Cassidy Miller ‘28
Staff Writer
As Scripps Associated Students’ (SAS) 2025 Senior Gift, Gabrielle Jungels Winkler (GJW) Hall will be receiving a water fountain and bottle filler. The SAS Senior Gift is an annual collaboration between Scripps senior class presidents and the Office of Philanthropy. This year, senior co-class presidents, Abbie Oh Arroyo ’25 and Belén Yudess ’25 wanted to leave their legacy with a gift that the Scripps community could use for years to come.
“Both of us wanted something tangible that the community could use as a resource to benefit from,” Oh Arroyo said.
The water fountain is a gift after years of the GJW residence hall not having any water bottle filling stations or drinking fountains. According to Oh Arroyo, the senior class co-presidents considered the impact that the lack of this resource has on GJW residents.
“Belén and I both lived in GJW and we recognized that it was not super convenient to have no water filter,” Oh Arroyo said. “I remember just using a bunch of plastic bottles and it’s just not very sustainable.”
While the building’s donor requested there be no water fountains in GJW, Oh Arroyo said that not having one wasn’t a requirement.
“I think one of the more interesting sides of this whole thing was being told that there really wasn’t any sort of set, words-to-paper thing that said anything about not having–or that there shouldn’t be a water filler in GJW,” Oh Arroyo said. “I think it was more of a preference of the donor, Gabrielle Jungels-Winkler.”
The proposed idea of a new water fountain as the senior gift was supported by other members of SAS. “I think a lot of people were happy with the idea of it, just because people know [what it’s like to live in] GJW, it was not fun,” Oh Arroyo said.
SAS has been collaborating with the Events and Conference Services since the beginning of the academic year to ensure that the gift is on track to be unveiled by commencement.
“So I just ask[ed] seniors, ‘oh have you thought about your senior gift, let me connect you with Philanthropy,’ and they had several ideas which were entertained and they landed on the water drinking fountain,” Assistant Director of Events and Conference Services, Centia Batz, said.
After the senior co-presidents decided on the water fountain as their senior gift, Events and Conference Services coordinated with Facilities to make sure that the right steps were in place for it to be installed.
“As soon as this was an idea or potential idea, I worked with facilities to secure the water filler and a quote,” Batz said.
The water fountain will be paid for through the Philanthropy Office who have hosted a variety of fundraising events for the gift such as the Day of Giving, which took place on March 26.
According to an email from Karina Chappell, Director of Leadership Annual Giving and The Scripps Fund, and Jessica Wang, Coordinator of Student Campaigns and The Scripps Fund, the fundraising campaign started on March 1 in order to collect early gifts.
“[The Day of Giving] is a big, Scripps-wide campaign to donate and you can choose which initiatives or funds you want to donate to,” Oh Arroyo said.
In addition, the fundraising campaign will include rewards at different tiers of support in order to encourage students to donate.
“So for example, Tier One being donating at least five dollars, and with those five dollars, you’ll get [a] cord from the philanthropy office at graduation,” Oh Arroyo said. “Tier Two is having like 25% of the class donate, and then Tier Three being another donation amount to reach a certain cap. And then the last one being another, like 50% of the class participating in donations.”
Oh Arroyo hopes that the new water filler will improve accessibility, convenience, and sustainability for GJW residents. “I know when I lived there, I was always hauling big cases of water bottles to my room and I just felt like I was committing ecoterrorism every day with the amount of plastic I was generating,” she said.
She also expanded on this inconvenience, stating, “people would either have to go to Tiernan, Routt, or Frankel right next door to get water. It’s not a long walk but it’s a little bit inconvenient for example, if it’s in the middle of the night, [and] you need water.”
Oh Arroyo’s sentiments were echoed by other students who said that the lack of a water fountain requires them to walk to other buildings on campus in order to fill their water bottles.
“The lack of water bottle or water fountains in GJW is really inconvenient, and there was a month where I had to walk to Kimberly to fill up my water bottle when my Brita was broken and that was just really annoying, especially in inconvenient times of the day, like late at night,” current GJW resident, Caroline Crosnoe ’28, said.
According to Batz, students should expect to see the water filler shortly before they leave campus for the summer.
As everything is being put in place for the water filler to be installed, Oh Arroyo hopes that the Senior Gift will be a material representation of the Scripps class of 2025. “This is more of a tangible, set, thing. So that’s why we felt comfortable putting our money in [this] class gift,” Oh Arroyo said.
Photo Courtesy of Charlotte Korer ’27
