Since the bulk of students had to move out of all three of Pace campuses after spring break due to the COVID-19 pandemic, all events that were planned by student-run campus orgs have either been altered, postponed until the fall semester or canceled altogether.

This gave the Pleasantville campus’ Student Government Association (SGA) a surplus of slightly over $178,000. These leftover funds are planned to go to three different places; the Pace Cares fund, which will receive the most money, the Pleasantville fund and back into the SGA account for the next academic year.

The Pace Cares fund was first created in 2012 in order to help students who were affected by Hurricane Sandy. Previously funded completely by alumni and other university donors, the fund is dedicated to helping out students and their families “who face unforeseeable economic circumstances,” such as natural disasters or a global pandemic. Since remote learning began a little less than two weeks ago, they have awarded $76,000 to 62 students who have demonstrated need.

The fund is currently overseen by Director of Financial Aid, Mark Stephens, and his team. According to Stephens, the money within the fund is limited, and during times like these, is nearly depleted.

To make sure the fund helps out as many members of the Pace community as possible, the SGA E-board on both campuses are donating a significant amount of money to the fund. According to Ciara Kain, the current SGA VP of Finance on the Pleasantville campus, the Pleasantville campus gave $100,000 to the fund and the New York City campus gave $150,000.

“[That money] came from the unused money from the approved events [on the Pleasantville campus] that have already been cancelled,” Kain said.

According to Pace Pleasantville’s SGA constitution, if there is $10,000 left over at the end of the academic year, then it automatically rolls over to the budget allocation committee for the next academic year, and the rest goes into the Pleasantville fund, which any organization or individual student on campus can use, even without SGA’s approval, “for the betterment of the [overall] Pace community.”

According to Kain, SGA has to wait and see exactly how much money will be going into the Pleasantville fund, in case some orgs want to reschedule their events for the fall semester.

“[If orgs] wanted to reschedule for the fall then it will be automatically approved [by SGA] and the money will now be put aside for those events,” she said.

If none of the campus orgs want to reschedule their events, then the Pleasantville fund will receive a little bit over $68,000 going into the next academic year.

Pace Cares accepts donations of any kind. To learn more about the fund and to contribute to it, students, parents and alumni can visit their website.