When the annual Duke-Durham Campaign ended last Thursday, more than 50 local volunteers had solicited a record total of $412,000 for the Duke-Durham Neighborhood Partnership-an outreach program coordinated by the Office of Community Affairs.
The all-time high exceeded last year's total by more than $50,000. This year, the campaign took place amid continued talk of strained town-gown relations in light of recent allegations involving members of the men's lacrosse team.
Departments within the University collected $100,000 of the donations, while student organizations raised more than $10,000.
"We've seen a continual rise in the commitment of the internal Duke community and the business and civic community outside of Duke to converge resources," said Sam Miglarese, director of the campaign and assistant director of the Office of Community Affairs.
Miglarese said Duke University Stores and Duke University Facilities Management were two departments that made particularly significant contributions to the project.
Duke University Stores provided flooring for the Emily Krzyzewski Family Life Center, which opened in February, and Duke University Facilities Management worked with Duke contractors to provide landscaping and a new footbridge for a park in Pauli Murray Place-a West End residential community for low-income families.
Miglarese added that students played a major role in raising funds for the project.
This year, 20 students enrolled in the Durham Giving Project, a spring-semester house course that focused on social-justice issues pertinent to the Durham community.
As part of the course, every student and instructor raised $250, which the Office of Community Affairs matched with a $2,500 grant.
Instructor Margaret Andrews, Trinity '06, said that 28 organizations applied for funding, and that students selected 17 to receive it.
Recipients ranged from children's camps to community festivals to a recent project set forth by the Durham Parks and Recreation Department to fight childhood obesity.
Members of organizations receiving donations from the Duke-Durham Campaign praised the project's collaborative fund-raising efforts.
"It's something that works really, really well," said Joseph Henderson, director of Walltown Children's Theatre. "It's very instrumental in being able to get going early on and actually staying here."
Volunteers involved with the project refuted recent statements that ties between the University and the local community are tenuous.
"It just amazed me... that in the midst of the year people called the Duke-Durham relationship brittle or uneasy or difficult," Miglarese said. "Our relationship is substantive, credible and real."
Andrews said many students and professors take an active role in the community but their involvement is often unrecognized.
"Not many colleges have that kind of symbiotic relationship with their town," Andrews said. "There are so many positive things happening, and that's where the focus needs to be at this point."
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