The first Seward County Community College/ Area Technical School phonathon in 15 years logged $33,776 in pledges, which exceeded the expectations of a $20,000 goal. “I was really excited to see the original goal of $20,000 was met within two days. Then we set another goal at $30,000 and surpassed that,” director of development Tammy Doll said. The event took place April 7-15 and encouraged faculty and student participants to compete for prizes that were awarded in categories of the most pledges, highest single pledge and most money pledged, along with a $500 prize for the club with the highest amount pledged. “I was excited to see the number of students participating, and they seemed to be having fun while raising money for college scholarships,” Dean of Student Services Celeste Donovan said. The phonathon was set up in two different rooms, a preparation room and the live room where all the calls were made. Participants would file into the preparation room where refreshments were served and were enlightened on the task ahead. After half an hour, the group would then go to the phone room where they took their places and began calling alumni, family or friends for pledges. Layne Greeson and Melissa House were the top two award winners in the phonathon, with Greeson winning a 32-inch flat screen TV for raising $2,150 in pledges, while House won an iPod Touch for having the most pledges, at 43. “The phonathon was actually not bad at all,” Greeson said. “Going in, I figured it wasn’t going to be very fun calling people and asking for money, but the people I contacted were very friendly and I had some good conversations with them. The prizes were an extra motivation as well. Not just the individual prizes, though, the $500 to the winning club was baseball’s main incentive to do so well. I went into the phonathon not expecting to win any individual prizes at all, just to help contribute to winning the $500 for baseball.” The top five faculty or staff members, Galen McSpadden, Karen Kuharic, Dale Reed, Sherry Farrell and Nancy Bansemer, all received prizes that will be given out at the next SCCC/ATS staff meeting. Prizes include a day off for first place, half a day off for second, one month VIP parking for third place, and Wal-Mart gift cards for fourth and fifth places. The baseball team took the $500 prize in the group competition by gathering $7,375 in pledges. Five awards for the top students of the phonathon, along with two digital cameras to be awarded, will be given out at the second annual Dorm Palooza which will be May 5 at the Student Living Center courtyard. All college students are welcome to attend the event which will have games, music and food.