Special Prizes

Prize money donations made available during the course of Giving Day, funded by Bank of America, included first and second prize for most unique donors ($25,000 and $15,000, respectively); first and second prizes for most dollars raised ($20,000 and $10,000, respectively), and designated power hours, with $1,000 prizes each, including Rise and Shine Power Hour, beginning at 6 am; Lunch Special Power Hour, which started at noon; Quitting Time Power Hour, 4 to 5 pm; and Super Power Hour, from 7 to 8 pm.

In addition, $1,000 Launch Prizes were awarded to the first 12 groups to receive 25 unique gifts of $25 or more.

A Facebook Contest, a one-day event on February 26 where registered groups were encouraged to post “a creative, dynamic and engaging photo” on their Facebook page, with the tag #FairfieldCountyGives, offered three cash prizes event before Day of Giving began. The three groups with the largest number of Likes on their photos received $1,000 (first place), $500 (second place) or $250 (third place).

The Catherine Violet Hubbard Foundation/The Catherine Violet Hubbard Animal Sanctuary won first place in that competition after a photo of Catherine, the group’s namesake, snuggling up to a dog gathered 2,487 Likes in less than 3½ hours.

Harmony Verna said the “beautiful picture” is what the foundation and the future sanctuary all about: “that little girl’s love for animals.”

Ms Verna is vice president of The Animal Center, which partnered with the Hubbard family to create The Catherine Violet Hubbard Foundation. The foundation is raising funds to create the animal sanctuary in memory of Catherine, one of the children killed on 12/14.

The CVH Foundation/CVH Animal Sanctuary raised $12,936 in donations last week. Its $13,936 total made it the Newtown organization to raise the largest amount of money on March 5.

“Last year we raised about $13,000, so it was a great, very productive one-day effort,” Ms Verna said. “It was also a great way to get the word out about the sanctuary to other places in Fairfield County that might not yet have heard about it.”

The foundation beat its self-imposed goal of $13,000 by nearly $1,000 last week, all of which will go into the foundation’s general fund.

Three groups were each awarded $500 during a Homestretch celebration near the conclusion of Giving Day. Among that group was The Newtown Foundation, which finished the day with 67 donations and $1,955.

Additional Newtown Nonprofit Efforts

Sixteen Newtown-based nonprofits participated in this year’s FCCF Giving Day. While this number is larger than last year’s collection of 12 groups, four of last year’s participants (The 12.14 Foundation, CMAK Sandy Hook Memorial Foundation, Jesse Lewis Choose Love Foundation, and The Resiliency Center of Newtown) did not participate this year.

There were, however, a number of newcomers in this year’s fundraising effort including The Avielle Foundation, Creative Youth Productions, Embrace Hope/Sandy Hook Equine Assisted Therapy, Friends of 2GHG, Newtown Historical Society, Peak Academy/REACH Newtown, and Sandy Hook Promise Foundation.

Ben’s Lighthouse was also a first-timer this year. Program Manager Kelly Parades said this week that they organization was very pleased with the money raised.

“We were hoping to raise $10,000, and we nearly raised that,” Ms Paredes said March 10. “We ended up getting a matching donation, which went right to our website, so even through the FCCF website says $7,407 for our total, we did better than that.”

Ben’s Lighthouse supporters were challenged with a matching grant, in which “a really generous local business owner,” said Ms Paredes, matched anything that was donated to Ben’s Lighthouse between 4 and 10 pm on Giving Day. The final total raised for Ben’s Lighthouse, with the matching grant added in, was $9,998, according to Ms Paredes.

“This year,” she said, “for us it was all about trying to figure out who is invested in Ben’s Lighthouse. Our board looked to share with our community why they are doing what they’re doing, and I think that personal connection really resonated with folks and brought the dollars in.”

Donations, she said, were received from 23 different states. According to her post-event report, Ms Paredes said more than 100 new people donated to the organization, which is in the process of planning a spring break program, an in-town summer program, as well as its annual outreach trip.

