The campus Corporate Communication Club is partnering with Valhalla Veterans Services to fundraise for Valhalla’s second annual Fall Ball. The ball will take place Saturday, Nov. 20 at Genetti Manor in Dickson City, PA.
Club members are working to secure gift baskets and raffle items that can be donated for the Nov. 20 event.
Valhalla Veterans Services is a non-profit organization that provides mental health counseling, suicide intervention, and support services to warriors in northeastern Pennsylvania.
The Valhalla Fall Ball celebrates a unique part of military culture known as the "Dining In/Out" -- a formal dining experience that includes dinner, dancing, drinking and the deepest traditions of military culture.
Over the past year, the organization has provided hundreds of hours of individual and group therapy to veterans, service members, police, and EMS workers at no cost to the client. Their organization is 100 percent supported by generous donors, and their mission is to build a community to help warriors restore their honor.
According to Corporate Communications Club Adviser and Program Coordinator Kim Flanders, Ph.D., the club got involved with fundraising for the event by reaching out to the organization’s executive director.
There are 10 students involved in the two committees for the fundraiser: the sponsorship committee and the raffle basket committee. Aside from those 10 that are directly involved with the committees, there are students from Flanders’ classes that are assisting the committees.
These committees are chaired by students and members of the Corporate Communication Club. Molly Morgan, who serves as the chair for the sponsorship committee, got involved with the fundraiser because it is a small way of paying back those who have fought for her.
“While volunteering for Valhalla Veterans Services, I discovered a newfound interest in helping phenomenal organizations like theirs,” Morgan remarked. “I say this because it has been such a meaningful and rewarding experience volunteering for a cause so courageous.”
Tanner Begin chairs the raffle basket committee for the fundraiser. Begin, recently elected vice president of the Corporate Communication Club, stated that he got involved because it is important to show community engagement as a college student.
“I got involved with the Corporate Communications VVS fundraiser because I wanted to help out not only the club, but the nice folks at the VVS,” Begin exclaimed. “It’s important to show community engagement as a student here at Penn State, and if by helping out with this fundraiser I can do that, then of course I had to lend a hand!”
The students are looking for either donations to help sponsor the event or donations of gift baskets and raffle prizes.
The club hopes to have all donations and basket items collected by Nov. 1. They are looking for anything from packaged/themed baskets to gift cards to miscellaneous items that can be placed in a raffle basket.
Any basket items and donations can be dropped off on campus in the Strategic Communications office, Room 18, Dawson Building, which is directly across from the Admissions Office.
Also, if anyone would like to get involved with any of the committees or in fundraising for the event in any other way, they may reach out to Flanders at her email address, [email protected].