Each fall semester, students across the campus participate in Tis the Season, a friendly competition between the Undergraduate Colleges to raise money for local, national, and global organizations in dire need of donations.

This year, students raised more than $20,000 through service auctions, bake sales, penny wars, and in some cases, by letting their peers soak them with water balloons.

Faculty, staff and their families perform at a Tis the Season Coffee House fundraiser.

Through the Tis the Season effort, students have donated more than $225,000 to charities since 2002. This year’s fundraising was done on behalf of Nana’s House, the Long Island State Veteran’s Home, Campus Haiti Relief, Students Helping Honduras, and five other charities.

One of the events held was a Coffee House on campus showcasing the musical and acting talents of faculty and staff. The evening featured a silent auction of various artisan goods, baked goods and gifts.

Photo by Arthur Fredericks. 

A group of Stony Brook University student athletes, dance team members and cheerleaders  set out to bring joy to the patients being treated in the Pediatric Wing of the Stony Brook University Cancer Center.

They went on a holiday season mission to “stuff” a bus from Athletics with toys of all kinds and deliver the donated items directly to the kids.

Toy donations came in from Stony Brook faculty and staff throughout the campus.

A few days before Christmas they delivered more than 250 toys and gifts, such as dolls, board games, coloring sets, and footballs.  The pediatric patients, along with their siblings, beamed with delight when the unexpected delivery came. Wolfie was on hand to distribute the toys.

The moment was a welcome break from studies and training for the students, as they took in the joy of the children when placing the gifts under the Christmas tree in the playroom.

In July and August, at the Tabler Center for Arts, Culture and Humanities, Stony Brook University hosted 50 mostly low-income third-grade students from the Longwood and Wyandanch school districts in a pilot program for Stony Brook’s Children’s Defense Fund Freedom School. 

Building on the pilot program success, President Samuel L. Stanley Jr., MD,  committed to fund an additional four years of  Stony Brook’s Freedom School, a summer enrichment program designed to boost motivation to read, generate positive attitudes toward learning, and raise the self-esteem of the participating schoolchildren.

Children from the Longwood and Wyandanch school districts took part in the Stony Brook Freedom School.

The Freedom School was free to participants and their families and included two nutritious meals and a healthy snack each day. The University absorbed all costs.

Mentoring is an essential part of the program. Stony Brook students and recent graduates — called servant leader interns — traveled to the CDF Freedom Schools’ training site in Clinton, Tennessee, before the program began for leadership development, teambuilding exercises and instruction in how to deliver the Freedom Schools’ Integrated Reading Curriculum (IRC) with enthusiasm.