;
A portion of the bricks on Stanback Plaza, 218 thus far, are engraved and were purchased between December 2008 and June of this year by students, alumni, friends or family members of students past and present as part of the Class of 2010 fundraiser. The fundraiser is still underway and bricks are available for purchase for $65 each at www.catawba.edu/bricks.
"This is our legacy," Jackson said. "As president of the Class of 2010, my goal was to leave a legacy and we've done that now as a class. To buy a brick, not only leaves a footprint at Catawba, but there's the notion that you are leaving a footprint of your time here. And we're fixing something too – something that all of us complained about during our time here – the water and dirt squirting up your legs during a rain or immediately after one when you walked across those once loose and cracked bricks."
Jackson worked with the staff at Taylor Clay Products of Salisbury on the project. Taylor Clay donated all of the bricks (both filler bricks and bricks purchased to be engraved) needed in a portion of Stanback Plaza, and then "they set us up with Enochville Materials of Kannapolis to do the engraving," Jackson explained. Summit Developers of Salisbury, she said, recommended a mason to do the installation.
The mason began laying the bricks out on Stanback Plaza the week of Sept. 21st and the bricks were in place before Catawba's Family Weekend and Homecoming.
"I wanted to cry when I saw the engraved bricks and the new filler bricks in place and complete," Jackson recalled. "I never once doubted the support and the emotional ties of the Catawba alums – I knew that from the notes that came with their brick orders and those notes gave me everything I needed to get it done."
College officials estimate that there are 50,000 bricks currently in use on Stanback Plaza, so the brick fundraiser project could be ongoing for quite a few years and that is exactly what Jackson has in mind. "Finished to me would be the entire Plaza replaced with the majority of the bricks – at least half – engraved with messages and names on them.
"This is a huge project to undertake as a student," Jackson concluded. "I have learned a lot about my limitations and how to ask for help. I was fortunate to have a student government class which really wants to help and be a part of the project and to have the help of the administration of Catawba."
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