WEEF Reaches $10 Million and Participation Rate Hits Record High!

For those of you who were lucky enough to get some tasty WEEF cake (yes, you can eat the sparkles) on November 17th, you should be aware of the incredible milestone that WEEF hit this term. For those of you who are unaware, the principal account reached an incredible amount of $10 million! This means that all the money received from students and private donors, plus all the interest earned over 21 years has totalled to this impressive amount. Congratulations to everyone who has supported WEEF in this time and made WEEF possible! Thank you! It was not so long ago that undergraduates John Vellinga and Avi Bellunsky started WEEF in 1990 with a fraction of this amount.

What does this really mean? Well, reaching $10 million says many things. Firstly, this means that as WEEF continues to grow, WEEF can contribute more and more funding to undergraduate engineering. Term allocations are based on percentages of the principal amount. You can do the math! Waterloo Engineering has really taken the concept of “pay it forward” to a whole new level. It also speaks volumes about the University of Waterloo’s Undergraduate population. In addition to being selfless and generous, your support results in personal involvement in a huge number of initiatives across campus. WEEF money goes directly from the students, back to the students, in the form of lab upgrades, buildings, student team equipment and much more! Students started, administer and continue to facilitate WEEF and this is an incredible tradition that we look forward to continuing until the next big milestone. Can anyone say $15 million?

Also, watch out for our $ 10 million T-shirts, coming to Novelties soon!

Also, rejoice and be glad, for this now we will be taking a look at the Fall 2011 WEEF Participation Rates!

“What are participation rates?” you may wonder. Well, the Voluntary Student Contribution (VSC) of $ 75 to WEEF is collected from undergraduate students each term. Some students choose to obtain a refund of this money for a variety of reasons. The participation rate is simply the percentage of enrolled undergraduate students who choose to support WEEF and personally contribute the many undergraduate projects, teams and departments.

I am extremely happy to report that this term we hit a record rate of 86.46 % participation! Thank you to everyone who supports WEEF and has made this possible. The figure below is a breakdown of participation across programs and academic terms. Shout out to the 1A Geological for coming in at an amazing 100% participation! Participation in WEEF does not only equal a well-endowed bar on this graph, but does a lot more. Contributing to WEEF essentially makes you a stakeholder and financial supporter of the hundreds of undergraduate initiatives around campus. Thanks again and until text term… WEEF IS GOOD!