Madeleine Coles
Life Editor
The I Love ISU Scholarship campaign kicked off bright and early on Sept. 1 with a before-hours breakfast and ribbon cutting.
The campaign is spearheaded by the I Love ISU chair Mary Vagner, a former superintendent of School District 25, and her co-chairs Steven Muse and John Azzola.
The breakfast was sponsored by DL Evans bank. According to Branch Manager Molly Swallow, the bank provided the breakfast and the Pocatello Chiefs (ambassadors of the Pocatello-Chubbuck Chamber of Commerce) provided the grills and cooked the food.
“It’s really all a team effort. There [are] many sponsors and volunteers,” Swallow said.
The event was attended by many ISU officials as well as Pocatello and Chubbuck leaders.
At the event, Vagner delivered a speech to kick off the campaign, stressing the impact ISU has on the Pocatello community.
“We as a community are touched by ISU in many ways,” Vagner said in her speech. “We are all volunteers who make this campaign happen, and we believe in higher education for our Idaho students.”
The breakfast was just one of many activities the campaign has planned. The Idaho Falls Calling Campaign begins on Sept. 7 and the Pocatello, American Falls and Blackfoot Calling Campaign begins Sept. 12-15.
According to Vagner, the campaign has added more calling teams and public events in order to reach this year’s goal of $225,000 dollars, an impressive improvement on last year’s $212,520.
Last year the campaign awarded over 200 scholarships and Vagner said the number would be about the same this year.
The I Love ISU Scholarship was formed in 1982 by the Pocatello-Chubbuck Chamber of Commerce to give to Idaho students, and the campaign has become an annual fundraising event that both those at ISU and within the Pocatello community look forward to every year with volunteers reaching out to local businesses and leaders to encourage them to give to and support the scholarship.
Scholarships are awarded to any Idaho student during their freshman year at ISU and continue during their time at ISU.
