THE GIFT OF GENEROUSITY – PROVIDENCE COLLEGE MAKES NATIONAL NEWS!
Steve Maurano, our Associate VP for Public Affairs, Government & Community Relations, recently forwarded this story to me and I couldn’t wait to share it with all of you. Makes me so proud to be a FRIAR….
Jackie
A few weeks ago, a group of first-year and second-year students in Raymond Hall presented their overnight security officer, James Mogaji, with the gift of a lifetime. James is from Nigeria and at some point, had mentioned to the students on his floor that he had not been home to see his family in over ten years. Led by Brandon Reichert ’27 and Resident Assistant Danny Singh ‘26, the students started a GoFundMe with the intention of raising enough money by the end of the semester to give to James for a plane ticket home. Within 48 hours, they had raised over $6,500! They presented the gift to James and one of their group filmed the presentation. A family friend posted it to TikTok and the video went viral.
Carolyn Cronin, PC’s Associate Director of Media Relations, seized the opportunity to contact local and regional media about the story. WCVB-TV5 (ABC) in Boston interviewed some of the students for a story, as did local TV stations ABC6, Newschannel10 (NBC) and WPRI-TV12 (CBS). From there, NBC’s National desk picked up the story and Hoda Kotb aired it on “The Today Show.”
To date, the original video on TikTok has over 750,000 views. In addition, a number of other social media accounts have posted the story and it has almost 14 million views to date.
Check the video out here:
Today Show: https://bit.ly/3PgeLOI
