Our Three Winners Fund at $170,000

The Our Three Winners Fund is growing quickly and will start helping future NC State students as early as this fall.

Donations have come from local, national and global sources for the collaborative endowment to remember three devoted NC State alumni and Raleigh natives who were tragically killed in a Chapel Hill shooting eight weeks ago.

On Feb. 19, the university created the endowment with a $60,000 gift in memory of Deah Barakat; his wife, Yusor Abu-Salha; and her sister, Razan Abu-Salha. Both Barakat and his wife graduated from NC State and were enrolled in UNC’s School of Denistry. Razan Abu-Salha was an NC State sophomore studying architecture.

On Wednesday, the Beta Alpha Psi chapter in the Poole College of Management raised more than $3,000 for the Our Three Winners scholarships by hosting a fundraiser on the Brickyard.

NC State Bookstores and the Office of International Affairs have partnered to introduce a new line of “Wolfpack World” products that celebrate NC State’s international diversity and global reach, and the first two of those products — special edition T-shirts and mugs — will directly benefit the Our Three Winners Fund.

The T-shirt, designed by NC State doctoral candidate Fernanda Duarte, features a world map displaying the word “Wolfpack” in different languages. The mug similarly features the word “Wolfpack” in various languages. Each sells for $10, with all proceeds benefiting the Our Three Winners Fund.

NC State hopes to award the first three Our Three Winners scholarships at a minimum of $2,000 each beginning in the 2015-2016 academic year. Additional contributions can be made online to help ensure the legacies of Deah, Yusor and Razan will live on through a robust endowment that could give more, and perhaps larger, scholarships.