Miss Sandra hugged countless students at dining halls. UGA fundraising for meal plan scholarship to honor her.

The University of Georgia is honoring a longtime employee in its food services operation with a giving campaign in her name to help students who cannot afford a meal plan.

“I feel honored to help take care of the kids whose parents can’t afford a meal plan. That’s a big honor,” said Sandra Patterson, an Athens woman who retired this month after 33 years at UGA.

The “Let All the Big Dawgs Eat Meal Plan Scholarship” is coordinated by Evan Tighe, a senior director of Annual Giving at UGA, who said Patterson is well known by students who over the years went through the serving line at Snelling Dining Hall.

The 'Say Thank you to Mis Sandra' giving campaign goes toward the scholarship funds.

“I think that any alumni who is younger than 40 probably has a good idea who she is,” Tighe said.

“My home dining hall was Bolton, but in my first semester on campus I kept hearing people talking about Miss Sandra in positive words,” he said.

One day he went to Snelling for a meal.

“Immediately there is this lady who is at the register checking people in and the moment I saw and heard her interacting with students I said ‘That’s Miss Sandra,” Tighe said.

Patterson’s working days at UGA started at Snelling, then to Memorial Hall and on to the Tate Center before she came full circle back to Snelling.

Patterson’s outgoing personality that so endeared her to students is a natural outgrowth of her upbringing.

“I was blessed like that. I enjoy what I do. I enjoy the kids. I always wanted to work with young people. It’s just me,” she said.

She knows many of the students eating on campus are away from home for the first time. And she’s also known for giving students a big hug.

“Sometimes in order to get a feeling on the inside, you need to feel from the outside. It’s very important for them to know somebody is there that actually cares,” Patterson said.

“Some of the students come in there and have personal problems and they talk to me about it,” she said.  “Life is made of all kinds of situations that we have going through life and the way you handle it is how you succeed.”

These students, she said, “are our future.”

“I was raised by my Dad and grandma and they couldn’t afford to send us (to college). There wasn’t a scholarship back then for us,” she said.

“My Dad was a carpenter and you didn’t work every day. You worked when you could find work,” said Patterson, who grew up in Westminster, S.C., and Athens.

“I came from a large family There was nine of us girls and one died before my mom passed away, so there were 10 of us,” she said explaining her mother died of pneumonia during child birth.

As a result, her father assigned all of the older children to watch over a young sibling.

“My oldest sisters took care of the younger ones,” she said. That culture of caring for one another became a part of her personality.

Now that she is retired, Patterson said she has a project to fix her home that was damaged more than a year ago by a fallen tree.

“The contractor I had didn’t do a good job and there are things I’m trying to get taken care of,” she said.

“Once I get done with my project, I’m going to try to do something over there (at UGA),” she said. “I’m not sure where God will lead me, but I’ll go wherever He sends me.”

The fundraiser for the scholarship ends Dec. 31 and each donor is invited to leave a short note of gratitude to Miss Sandra. In return, donors will receive a 'digital hug.'

A link to the fund can be accessed at https://dar.uga.edu/funder/