MASFAA 2025 Conference Charity

Each year, MASFAA chooses a worthy charity to raise funds for through a raffle and 50/50 drawing at our annual conference. This year, we have asked our colleague and former MASFAA President Gail Holt to choose the charity so we can raise funds in honor of her late son Garrett Holt. In Garrett’s memory, we will be supporting the Jordan Porco Foundation this year.

Ways You Can Help:

Please bring cash to the conference so you can support this charity by purchasing 50/50 raffle tickets at the conference!  

Donate items to go into our raffle baskets using this link: Donate Raffle Items Here, and bring your items to the conference.

Foundation History: 

The Jordan Porco Foundation was founded in 2011 by Ernie Porco and Marisa Giarnella, after losing their son, Jordan to suicide when he was a freshman in college.

In their grief, Jordan’s parents learned the unacceptable statistics surrounding mental health and suicide in the young adult population and decided they needed to turn their grief into action so that other families would never have to experience such profound loss. 

JPF is committed to preventing suicide in the high school, college, and college entry student population.  Through awareness, education, and innovative programming, JPF is challenging stigma around mental health and help-seeking, creating open conversations about the prevalence of suicide and mental health issues in the young adult population, saving lives. 

Fresh Check Day:

The program is a day -long, uplifting, festival style mental health promotion and suicide prevention event for colleges that includes interactive expo booths, peer-to-peer messaging, support of multiple campus departments and groups, free food, art, music, entertainment, games and exciting prizes and giveaways. Fresh Check Day aims to create an approachable and hopeful atmosphere where students are encouraged to engage in dialogue about mental health and build a bridge between students and the mental health resources available on campus, in the community and nationally.  Currently, Fresh Check Day has been hosted in 45 states in over 350 campuses and is approved as a best practice by the Suicide Prevention Resource Center, a division SAMSHA.