Chris Gray, Ph.D.
Founding President, Erie County Community College of Pennsylvania
A few years ago, I wrote about a flat tire. Specifically, I wanted to highlight the way in which someone's life direction can change on a dime. What to many of us would be a mild annoyance and schedule disruption could mean the difference between continuing an educational pursuit and withdrawing from classes. This is, in no way, an exaggeration.
On the surface, it was just one of those ordinary inconveniences that interrupts an otherwise ordinary day. I tell this story as a reminder that we rarely make it through life entirely on our own. At one point or another, every one of us depends on someone choosing to stop and help us get moving again.
Communities work the same way. Our community here in Erie County works the same way. That's what Erie Gives is all about.
It's a chance for us to give back and to help each other. Most of us will never know the names of the people helped by our participation in this important work. We will likely never meet the student whose education was transformed by a scholarship or whose flat tire repair allowed them to get their car back on the road in time to make it to class. Yet, their stories become part of our community's story. Their stories are our stories.
That is why Erie Gives matters.
For one day each year, thousands of people decide that the organizations strengthening Erie County deserve their support. Since 2011, those individual decisions have generated more than $77 million for local nonprofits. Each gift is meaningful on its own. Together, they become something extraordinary.
If you know our origin story, you know that EC3 exists because a small group of people got together to bring it to fruition. They held one common belief: that education changes lives. They used that belief to build this college because they wanted to change our community. Since we opened our doors five years ago, we've been working to create opportunities that extend far beyond any single student. With every scholarship awarded, every class taught, every partnership forged, and every student graduated, Erie County changed. The work we are doing is an investment in our future.
One of the things that I most appreciate about Erie Gives is its simplicity. You don't have to solve every challenge facing our community; you simply decide to help. Thousands of others do the same, and together, those individual acts of generosity become something far greater than any one of us could accomplish alone.
Giving this year is easier than ever. The new Erie Gives platform allows donors to support multiple organizations through a single transaction. From the Erie Gives site, you simply select EC3, choose a gift amount, and you're done. No matter how many organizations you choose to support, you'll complete one transaction and get a single receipt. Thanks to the Erie Community Foundation and its community partners, every dollar you contribute goes directly to the organizations you select, and every eligible nonprofit also benefits from Bonus Bucks that further amplify the impact of each gift.
Every gift helps us continue helping students and strengthening educational opportunities throughout our region. More importantly, every gift affirms something we already know to be true: communities become stronger when people choose to invest in one another.
Sometimes helping someone move forward is as simple as stopping to help with a flat tire. Sometimes it's making a gift on Erie Gives Day.
Both begin with the same decision: choosing to help someone else continue the journey. On August 11, I hope you'll choose to invest in EC3.
Our community. Your college.
