May 28, 2025 | By Kerri Braly

The words weren’t bawdy like Chaucer or elegant like Shakespeare, and they won’t be found in a St. John’s classroom text, but the curious couplet—“Mark’s departure was such a loss. We now have another boss”—was intriguing enough to send Ryan Otieno (SF27) on a search for hidden treasure.

The riddle was among a list of 20 clues divided between the Santa Fe and Annapolis campuses, released this past spring on the school’s annual Johnnie Day of Giving. They pointed students to the location of 20 hidden plush axolotls—the school’s unofficial mascot. Each toy was named after a Program author and worth a $200 gift to St. John’s when found. 

“There it was,” Otieno says of his axolotl, which he spied in the executive office just outside Santa Fe President J. Walter Sterling’s workspace, “tucked behind a seat like it had quietly slipped out of sight.” That moment, Otieno recalls, “made the Day of Giving feel tangible for me. I thought, ‘I actually get to be a part of this.’”

Otieno wasn’t the only student who made a serendipitous discovery. Not even an hour into the scavenger hunt, Johnnies from East and West had tracked down every single stuffed animal. With the snap of a photo for social media bragging rights (one student’s shot depicted the axolotl ceremoniously held aloft like a trophy), the amphibians were claimed and $4,000 in challenge gifts unlocked.

Newly launched in 2025, the axolotl hunt was part of the third annual Johnnie Day of Giving, which invites members of the St. John’s community to support the needs of the college. A group of 885 donors joined together over 24 hours to raise roughly $242,000, turning the April 9 event into the most successful Johnnie Day of Giving yet.

The St. John’s collegewide advancement office, which oversees fundraising and alumni relations, orchestrated the axolotl scavenger hunt from rhyme to find. They attribute the “thrill of the chase” to getting students directly involved in the day’s excitement and its accompanying philanthropic goals without the pressure of making a monetary gift. Delivered through email, posters, and social media, its lyrical clues motivated participants to search high and low in locations like Mellon Hall in Annapolis and the Pritzker Student Center in Santa Fe. Many axolotls were discovered in communal spaces recently refreshed through philanthropy, a symbolic reminder that generosity can be hidden in plain sight.

For Vivian Miyakawa (A27), there was a personal connection. As a tank room assistant who helps care for the college biology lab’s living axolotls, Miyakawa knew right away that she wanted to join the hunt. Her clue? “Glass all around, ideas in flight; find this axolotl basking in light.” Miyakawa’s strategy? Stake out her favorite campus study spot—early. “I woke up to do my homework in the Fishbowl lounge in Mellon Hall, hoping to find an axolotl waiting,” she says. “No such luck. But a little after 8 a.m., I spotted the grail.” 

The Fishbowl was a fitting location for the discovery, and not simply because of its nickname, which references the communal space’s transparent glass walls: A major renovation to Mellon Hall had just been completed when Miyakawa arrived at St. John’s for her freshman year. She says she “couldn’t be more grateful” for the alumni and friends who made it possible and acknowledges a growing awareness of how gifts to the college are shaping her education. “Whether it’s through scholarship money, internship funding, or even the weekday cookies provided for students in Mellon Hall, giving really does impact my daily life.”

That’s exactly what Brett Heavner (A89) hoped students would take away from the experience. Heavner, the president-elect of the Alumni Association Board of Directors, co-sponsored the axolotl hunt with a gift to St. John’s along with Eric Jacobs (SF04). “I love that the college found a clever, entertaining way to involve students,” Heavener says, “to illustrate that every gift helps the college immensely.”

That reality, he recalls, wasn’t so obvious to him during his undergraduate years: “I didn’t realize how much the college relies on regular giving. I certainly didn’t realize that tuition doesn’t cover anywhere near the cost of this education.” And even years after graduation, Heavner notes, alumni don’t always see the full picture. “There is this idea that because St. John’s is small, we’re simple to operate. But we provide the same services as larger universities—student support, financial aid, lab equipment—but without their economies of scale.”

Heavner views Johnnie Day of Giving as a particularly satisfying way to support St. John’s because a variety of challenges and matches means that gifts are often multiplied in real-time. And for the donor who has ever wondered whether the impact will be seen, this Johnnie Day of Giving offered an answer: it was sought out, seen, and celebrated—20 times over.