MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — “Out of the Blue”, Middle Tennessee State University’s monthly television magazine program, turns its focus to community and generosity in the February episode, featuring a story on the university’s annual True Blue Give initiative and the role it plays in supporting students, programs and opportunities across campus.

The segment highlights True Blue Give, which recently wrapped up this year’s three-day fundraising effort, as one of the university’s largest collective efforts each year, inviting alumni, faculty, staff, students, parents and friends to come together and give back to areas of campus that shaped their experience. From scholarships and emergency funds to student organizations and academic programs, the initiative shows how even small contributions can create meaningful impact across the university.

To help explain how the event comes together, the story includes insight from the director of Annual Giving Stewardship and Donor Relations, Courtney Brown, who helps coordinate the initiative each year. Brown said one of the defining aspects of True Blue Give is the way it allows donors to support what matters most to them personally.

“So whether that is a college, a named scholarship, an emergency fund, a student organization — absolutely anywhere — we ask them to make a gift of any size back to an area that was impactful to them,” Brown said.

The story also shows what that support can look like on the student side, featuring scholarship recipient Autumn Claybrooks as one example of how giving can translate into real opportunities. Claybrooks, an elementary education major, said the support she received has helped her focus more fully on her education and future career.

“Being a scholarship recipient means that I can free up my time to focus on being an educator. I work two jobs to support myself through college, so this allows me to invest in myself — because there are people investing in me,” Claybrooks said.

By combining preparation, planning and personal impact, the segment emphasizes how True Blue Give is not just about the days on the calendar, but about the broader sense of community behind the event. The initiative reflects how collective support can shape individual student experiences while helping move the university forward.

Watch the segment below:

Working on this story highlighted how much coordination and community support go into making an initiative like True Blue Give possible. It serves as a reminder that when people across campus and beyond come together to give back, the results can be felt by students in real and lasting ways.

To watch, listen

• “Out of the Blue” is available anytime on the university’s YouTube channel, the True Blue TV channel, Roku, Apple TV and Amazon Fire TV.

• It also airs on Murfreesboro cable Channel 9 daily at 6 a.m., 11 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.; NewsChannel5+ at 6:30 p.m. Sundays; WKRN+ at 7 p.m. Thursdays and noon Sundays; and streamed on the MTSU Jazz Network through WMOT.org at 7 a.m. on the first Sunday of each month; and on other cable outlets in Middle Tennessee, so check local listings.

• It is also available as a podcast on iTunes and Google Play and as individual interview segments on Spotify at https://spoti.fi/453hxg3.

Watch previous episodes of “Out of the Blue” at https://mtsunews.com/out-of-the-blue.

— Karli Sutton (Karli.Sutton@mtsu.edu)