StFX’s Annual Giving Program is celebrating its many alumni donors, who provide much-needed support and are so important to StFX and its students. Here we meet, Erin MacEachern, who has been supporting StFX since her graduation in 2011.
For more information on Annual Giving or to donate, please go online www.stfx.ca/annualgiving or call the Annual Giving Office at 1-888-222-0227.
Erin MacEachern ’11: “If you had a good experience, a connection, or gained something from the university, I think people should give back.”
Every year since she graduated with a science degree from StFX in 2011, Erin MacEachern, originally from Maitland, NS, has donated to the university’s Annual Giving Program. As a former student ambassador with the program, Mrs. MacEachern says she knows firsthand how important it is to support Annual Giving.
“Being one of the callers, I was able to see that not all donations were massive amounts. There’s a misconception that you have to make a large donation to make a difference. I saw the difference that $20 or $25 made. I knew it was appreciated and celebrated, just as much as the larger ones. I really had no excuse not to donate,” says Mrs. MacEachern who is now a senior advisor of human resources and payroll, working remotely for a telecommunications company based in the Northwest Territories.
Mrs. MacEachern says another thing she really likes about Annual Giving is that your money can be directed to a program or department that resonates with you. She usually directs her funds to the Tramble Centre for Accessible Learning. “Donations and sharing your income are really personal,” she says. “If you had a good experience, a connection, or gained something from the university, I think people should give back as it helps to make the campus and university programs better and more accessible for future students.”
Tuition and government grants alone can’t provide all that is needed, she says. Donations really make a difference. She and her husband Michael, who met at StFX, decided when something is important to them, they want to support it. StFX, she says, provided a safe learning environment for a young adult. “It felt like a nice stepping stone into adulthood.”
