By Diane Luckow

John Grant and Candy Ho are familiar faces around campus. After all, they did their undergraduate degrees at SFU, met here during co-op terms in Student Services, work here, own a home at UniverCity and are both pursuing MEd degrees here.

They even married at SFU last June and hosted a wedding reception at the Diamond Alumni Centre with 130 guests, half of whom were SFU staffers and alumni.

Their reception invitations included an unusual request: that in lieu of wedding gifts, guests contribute to an SFU financial award the couple set up for student-orientation leaders.

It’s that altruistic move that has earned them the 2011 staff achievement humanitarian award in recognition of their concern for the welfare of others.

Grant, SFU’s alumni relations manager, says his new bride, manager of new student enrolment and transition, with responsibility for student orientation programs, came up with the idea.

“I work with so many excellent student volunteers who are academically successful and contributing to the community,” says Ho.

“But I’ve also seen the other side, where they can no longer participate because they’re not enrolled at SFU due to financial constraints.”

Since the couple didn’t require household items for the apartment they’ve owned since 2009, they sought instead for a way to give back to the university.

To establish the award, which pays out $500 to two student-orientation leaders each year, the couple had to raise $3,000. This guarantees the award for the three years. Their wedding guests donated $3,500.

“We were pleasantly surprised by how much support people gave to it,” says Grant. They were also surprised at how easy it was to establish the award.

While the couple plans to continue to contribute financially to the award themselves, they have also asked University Advancement for assistance.

Now, future alumni-calling campaigns will include calls to former student-orientation leaders in hopes of funding the award in perpetuity.