On Monday morning, January 11th, Georgia College students and teachers were adjusting back to their normal school routines. Some were dreading getting up before noon and others were already making their way to campus.
One thing about campus looked different though. The same red brick buildings and green lawns remained but there was a 15′, inflatable duck camping out in front of the college of Arts & Sciences, near the fountain.
This is no little toy rubber ducky. Kevin, as he has been named, has his own Instagram and Twitter account @gcduck16 and comes with the #whattheduck.
Some students took pictures with Kevin, posting their selfies with him on Instagram and tweeting their thoughts about him on Twitter. While students were taking pictures, teachers were also talking about “this giant inflatable duck ” in their classes. Wondering if any of the students knew anything about it.
On Wednesday, Kevin posted this on Instagram:
What did this mean? Did the individual(s) behind Kevin reveal themself? Yes, GC Miracle (the largest fundraising organization on campus) is the mastermind behind the duck and had a duck party to celebrate Kevin and raise money and awareness for Children’s Miracle Network. Tshirts were sold, people signed up for Dance Marathon and some even made duck faces with pringle chips.
According to the internal branch chair of GC Miracle, Lauren Sapp, the organization wanted to do something that would generate buzz around campus, hoping to “bring attention and awareness to what we do.” Which is, raise money for CMN and help the children and families of participating CMN hospitals through their medical journeys. Particularly, the CMN hospital in Macon, GA. Lauren said the duck was orginially a joke but by December of last semester, they got approval by the school and reserved spaces on campus for Kevin.
However, according to Zach Williams, Executive Direcor of GC Miracle, “I was hesitant about the duck, mainly worried about how we could transform it from just being a duck on campus to getting people interested in and signed up for Dance Marathon. The annual event GC miracle puts on. But the board did an excellent job executing the event.”
The duck was donated by the Promotional Group Design, a company out of California. The signs, displaying the duck’s Instagram and Twitter name as well as the given hashtag, were donated by Grimes Signs, here in Milledgeville.
So what is next up for Kevin, who knows? He sure was fun seeing and brought some laughter and excitment to the first week of the Spring 2016 semester. Here’s to Kevin and aren’t you glad I did not make one duck pun in this story? Good luck to all of the GC community as we take on the rest of the Spring semester.