Nine years of hard work is coming to a close for the WSU Foundation as it celebrates its biggest fundraiser in Washington State University history.

The week of festivities will culminate in a campus-wide celebration today with a barbecue lunch, a special performance from DJ Marvelous, prizes, and speeches from students, WSU faculty and donors.

“There’s prizes, money and food,” said Hailey Rupp, market and promotions coordinator for the WSU Foundation, “It should be a good time.”

The WSU Foundation surpassed its original $1 billion goal June 30, six months ahead of schedule and about a week after late President Elson S. Floyd’s passing, to raise a total of $1,065,091,919.

While the campaign officially began July 1, 2006, and Floyd didn’t begin his tenure at WSU until 2007, the president had a significant and transformative impact on the campaign, CEO of the WSU Foundation John Gardner said.

“It is certainly a part of his legacy,” Gardner said.

Gardner, also the vice president for advancement at WSU, said the university campaign stretched across many university departments and was described as a grassroots effort.

“It allows us to allow a level of quality that we couldn’t necessarily do on public moneys,” Gardner said.

The funds raised by the campaign include $331 million from alumni, $195 million from students and parents, faculty and other non-alumni, $380 million from grants, $96 million from corporations and $158 million from foundations and other organizations, according to university data.

“It is the biggest the university has ever done,” said Trevor Durham, associate vice president and university development director of marketing and communications. “More than 3,300 different funding areas across all of the campuses will receive this money. When we started, the Everett campus did not exist.”

On an individual level, the scope of the campaign gets even larger.

More than 206,250 individual donors and industry partners made donations, private gifts and commitments. To encourage access for all potential WSU students, nearly $171 million was designated as endowments to support WSU students, faculty, research and other programs. The campaign effort also created 645 endowment funds, 444 scholarships and graduate fellowships.

“I think the most significant part of the celebration is how we’re doing it and who we’re doing it with,” Gardner said.