UH Giving Day raises more than $1.3M for scholarships, flood relief and campus needs

Students, alumni, faculty and staff rally behind UH Giving Day

Students gathered on the lawn of Bachman Hall to support UH Giving Day.

UH President Wendy Hensel and Athletic Director Matt Elliott waved at motorists and pedestrians.

Giving Day at Kauaʻi CC, Chancellor Margaret Sanchez (right)

Note: File video from Giving Day April 8, 2026 available below.

From sign waving and cheerleaders at the flagship University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa campus to a ping pong tournament at Kauaʻi Community College and a pop-up market at the ʻImiloa Astronomy Center in Hilo, students, alumni, faculty and staff showed up on UH Giving Day to generate more than $1.3 million from over 1,580 gifts. With final totals still being reconciled, the results reflect a strong show of donor engagement across the UH’s 10-campus system.

A graduate of the Waiʻaleʻale Project at Kauaʻi CC, Isaiah Wilson dropped by the Giving Day table with a donation to the program that he described as helping him immensely throughout his 11 years pursuing his degree. “Itʻs such a powerful program,” he said. “Now I’m giving back so others can have a chance of what I was given.”

UH Giving Day funds will help support various scholarships, urgent flooding relief from the Kona-low storms,  student success resources, faculty and research initiatives, and priority needs across all UH campuses.

“The outpouring of aloha we witnessed during UH Giving Day is truly humbling,” said Tim Dolan, UH Foundation CEO and VP of Advancement. “Every single gift is a powerful investment in our students, our research and the future of Hawaiʻi. We are deeply grateful to our entire UH ʻohana for coming together to make such a profound and immediate impact across all 10 campuses.”

University leadership emphasized how this statewide generosity will shape the institution's future.

“Philanthropy plays a vital role in expanding opportunity and ensuring access to higher education across our state,” said UH President Wendy Hensel. “The generosity shown on Giving Day helps empower students across all 10 campuses and strengthens the university’s ability to serve Hawai‘i now and in the years ahead.”

Gifts made during UH Giving Day also count toward the historic For UH • For Hawaiʻi campaign, the comprehensive $1 billion fundraising initiative supporting all 10 campuses of the UH system.

Link to file video and sound of Giving Day at UH Mānoa on April 8, 2026: https://spaces.hightail.com/receive/yQnkf4giUn

BROLL: (1 minute, 28 seconds)

0:00- 1:29 - Signwaving at UH Mānoa

SOUND:

Wendy Hensel, UH President (0:14)

“From the nurse who helps you, helps a neighbor to the engineering student who builds the bridge or responds to the floods, we are everywhere in Hawaiʻi, and this kind of support makes that research possible, that kind of access possible.”

Emma Pinnow, JABSOM student, scholarship recipient (0:13)

“I'd really like to focus on native Hawaiian health disparities. Being native Hawaiian, that's kind of the reason why I wanted to go into medicine and so being able to address those disparities with the education that we learn at JABSOM is really important to me.”

Rachel Radona, UH Mānoa senior, scholarship recipient (0:15)

“In Hawaiʻi we're all about community, lāhui, and about ʻohana at the end of the day, and we're trying to embody what Hawaiʻi means to us and it does feel like an ʻohana. It feels like when people are giving to us, that's our family.”