Fresno State student-athletes received a boost toward their educational costs as the Bulldog Foundation (BDF) announced on Monday that 55 volunteers raised $108,450 in just nine days as part of the Bulldog Foundation Volunteer Membership Drive, according to a Fresno State Athletics news release.
During the nine-day effort, the group added 304 new members to the annual athletic scholarship fund during the first drive since 2005.
“To surpass the $100,000 mark in the Bulldog Foundation Volunteer Membership Drive is a credit to our 55 volunteers,” said Tim Collins, senior associate athletics director for development. “Even more impressive is the 304 new BDF members. Engaging new donors is a major priority for our foundation.”
Tom Miller, who brought in 37 new BDF members, earned top volunteer honors. Carl Ueland also took home honors for raising the most dollars during the drive. “The Green V Squad,” captained by Ed Dunkel, captured the team competition.
In 2018, the BDF had just under 2,600 members, which ranked fifth in the Mountain West. By comparison, Boise State sits in first in total members to its annual athletics scholarship fund with more than 5,000 donors.
The BDF has now raised over $3.5 million in scholarship support in the 2019 calendar year, following the volunteer portion of the membership drive. All BDF memberships are directly applied toward Fresno State Athletics’ $7.5 million annual scholarship bill.
The donation should help the university somewhat as the Fresno Bee reported in a February article that the scholarship fund was reaching a “critical point,” also stating that, “University and athletic department officials said donations must double this year to stabilize the Bulldog Foundation.”
“There’s not one bullet that will solve our problem. It’s not like you can go and get a shot and you’re going to cure your ails,” said athletic director Terry Tumey in the Bee article. “You have to do a lot of things to meet the demand, and it’s going to take a lot of hard work and time.”
