The third annual Stroll for Student-Athlete Scholarships will take place Oct. 15 to help kick off this year’s Family Day activities. The sponsorship-based event helps raise money for more than 150 athletic scholarships that Nicholls gives to its student athletes.

The event was previously held in the spring, but associate athletics director, Louise Bonin, decided that the idea of moving it to Family Day would better benefit the program.

“We held it in the spring along with two other fundraisers we have, but the opportunity to move it to Family Day gave us a better chance to get more families involved,” Bonin said.

“It was originally a 5k run-walk, and when I got the idea from the other universities it only funded one department,” Bonin said. “We decided that it would fund both men’s and women’s programs, but there is the option to give specifically to one.”

The walk is 30-40 minutes through a pre-determined route set around campus that starts at the Student Union.

There are three different ways that people can participate. A regular participant raises $10 and walks independently or with a team. A team member gives a minimum of $10 with a goal of $100 in solicited donations and helps raise funding events. A team captain puts together a team of at least four members who sets up events for fundraising and reports to the stroll coordinator.

If people don’t want to participate, they can still be donors or sponsors.

Donors can donate to a team member or directly to the program.

Sponsors can be various corporate or personal donors with three different levels of sponsorships: team with a $100 donation, gray with a $250 donation and red with a $500 donation.

With a donation, participants receive a t-shirt and a free catered breakfast that will take place after the walk.

In two years, the stroll has already raised $10,000-$15,000 toward athletic scholarships and hopes to raise just as much this year.

“We’re looking to raise $5-7 thousand this year,” Bonin said. “And with the help of our title sponsor, Enterprise, everything we make stays in the program.”

Since it is not an official race, Bonin hopes that it will be an opportunity to bring the athletes and community together.

“There is no competition, so it’s more of a way to get together with others,” she said. “The object is to raise a level of awareness on campus to show that our athletes are truly students first and athletes second.”