This April 6th was our first year participating in the UW's Husky Giving Day, a 24-hour fundraising initiative where all Husky fans and friends of the UW can celebrate and support their favorite causes across the UW.
Your generosity helped support students like Bryce, a current senior majoring in Norwegian and Scandinavian Studies, and minoring in Baltic studies, who said: "Studying within the department has allowed me to get closer to my Norwegian heritage. The Scandinavian department has become like a second family to me, offering help to me throughout learning these wonderful languages. Thank you for the opportunity to study abroad, and study near my family in Norway. As for my future plans, learning Norwegian and Lithuanian will help me use my computer science degree within a wider range of applications.", Kaelyn, a first-year student majoring in Political Science and minoring in Scandinavian Studies and Climate Science, who said: "The Scandinavian Studies department has provided me with the opportunity to learn more about other cultures than my own. I have become much more confident in my language abilities and I am able to communicate with more people across the Scandinavian countries and languages.", and Kristyn, a junior majoring in Scandinavian Studies and minoring in Norwegian, who said: "The Scandinavian Studies department has been the best part of my time at UW so far. It is one of the few departments at the university full of faculty that truly care about who you are as a person as well as your future goals, which has made my college experience so much better than I could have imagined it. They are respectful, helpful, inquisitive, down-to-earth, and the amount of knowledge they have will knock your socks off. Because of my time with them, I am hoping to pursue my graduate studies in Iceland or Sweden and my career goal is to be a medieval Scandinavian archeologist. I could not be more grateful for them and more excited for the future that they helped me plan for myself!"
And these are just some of ways your gifts impact our department -- they truly help support us in so many ways, as we said on our fundraising page: "Your gifts will help our students and faculty keep learning, bring visitors to UW, and send our students and faculty to study and do research in the Nordic and Baltic countries. A gift on Husky Giving Day will help strengthen the connection between the seas -- Baltic and Salish!"
Due to the participation of so many of you, whether it was by sharing social media posts, sending the link to our fundraising page to friends and family, or generously making donations yourselves, we ended Husky Giving Day with 36 donations for our Department, amounting to over $3500! That is a resounding success, and we could not have done it without your support. Thank you so much for supporting our students and faculty, and coming together to form a community with us.
Thank you! Ačiū! Aitäh! Giitu! Kiitos! Paldies! Tack! Tak! Takk!