McPinwheels

For the past three years now, the Office of Annual Giving has set up pinwheels in Red Square in the last few weeks of April. This year, this happened last Friday. We had 3,763 pinwheels set up all over the square, spinning merrily in the wind.

Each pinwheel represented someone who had made a gift to McDaniel in the past fiscal year, whether it was a friend, parent, or alumni of the school. Seniors, about to become alumni, who had made a gift were also represented, and some of them had fun looking for the pinwheel with their name on it. As tuition only covers 80% of what it takes to run the school, contributors to McDaniel are extremely vital, and this is a lovely way to honour them. Additionally, we served free Rita’s Water Ice to students in the middle of the day.

I work for the Telephone Outreach Program, which is responsible for keeping alumni up to date and talking with them about the Fund for McDaniel, and for doing miscellaneous tasks like these that Annual Giving has for us to do. I was one of the people who was up by 7 a.m. to set up all of those pinwheels. It took twelve of us about two hours, but it was well worth it!

Red Square is generally pretty enough on the average day, but the pinwheel day is one of my favourite days of the year because of how gorgeous all the pinwheels look with the sun reflecting off their faces. This year was windy, as well, so all day long, they were spin-spin-spinning.