difference is Engineers Without Borders – they went from raising $500 on their own for a well that they wanted built, to over $12,000.
In 2015, Notre Dame broke the collegiate record for gifts given, with 16,000 gifts given. More than half of these gifts went residence halls and student groups. (And here I thought that all of this was for more of the University’s projects).
Every year, there are people interviewed and broadcasted for ND Day. The broadcast is to celebrate people and interesting stories, not to promote student groups.
Just a few of the incredible people and performances included this year are Lou Holtz, David Roth (an alum preparing to walk across America), the Halftimes (student a capella), a live ROTC workout, Father Tim Scully and Father Lou Delfra (from ACE) and so many more. This can all be watched from their YouTube channel starting at 6:42 p.m. EST on Sunday April 24. Voting starts Monday April 18th.
Notre Dame Day is a great way for you to get money for clubs, organizations, and departments that you care about. So, donate $10, vote for what you care about and make a difference!