A group of alumni at SIU-Carbondale has created a new scholarship.
The scholarship goes by the acronym, BEER, which stands for Balancing Education, Experience and Reality.
Co-creator Dan Giedeman says the name was thrown out as a joke at first, but it stuck.
"There's education, which is very important. But, you have to balance that with a lot of other things that you're learning at college. Even though it's kind of a funny acronym, I think the actual meaning behind it was fairly serious."
News about the scholarship spread through a Facebook page of SIU-C alumni last month. Giedeman says at first donations trickled in, but they exploded during last week's Day of Giving.
"It was really interesting because in the morning we had about $8,000 in the account. By the time we got to around maybe five in the evening it was about $16,000. Then by 8:30 it hit $25,000 and then by around midnight it was up to $38,000 or so."
The group has now raised over $42,000.
The university will honor the group on March 29th for receiving the largest number of gifts on the Day of Giving by a non-academic unit.
Giedeman says plenty of alumni have fond memories of the university.
"It kinds of made us think about what we had when we went to school there. It has ignited sort of a pride in SIU."
He says the scholarship will be awarded to juniors or seniors of any major who are in good academic standing.
"We think the most important contributing piece (is) they'll write a short essay explaining why they came to love SIU. We think that will be a way they can distinguish themselves and kind of show they feel the passion that many of us feel for the university."
The scholarship will be awarded annually starting this fall.
For more information on how to donate, click here.