We are excited to share that the Emory Together Fund is again accepting applications to help students experiencing financial hardship directly related to COVID-19 this fall. In the first week, the Office of Campus Life received over 60 applications from students who needed assistance with food security, rent and mortgage, and medical expenses.

Thanks to your past support to the Emory Together Fund, financial assistance will be available for these students.

As the pandemic persists and we prepare for the winter months, students need you and our collective community, now more than ever! To amplify this message and your impact, please share why you donated to the Emory Together Fund via Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn and ask a friend to join you in making a difference for a student in need.

We thank you for providing the essential support that will be the difference maker in the lives of Emory students!

Thanks to you—Emory’s #GivingTuesdayNow campaign was a great success. The homepage will continue to tell the story! Check momentum.emory.edu to see the total number of donors, which shows the ever-increasing strength and generosity of our community.

Thanks to you—Emory will continue to help members of our community and advance life-saving research. By standing together with thousands of other donors, you are helping fight this pandemic.  

Thanks to you—Emory continues to deliver more than 9,000 meals a week to keep frontline health care heroes energized and fed. We’ve delivered more than 40,000 meals in Atlanta to date.

Thanks to you—Emory is making progress in the fight to end COVID-19. This recent news about Emory’s remdesivir trial—has been hailed by Anthony Fauci, MD, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) as a gamechanger in the quest for new treatment.

Your gift is helping fund the way forward.

Emory thanks you.

You are part of Emory’s efforts in leading the fight against COVID-19. #GivingTuesdayNow is a new global day of giving and unity that will take place on May 5 as an emergency response to the unprecedented need caused by the novel coronavirus.

You have already contributed to the Emory Together Fund (THANK YOU!) so now we ask you to take the next step of amplifying your impact. Energize your family, friends, and colleagues via email, text, or social media—or give them a call—inviting them to join you in taking an active step to fight the pandemic.

Two ways you can help:

1. Use the GivingTuesdayNow social toolkit for messaging suggestions and images.

2. Sign up as a volunteer fundraising ambassador. You will have a personalized link to track who makes a gift as a result of your efforts. Your ambassador dashboard also gives you access to additional peer-to-peer messaging ideas and images.

Use the links below to sign up as a fundraising ambassador for the causes you care about:

Emory Together Fund- supporting emergency relief for Emory University students, faculty, and staff

Feed the Frontline- providing meals to our frontline health care workers in Atlanta

Emory COVID-19 Impact Fund- supporting Emory’s health care research and patient needs

DRIVE to end COVID-19- supporting Drug Innovation Ventures at Emory’s research for a coronavirus cure

Healthcare Employee Hardship Fund- providing financial assistance for Emory Healthcare employees

Public Health Preparedness and Research Fund- supporting research for pandemic preparedness

By promoting #GivingTuesdayNow and #EmoryTogether, you are helping to fight the pandemic. Thank you!

Aaron Jordan 20C, president of the Residence Hall Association, recorded this special thank you message for you below.

Keep in mind that, unlike many other crowdfunding sites, Emory’s Momentum platform does not take a cut of the proceeds.

This means 100% of your gift has gone to address the needs of students, faculty, and staff who are experiencing financial challenges as a direct result of COVID-19.  

Thank you for providing peace of mind to the Emory community in these uncertain times. Amplify your gift and help unlock the $50,000 match by encouraging your Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn networks to support the Emory Together Fund.

Thank you for helping members of the Emory community with your gift to the Emory Together Fund.

When news broke that Emory’s campus was shutting down in an effort to curb the COVID-19 pandemic, assistant professor David Civitello and the 10 undergraduate students in his coastal biology class stood on the beach of Sapelo Island, on a spring break field trip to study the barrier island’s unique ecosystem.

“It was extraordinary,” recalls Dr. Civitello. “On the same day when one of my students experienced the joy of the beach for the first time, they were now facing an anxious future.”

Even for a professor with expertise in the study of epidemics in wildlife and humans—who last year wrote about ways in which the U.S. and China should collaborate to mitigate such catastrophes—this unprecedented announcement unleashed worry, followed by many questions:

• How was the student without financial support supposed to get home?
• Who can cover one student’s moving expenses?
• What would happen to the student who counts on their work-study income for food, rent, and living expenses?
• Would the international student be expected (or even permitted) to travel home? 
• What about the student whose parents were out of the country and unable to return home?

Fortunately, you were there to help answer these questions with your gift to the Emory Together Fund to help address the needs of students, and to allow faculty and staff to overcome difficulties, like those presented by COVID-19.

To date, the Emory Together Fund has helped fulfill the needs of nearly 1,000 students, including:

• A first-generation Emory College junior who received $500 for rent and groceries because the restaurant where she works drastically cut hours
• An Emory College senior who requested assistance to help purchase a Wi-Fi package at home so that she can actively participate in her online learning experience
• An Emory College senior who received a $500 award to help with the expense associated with moving, since he was being asked to move off campus
• An Oxford College student who needed help with living and moving expenses since they lost their on-campus job
• A School of Nursing student, who could not go to campus to gather her belongings for fear of exposing elderly family members upon returning home, needed financial assistance for packing and shipping items

The majority of awards have been less than $1,000, with some as low as $50—but every amount means something to those seeking assistance from this fund.

We are currently addressing 3,000 additional claims to this fund, and requests continue to arrive. Your generosity has made all the difference, and we look forward to telling you more about the students you are helping in our next status report.

To amplify this message and your impact, please share why you donated to the Emory Together Fund via Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.