Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, Giving Tuesday…

Most of you are probably familiar with the first three days mentioned above, but you may not be aware of Giving Tuesday. Giving Tuesday was created in 2012 as a global day of giving, focusing on holiday and end-of-year generosity. It is celebrated on the Tuesday following Thanksgiving and has benefited hundreds of charities since its inception.

In 2018, the Foundry Educational Foundation (FEF) celebrated Giving Tuesday by encouraging all friends and alumni from FEF certified and affiliated schools to make a gift to FEF benefiting their favorite college or university. FEF, whose mission is to bring new, technically trained engineering talent to the metalcasting industry, has been in existence since 1947. FEF’s focus is to make sure there are colleges and universities across North America that continue to train young people in the area of metalcasting—young people who will be able to maintain the high-quality tradition of foundries and suppliers.

In order to make Giving Tuesday a little more fun, FEF used competition between schools as an incentive for giving – the school with the highest percent of participants (compared to graduates in the FEF database), was the “winner.” In reality, all of the schools won as more than $24,000 was donated on that one day.

These Giving Tuesday funds will be directed toward student scholarships to help FEF meet the ever-increasing demand, by industry, for technical talent.

Virginia Tech had the highest percent of participation (21%) and was crowned the victor. The University of Northern Iowa was a close second (18%). The program at Virginia Tech, commonly known as VT FIRE (Foundry Institute for Research and Education), is one of the most active programs in the FEF network of schools and is led by Alan Druschitz, FEF Key Professor since 2009 and an FEF alumnus. Students and alumni regularly host Open House foundry events, visit local schools and community events demonstrating metalcasting with the Foundry-in-a-Box, and attend many AFS Chapter meetings.

“And thank you to all who participated in the 2018 Giving Tuesday,” FEF said in a news release. “If you missed 2018, mark your calendar for the next Giving Tuesday celebration – December 3, 2019.”

Click here to see this story as it appears in the February 2019 issue of Modern Casting