Staffer tirelessly raises money for campus child care

When it comes to charity, many university employees support various causes every year through volunteering and financial contributions.

And then there’s Connie Wilson.

To support her favorite cause, the dynamic assistant dean of students goes full tilt: she organizes garage sales, sells holiday crafts, collects aluminum cans, organizes a jazz fund-raiser each year and unabashedly solicits personal donations.

That’s not all. As part of her one-woman fund-raising juggernaut, Wilson has created an endowment through the UW Foundation.

The beneficiaries of her boundless fund-raising energy? Children — specifically, the little ones served through the university’s seven child-care centers on or near campus.

She’s a most interesting cheerleader and fund-raiser for campus child care, considering she’s single and does not have any children of her own.

“I think people need to realize that it doesn’t matter what your marital status is to support this kind of work,” says Wilson, a 30-year university employee, the last 28 in the Dean of Students Office. “I’ve been helped by many people throughout my life, and it’s my way of giving back to the community.”

Wilson began her involvement with campus child care when former Dean of Students Mary Rouse recruited her to serve on the University Child Care Committee in 1986. She also serves as an adviser to Associated Students of Madison and the Student Services Finance Committee, which annually approves the budget for the Child Care Tuition Assistance Program.

This academic year, more than $600,000 is budgeted from segregated fees to assist student parents in need through the CCTAP program. About 400 university students receive the funding to offset their child care costs; roughly two-thirds of them are graduate students, Wilson says.

Her involvement with campus child care got quite personal for awhile. Wilson and Rouse founded and ran Three Wishes Child Care Center, which operated from 1986-92 at the University United Methodist Church.

“Most people do not understand how much it costs to run a quality child-care center,” Wilson says.

To ensure that child-care programming remains at a high level at UW–Madison, Wilson provides a $1,000 grant to the Office of Campus Child Care each year. The grant is funded through fund-raising proceeds and interest income from her endowment.

This past year, the grant supported professional development for campus child-care workers and helped purchase needed supplies.

Wilson is grateful for the support, knowing that it will move her closer to her goal of making the annual child-care grant self-supporting through the endowment at the UW Foundation.

She says a former student, now working as an investor, has already pledged $1,000 for a fund-raiser/birthday bash being held in her honor on Feb. 28.

“I would love to provide a $5,000 grant every year, but I don’t think I’ll live long enough to see that happen,” she jokes.