It is almost time for the annual Missouri Southern Phone-a-Thon, and 2009 happens to mark the 24th anniversary for this fundraiser. It will begin on Feb. 8 and go through the first week in April.

A group of 25 students have been hired to call previous graduates of Missouri Southern, local businesses, and university friends to ask them if they would like to make a donation to help the school.

Kurt Betebenner, director of the Missouri Southern Foundation, said that the Foundation is a “not-for-profit corporation designed solely for the development and advancement of Missouri Southern.”

The Phone-a-Thon usually brings in a lot of private gifts from different corporations and individuals. This year may have slightly different results.

The different departments of Southern will be starting their own fundraisers to help raise money for the needs of their specific departments. These new fundraisers could possibly take away some of the funds received by the phone-a-thon. Betebenner thinks that there may be “a negligible impact on the phone program,” but that there will be good results for Missouri Southern overall. He said that the extra money coming in through added fundraisers will have a good impact for many reasons. If alumni of the school were to get a call from a student they didn’t know, they would be more likely to say no. But, if they received a call from the department they graduated from, they would probably be more willing to help out.

Betebenner is supportive of the individual department fundraisers. All the money received sill still go to the Foundation for the greater good of the University.