Rec Sports invites Aggies everywhere to “Play it Forward” on Wednesday, Nov. 19 for its first-ever Giving Day. The event will give supporters of Rec Sports a chance to invest in the well-being of current and future students through the Rec Sports Excellence Fund. Donations will support facilities, operations, student scholarships and the countless programs that make the department a home for thousands.

For Sport Clubs program assistant and supervisor Morgan Ponton ’26, that support has already made a tangible difference. Last year, she was selected as a recipient of a Rec Sports scholarship, made possible entirely through donor support. 

“It was really rewarding,” she said. “It showed that the Rec recognized both me as a student and as an employee, and that someone outside of just my supervisors saw my hard work and decided it deserves some recognition.”

The scholarship also made a practical, lasting impact. With tuition pressures eased, Ponton said she was able to fully invest in opportunities that helped her grow, from serving on the Rec Sports Advisory Committee to participating in professional staff search committees and taking on more responsibility in her job.

“My scholarship impacted me by just really taking some of the weight off,” she said. “With how expensive everything is, it has really allowed me to just focus on school and work and being a student.”

That kind of impact is why Giving Day matters.

“Rec Sports is a home to so many students, whether you work out, whether you’re a member of a sport club, whether you play intramural sports, [or] support outdoor adventures,” she said. “Rec Sports touches so many students on campus and employs so many students that it just really is important for students and former students to give back, so we can continue to do the great things Rec Sports already does.”

For Haylie Zavodny ’15, assistant director of development and sponsorships, this Giving Day marks the start of something Rec Sports has never done before: a department-wide opportunity for the Aggie community to give back directly to the programs that shaped their college experience.

“This is our inaugural year of starting Rec Sports Giving Day,” Zavodny said. “Our idea to do a Giving Day was that we see a lot of opportunity around campus to give back to the things you really care about. And we know that there are a lot of students that we are impacting here at Rec Sports, so many stories that have been told. And we wanted to give people who had such an amazing experience at Rec Sports the opportunity to give back to students.”

Planning the event meant studying successful Giving Days across campus and at other universities, identifying best practices in marketing and donor engagement and determining how to tailor the event to Rec Sports’ unique identity. A top priority was to keep it broad, flexible and focused on the entire department rather than a single project.

“We aren’t looking for one specific project to fund,” Zavodny said. “We want to be able to help any programs that need it – improving programs, providing equipment, having updates to facilities where that’s needed and student scholarships whenever possible.”

While Rec Sports is partially supported by a student fee, many programs and facility improvements are not.

“Our main goal is that we want to make sure that we can keep the cost to students as low as possible,” Zavodny said. “Some of our programs aren’t funded by student fees, and for that, we need additional funding so we can still have those programs, and we can make those updates without having to raise student fees.”

The Excellence Fund, though long established, hasn’t historically received consistent traffic. Giving Day aims to change that by empowering donors to collectively make a significant impact.

“If a lot of people who really care about making that impact get together and make these smaller gifts, they are still able to make a larger impact on students that are here,” Zavodny said. “We’re hoping to get several new donors that really care about what we’re doing here and the way that we’re trying to impact students. So these gifts that are going into Giving Day now will be able to be used for current students, for current projects.”

This year’s theme, Play it Forward, captures what Zavodny believes sets Rec Sports apart.

“‘Play it Forward’  is our fun play on ‘pay it forward,’” she said. “We take ourselves seriously, but also acknowledge it’s a lot of fun. We want people who have experienced great things here at Rec Sports, who’ve made lasting relationships and friendships, and taken what they’ve learned here into their career and their lives to have the opportunity to create that for other students.”

As Rec Sports prepares for its first Giving Day, organizers hope to see students, former employees, sport club athletes, intramural regulars and anyone whose story runs through the Rec supporting their efforts.

“I’m really hoping to see people who have been impacted by Rec Sports come together and give back,” Zavodny said. “People from all different areas, maybe people who didn’t even work at Rec Sports but came here every day or really enjoyed using our facilities, that they’ll give back to something that they really have cared about and has really impacted their life.”

Written by: Claire Frazier