Purposity Launches!

The Basic Needs Team within the Office of Student Financial Aid successfully launched a new way to meet students’ immediate and essential needs. In June, Purposity was officially brought to UW–Madison with the goal of connecting the individual and specific needs of our students with the broader campus community for support. If you have not done-so already, we would LOVE it if you could take a quick minute to become a follower of UW–Madison on Purposity by following these simple steps:
  1. Download the App “Purposity” on your smart device
  2. Search for ‘University of Wisconsin–Madison’ as an organization
  3. Select to Follow
So far, the new partnership with Purposity has already been able to support 6 student requests, which ranged from a winter coat, feminine hygiene products, diapers, underwear, and bed linens. Ultimately, each of the 6 requests was between $15-$75 in total value, and we are proud that the UW–Madison community quickly rose to the occasion to meet these requests in nearly the first day they were posted! The impact of these simple donations looms quite large. In one case, a student shared that last winter they ended up in the hospital on multiple occasions in part, due to having no access to purchase a proper winter coat. Thanks to the generosity of our UW–Madison community, this student will now have a new coat heading into the upcoming winter. In another case, there was a single mother of two who was balancing work while trying to complete a degree here at UW–Madison. Once again, thanks to the quick action of our community, support was provided in the form of diapers for her two young children. We look forward to continuing work to expand our total followers within the Purposity app and with your help we hope more specific student needs can be met. If you are working with a student who may have a specific basic need they need assistance with, we’d encourage you direct them to our Basic Needs Resources webpage, where they can easily submit not only a Purposity Request, but also review a variety of other campus & community-based resources to assist. If you have any questions on this partnership, would like to connect further, or have a student we could help support, please reach out to our Basic Needs team via basic.needs@finaid.wisc.edu.