The group ‘100 Women Who Care’ recently completed their second out of four donation sessions that aim to raise a large amount of money in a short amount of time.
At the most recent meeting, 100 Women Who Care collectively raised over $20,000 that will be donated to the Safe Harbour Society to support housing programs. The official donation has not yet been totalled, but group organizer Cindy Jefferies said that they expect to be close to $23,000.
“Safe Harbour does a lot of great work in our community, and the funds that have been donated by 100 Women Who Care will go towards the housing program that they have. Kath Hoffman, the executive director at Safe Harbour, did just an amazing job of telling the story of how they help individuals, and it really helped people see some of the work they do in the community. We’re pretty excited to support them,” Jefferies said.
“We had pretty close to 200 people – I think we were just under – show up, and we knew that we had about 40 people in advance who wouldn’t be there but would donate as part of their membership commitment,” she added.
100 Women Who Care is actually composed of a group of nearly 250 individuals. The group has committed to meet four times in a year where they gather and nominate charities, with each member writing a $100 cheque to the chosen organization.
During the first Red Deer 100 Women Who Care meeting in January, the group raised nearly $23,000 for an activity structure at Eastview Middle School. At this most recent meeting, the other groups nominated were the Red Deer Marching Band Society and Camp Alexo.
“From an organizational perspective, it went a little more smoothly. We just knew a bit more about how to set up the room, and how to register and of course we were more prepared for things like needing more registration forms and ballots and all of those sorts of things. I think our membership has sort of solidified a little bit more. We had a few new people, but for the most part it was people that we expected to be there,” Jefferies said.
“It was a really positive energy. Everyone was excited to be there and to be part of something a little bit greater than themselves. It’s just a really fun, fun atmosphere.”
The ladies of 100 Women Who Care discussed that with a membership of 250, it might be a good idea to split the funds raised between two groups. However, this was voted against by a majority of people because agency funding can be used very quickly, especially with something like a housing program.
“Some of the discussion around that was to show that $10,000 or $20,000 might seem like a lot of money, but it’s really not when you’re trying to fund programs at an agency level,” Jefferies said.
“We also voted on whether or not we should cap our membership, because we’re almost at 250 people, but we decided not to do that yet. If it happens later, it happens later.”
The group’s meetings and information can be followed on the 100 Women Who Care facebook page. There will be two more meetings this year that will generate funds for new agencies and organizations.
“On the night of the meeting, we were at $19,100 for Safe Harbour. Our total donation to Eastview will be I believe $23,000, so I would expect that we will be close to that number for Safe Harbour when everything is finalized.”
kmendonsa@reddeerexpress.com
