CANTON -- SUNY Canton Athletics raised more than $80,000 with nearly 800 unique donors contributing to its first ever Athletics Giving Week.

The campaign, which was guided and conducted in conjunction with the Canton College Foundation, recently concluded Friday, April 16 and was a resounding success.

SUNY Canton's inaugural Athletics Giving Week resulted in 778 unique donors and $80,522 raised for the Athletics department and its teams.

"The final results of the first ever Athletics Giving Week surpassed our wildest expectations," SUNY Canton President Zvi Szafran said. "Thank you so much to all of our generous donors. Our student-athletes are the direct beneficiaries of your donations, and your support means the world to them. It's been so rewarding to see this incredible response from alumni, parents, faculty, staff, friends, businesses, community members, and student-athletes themselves."

In the spirit of competition, the athletics department held an internal challenge where the top four teams earned prize incentives for achieving the highest number of donors and most money raised. The top two places in each category received $750, while third place earned $500 and fourth was awarded $250.

The men's hockey team led the way with more than 200 donors as they raised north of $35,000. The "76 National Champions Challenge" announced by Jonathan Shellington '76, Richard F. Layo '76 and Dan Brown '77, helped catapult the men's hockey program to the top of the team leaderboard.

"We are so grateful to Jon, Dick and Dan for the leadership they showed in establishing this generous match," Vice President for Advancement Tracey Thompson said. "Their philanthropy and personal outreach inspired dozens of other alumni to get involved. This really built excitement for the campaign and provided a terrific way to jump-start the week."

The women's basketball team (141) and women's hockey team (141) finished in a tie for second place in total donations and therefore were awarded $750 each, while the men's soccer team finished in fourth with 93 donors.

The top four for total dollars raised includes men's hockey ($35,793), women's hockey ($7,835), men's soccer ($5,653) and women's basketball ($3,760).

"The work done by all of our coaching staff to help reach out to alumni of the college, friends, family and colleagues is one of the many reasons this campaign became such a success," Fundraising Committee Chair Bryan Parker said. "This campaign has showed us that SUNY Canton Athletics is a family unit, far stronger as a whole, than it is in its parts."

Overall, every single program received multiple donations and 11 different teams raised more than $1,000 to help give their team an extra leg up on the competition in the future. A complete list of donations by team is available on the Roo Athletics website.

"In a year that has changed the dynamic of higher education and college athletics, nothing about this year has been normal," said Director of Athletics Randy B. Sieminski. "To see so many of SUNY Canton's alumni, friends, supporters, community members and local businesses come together to support SUNY Canton Athletics and our student-athletes was truly remarkable. We look forward to building off the momentum of our inaugural campaign and making this a tremendous annual tradition."

SUNY Canton will hold an annual Athletics Giving Week and 2022's event will be announced at a later date.