A donation from Baron to the club...

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ragtopday Johnna
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Posts: 1544
Joined: Sat Feb 05, 2005 10:20 am
Location: Liberty, MO

A donation from Baron to the club...

Post by ragtopday Johnna »

Y'all. Blown away. This is amazing...

The club got the nicest e-mail from Clay Shafer, the general manager at Baron. In appreciation for our club's service to the community, Baron is giving the KC MINI Club $500 to use as our club sees fit.

So we need to chat about this. $500. In appreciation for our community service. Here's what that has looked like in the last few months:
628 pairs of underwear, a bucket full of cash, donated shipping to get it all to Texas in September.
$2585 raised at Coopers & Coffee for KC Pet Project and Harvesters in October.
A mountain of toys for Toys for Tots in December.

^^All of that? Our club could write the guidebook for MINI Motoring Hearts.

Let's talk about what we could do with $500. I'm going to include a few details below for background as well.

Our club has annual expenses averaging less than $50. We need $11 a year to pay for our web domain registry. It's paid through 2019. We spent $109 last year on postcards and spotter cards and have enough to last at least a couple of years. Those have been our only major expenditures for several years. (Details are on the Forum if you'd like to peruse.) The funds we have came from passing the tea tin to collect $ (always more than we needed) and selling club stickers. The club currently has $735 between the club kitty and the sticker proceeds. There are no annual membership dues collected and our funds far exceed our expenses.

What would you like to see the club do with the generous $500 gift from Baron?
Johnna--BMPR CR '05 Chili Red JustaCVT, JCW Sound Kit #D344, JCW BBK, aFe cai, M7 Under Strut System, strut tower plates, Sparkly wheel arches, a little chrome. Garage-sharing w/ '12 Goodwood MCS #372, '06 MCS "Jack" and MiniX4's classic, Moxie.
ragtopday Johnna
Forum Admin
Forum Admin
Posts: 1544
Joined: Sat Feb 05, 2005 10:20 am
Location: Liberty, MO

Re: A donation from Baron to the club...

Post by ragtopday Johnna »

Hello, Miniacs! I spent quite a bit of time today tracking down information to help with our donation discussion on FB yesterday.

The good news is that lots of groups that do adopt-a-family already have adopters for all of the families. Liberty Christmas Tree, Hillcrest Ministries, the Grooming Project... Others have a deadline that is a bit soon including Operation Breakthrough and Della Lamb. Still others that I reached out to have annual parties funded by corporate donors and were all set.

The better news: there are still opportunities to help. A little digging (ok, a lot, 20+ phone calls and e-mails) turned up folks in need. On the north end, AFL-CIO Community Services in St. Joseph still has many families that need adopted. We could deliver directly to the family if someone would like to do that. Della Lamb’s Christmas shopping event is too soon for us to participate, but they could use our help with their clothing pantry—it’s cold and hats, gloves, scarves are needed. The Westside Community Action Center is struggling to put together 50 baskets of basic needs for their day laborer friends (not even a gift, just basic needs), Don Bosco senior center has elderly clients who we could adopt with a small gift.

After talking with each place, I’d like to suggest the following: $500 to adopt one larger family or two small families from the agency in St. Joseph. $250 to WCAN, which is enough to fund 25% of their baskets. $125 to Della Lamb for coats and warm attire and $125 to Don Bosco.
All four of these groups are direct donations to the people in need. No cash would go to an organization, instead we would use it to purchase what is needed so we know what was done with our donation. The adopt-a-family agency allows selection of the family based on their needs and wishlist. They will also provide adopters with a food basket to take to the adopted family. Della Lamb will accept used coats that we could send with our donated goods. WCAN has baskets that can be used.

Wow, that’s a lot of info. Could we discuss?
Johnna--BMPR CR '05 Chili Red JustaCVT, JCW Sound Kit #D344, JCW BBK, aFe cai, M7 Under Strut System, strut tower plates, Sparkly wheel arches, a little chrome. Garage-sharing w/ '12 Goodwood MCS #372, '06 MCS "Jack" and MiniX4's classic, Moxie.
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