Minium: ODU Fans Are Asked To 'Round Up' Concessions Purchases for Student-Athlete Scholarships
A program that allows fans to round up their concessions purchases to the nearest dollar to provide funding for the Old Dominion Athletic Foundation begins full bore at Saturday's football game at home against Liberty.
By Harry Minium
NORFOLK, Va. – As you enter S.B. Ballard Stadium Saturday for Old Dominion’s football game against Liberty, if you’re a typical fan, you’ll likely stop at a concession stand before heading to your seat.
After you order food and drink, and pull out your credit card to pay, you’ll experience something you perhaps haven’t yet at ODU. You’ll be asked to “round up” your bill to an even number.
If you’ve never done it, it’s a relatively painless thing to say yes. If your bill is $14.68, it will round up to $15.
That’s an additional 32 cents, which won’t make any difference to your financial future, but could, along with the donations of others, make a huge difference to Old Dominion student-athletes.
Every penny donated will go toward funding scholarships for ODU athletes.
“Every little bit helps,” said Jena Virga, who heads the Old Dominion Athletic Foundation, the University’s athletics fund-raising organization.
“We’re hoping that eventually this will create a substantial amount of scholarship money.”
Asking fans to round up was an idea first suggested earlier this year by Dr. Wood Selig, ODU’s director of athletics. Rounding up has become a familiar thing at checkout lines at department stores, grocery stores and even some restaurants.
Walmart, for instance, asks customers to round up their purchase to the next dollar and gives them the chance to donate to the non-profit of their choice.
At Dr. Selig’s behest, Virga and others approached Janet McLaughlin of Aramark Food Services, which handles virtually all food services at ODU, and a pilot program was inaugurated at women’s soccer games.
Hundreds of women’s soccer fans agreed to round up their bills.
It was also available at ODU’s first home football game three weeks ago against North Carolina Central and nearly 2,500 fans agreed to round up their bills.
Virga knows that such round-up campaigns can become lucrative. She was part of a successful round up fundraising campaign when she worked at the Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters. CHKD worked with Farm Fresh, then the dominant food store in the region, and raised tens of millions of dollars for childhood cancer.
ODU won’t raise tens of millions of dollars but is hoping for tens of thousands dollars. And every dime raised will go exclusively to fund scholarships for athletes, not for salaries, capital projects or NIL deals.
“It’s become a habit for so many people to say, yes, and round up, their bills for non-profits,” Virga said. “So why not ODU student-athlete scholarships?
“Our fans obviously love our student-athletes. This gives our fans another way to support them.”
The round up campaign will take place at all future ODU athletics events, from football and men’s and women’s basketball to volleyball and field hockey.
If the program is successful, Virga hopes it expands across campus.
“We would love to see this in other areas on campus,” she said. “At our bookstore, for the retailers along Monarch Way. Something like this can start out small, but when it becomes a habit, can create a lot of support.
“We hope this grows into something much bigger.”
Minium is ODU’s senior executive writer. Contact him at hminium@odu.edu or follow him on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram