Southern Virginia Student Association and Men’s Volleyball Team Honor Braden Liu With Scholarship
Attend the Men’s Volleyball game on Saturday to commemorate Braden Liu and support the scholarship in his name
By Robyn Peterson
On Saturday, the Southern Virginia community will unite to commemorate Braden Liu, a former student and member of the Men’s Volleyball team, who recently passed away. During the Men’s Volleyball game, which starts at 7pm, a scholarship in Liu’s name will be awarded by the Southern Virginia Student Association (SVSA). The scholarship is funded through the sale of Braden Liu t-shirts with Liu’s name and jersey number.
Liu passed away last summer following a work-related accident. After his passing, the SVSA wanted to do something to honor Liu’s memory, which is how the idea to create a scholarship in his name got started.
“After hearing the story about what had happened, obviously I felt a lot of sadness, but I also felt some sense of urgency to do something about it to honor him. That’s when the idea came up of maybe raising money to do a scholarship in his name,” said Student Body President Michael Myers, Business Management and Leadership, ’20.
Myers, and junior class president Kaipo Tagaloa, Pyschology ’20, were two of many students working to organize this effort. Tagaloa worked closely with Liu on the volleyball team, where they both played as setters.
“No matter how good he was, how skilled he was, he would never stop working hard,” said Tagaloa about Liu. “He was very outgoing and very friendly, to strangers especially. He was able to just talk to people and be nice to everyone. That was something that really stuck out to me about him.”
Myers and Tagaloa helped form a committee that coordinated the efforts to honor Liu. Since last August, students have been working on the project. They had to get approval for the idea to create a scholarship and create an application essay. Then the committee read all of the submissions and picked a winner for the scholarship, who will be announced during Saturday’s game.
The committee also designed t-shirts to fund the scholarship. All proceeds from t-shirt sales are used for the scholarship. T-shirts can be purchased for $15 through the Knight app and picked up in the Career Center (Main 219). Students are encouraged to wear their tshirts to the volleyball game.
“I would want students to know that when they’re buying a tshirt, obviously all the money is going towards the scholarship, but they’re helping one of their peers pay for schooling.” said Myers.
“At the end of the day, they’re contributing to this scholarship but they’re also contributing to a family who has dealt with a tragedy, they’re helping a university cope with a loss, they’re helping a volleyball team and coaches mourn this loss… All of this is just meant to help the family and the school and fellow students.”
The fundraising and events taking place are intended to commemorate Liu’s contributions to the university as a student, teammate, and friend. In addition to announcing the Braden Liu scholarship winner during the game, after the second set, a video will also be shown, containing interviews with people who knew Liu during his time at Southern Virginia. There will also be a moment of silence to honor Liu.