Ben’s Bells Project, the parent organization for Ben’s Bells Newtown, had 200 individual gifts, and received a total of $4,775. It was the second year for the local studio, which operates under the guidance of Ben’s Bells in Tucson, Ariz., to participate. The local studio raised $1,450 more last week than in last year’s inaugural run, when BBN raised $3,325.

Tricia Guiry, the studio and community relations manager for Ben’s Bells Newtown, believes part of this year’s success was due to an expanding supporter base for the local studio.

“We did a couple of focused e-mails to our database, and we’re also working 100 percent in conjunction with Tucson,” where Ben’s Bells Project is based, Ms Guiry said this week. “I think just overall our supporter base has grown so much more since last year’s Giving Day, which helped us this year.”

Money raised last week is earmarked to stay in Connecticut, she said. Most of the money raised will be used for kindness education programs in local and regional schools.

“The schools that we provide free education to, that’s what the money will support,” Ms Guiry said, adding that some of the funds raised will also be used to coordinate a Celebration of Kindness, a public event being planned for June 7.

Leaps of Faith (LOF) Adaptive Skiers, which offers programs to get children, adults and wounded veterans with disabilities and/or special needs onto water and snow skis under the guidance of expert volunteers, raised $2,565 last week. That was more than twice as much as last year’s total of $1,210.

LOF Executive Director Joel Zeisler said a lot of work was done to achieve that.

“We promoted this year, quite a bit, through social media and so forth, and I think a lot of our volunteers, participants, family, and other people we reach out to, all responded,” he said Wednesday morning. “We had fewer donors this year than last year, but we did better. The donations were larger, and it was extremely successful. I was very pleased.

“We need to make sure these kids can get out on the water,” he continued. “That’s what it boils down to. Without the funds, we can’t do that.”

The funds raised will also help the club, said Mr Zeisler, which is hoping to put up a new building on a new site “in the very near future,” he said March 11.

“Whenever there is an opportunity to get our name out there, and any place where we can bring in funds, we’re really focused on now,” he said.

A newcomer to the event, Newtown Historical Society, raised $340 thanks to 12 gifts last week. Amy Fallas-Kerr, the co-president of the society, said NHS wanted to become involved in the 2015 fundraiser after hearing about how successful the inaugural event was.

“It was so successful last year,” she said Wednesday night, “and this year it exceeded expectations, so I’m really glad we were involved with it.

NHS was raising money with the intention of increasing its collection of archival materials, Ms Fallas-Kerr said.

“We’re looking for donations that will fund that particular goal,” she said. “We didn’t really promote it that way, so in the future I think we’ll make a point of saying ‘Your donation will go to fund this particular project.’ We learned a lot from this experience.”

Like many others, the historical society used social media and an e-mail blast to get the word out about Giving Day.

“Using social media was a big push through the foundation, to reach younger donors,” said Ms Fallas-Kerr. “For me, I found that this was so much easier to donate to than other organized fundraising events. The idea of crowdsourcing is so beneficial.”

The other Newtown groups that participated in Giving Day 2015 and their results were as follows: Ben’s Lighthouse, with 186 gifts, raised $7,407; Newtown Youth & Family Services, $3,536; Friends of 2GHG, Inc, $795; Sandy Hook Promise Foundation, $766; Creative Youth Productions Inc, $754; Newtown Forest Association, $520; Embrace Hope-Sandy Hook Equine Assisted Therapy Foundation, $350; The Avielle Foundation, $346; EverWonder Children’s Museum, $25; and Peak Academy/REACH Newtown, $0.

Peak Academy was not the only group with a $0 balance at the end of the day. While 401 groups had registered for Giving Day, for whatever reason a number of them did not raise any money last week. At the end of the collection period, 386 nonprofits earned funds. 

This story has been expanded slightly from the version that appears in the March 13, 2015 print edition of The Newtown Bee. It contains comments from and details about Ben’s Lighthouse and its participating in Giving Day.