When I became chair of the board of directors this fall, I asked you, our Samaritans community, to take a stake in our future and in the future of the people we serve. To imagine a better world and to build it with us. To walk down a hard road and let hope guide us. To do hard things.
Donations enable our organization to do the hard things – to serve the many people who need us. We set fundraising goals to ensure we can operate the programs that save lives. Our year-end campaign is an important part of our fundraising plan, and it has grown significantly over the past few years.
A few months ago, I had the pleasure to meet with a donor who prefers to remain anonymous who has provided a matching gift for our year-end campaign for many years. Each year, his gift comes with a challenge – to do more. This year, we were proud to have the Bancel and Herzfelder families join this donor’s match challenge, together offering to match every dollar raised up to $225,000.
The development team at Samaritans, along with the Board and others, worked incredibly hard through the holidays to talk with donors across our community and beyond and together, raised $277,553, giving us a total of $502,553.
When we shared this news with Brenda Bancel, she wrote that she knew how much work we had to do, and how many people are struggling, and she doubled her gift to help us reach more people.
It is with great pride that I share that our year-end campaign raised $602,553!!
With love and gratitude in my heart, I would like to offer a big and sincere thank you to our anonymous donor, Bruce and Ellen Herzfelder, and the Bancel family for your generous contributions that built the foundation for this campaign…and to everyone who participated and helped us achieve this wild success.
With this funding, our life-savings services will reach:
- Marginalized communities who desperately need a voice
- Veterans and first responders and other heroes who have served our country and now need us to serve them
- Teenagers and kids who have been bullied and are struggling to find a place where they belong
- Everyone who is feeling lost and isolated during this difficult time
Together, we CAN do hard things.
