Student-led fund grows to $20 million  

For over three decades, the now $20-million Waterloo Engineering Endowment Foundation (WEEF) has covered the cost of everything from significant pieces of equipment to Lego kits engineering students have put to good use.

Co-founders Avi Belinsky (BASc ’90, electrical engineering) and John Vellinga (BASc ’91, systems design engineering) came up with the idea for the fund over $2 beers in Carl Pollock Hall's POETs in 1989.

As the first student-funded and run endowment fund in Canada, WEEF has been repeatedly emulated by other schools.

“I remember thinking at the time, if not us, then who and if not now, when?” says Belinsky. “We also were so young and stupid we didn’t know how hard it would be to do, so we just did it.”