Last Tuesday, Whitworth hosted “A Day of Giving.” The event was a 24-hour fundraising campaign that ran April 25-26. Faculty, staff, administrators and students made donations to help fund scholarships, athletics and academics.
The student-run organization Generation Action also hosted a Day of Giving event. They called it “Planned Parenthood Day of Giving.”
President of Generation Action, junior Margot Spindola was the secretary of the event.
“We created this event as a sign of solidarity,” Spindola said.
Spindola wanted the event to be a vocal sign of protest, she said. She posted the event on Facebook and said about 60 people donated to the local Planned Parenthood organization.
Another member of Generation Action, junior Sonia Klouse, said the Facebook page was an alternative to giving donations if anyone disagreed with the decision to separate from Planned Parenthood.
“For people who wanted to show their distaste in this decision, because Whitworth seems to listen more to money than to student opinion, we thought offering an alternative opinion for donations would allow people to voice their support for Planned Parenthood and their dissatisfaction for [President] Beck Taylor and the administration,” Klouse said.
Klouse said it was largely alumni who donated to Planned Parenthood. She said it’s the same idea as Whitworth’s 24-hours of giving, but you can continue to give after that 24 hours.
“We don’t have a number on how much money was raised or not,” Klouse said. “We also decided if people wanted to be extra cheeky they could make a donation in Beck’s name or in behalf of a board of trustees member.
Devon Clements, another member of Generation Action, does not want to give up on partnering with Planned Parenthood.
After hearing Taylor’s dialogue during the community forum, some members of Generation Action wanted to do more. Making the Facebook page required little effort, resulting in a step forward, Clements said.
“If the student concerns aren’t going to be enough to warrant any kind of reaction or attempt to further any kind of dialogue, then perhaps making a financial statement on the day of giving for Planned Parenthood instead of Whitworth might help make a statement,” Clements said. “It’s not so much of an act of hostile protest, but more of a sit-down protest.”
The group invited people to the Facebook page when they thought would participate in the event. They had some faculty and staff who posted on the page saying congrats and to keep working towards their goals, Clements said.
“It was huge for us to see established faculty and staff who were supporting us, so that was really great,” Clements said.
The minimum donation was $5 and with about 60 people donating, Generation Actioncontributed to the $300 that was donated to Planned Parenthood by creating the Facebook page.
“This was not an ‘in your face,’ kind of thing, but more along the lines of let’s show that there is still a large community who still wants to see this affiliation happen,” Clements said.
