GREEN BAY, Wis. (WFRV) – The only fundraiser for the Howe Community Resource Center, they hosted their seventh annual Rally for a Reason Saturday afternoon.
“We wanted to have something different for a fundraiser or something fun that all families could participate in and also something low-cost that anybody in the community could do so we came up with Rally for a Reason,” said Amanda Johnson, Executive Director of the Howe Community Resource Center.
The event is a scavenger hunt all around Brown County with 17 stops that participants have clues for. Johnson explained that for two hours the participating teams go around to planned stops where there are activities at each stop made for them to have fun and explore Brown County.
“We only serve kids and families in Brown County so we wanted to make sure that they got a chance to see kind of not only the for-profit businesses, and we also have some nonprofit businesses on our stops this year for a chance for them to gain awareness of what others are doing, just like we’re doing and so it just kind of came about from that,” she said.
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Amanda Johnson explained that the goal of the event is to ensure that they can continue to have the funds to have children be safe, healthy, and ready for academic and life success. As for the stops, she said they partnered with organizations and businesses that believed in their mission as well.
After the main event, they announce the winners where they will be awarded cash prizes ranging from $50 to $150. There will also be an an after-party with more fun for all the participants to enjoy.
“We have a live band coming to perform, we have a photo booth from Envy photo booth, we have the bar sponsoring our tailgater buffet with multiple raffle items and we have an indoor smoker raffle going on,” explained Johnson. “It’s really just a good time to come back and enjoy each other‘s company in a nice and comfortable way.”
At this year’s event, the Howe Community Resource Center had 158 people register, creating about 32 teams participating. Johnson said just knowing that those 158 people are going to gain more awareness of what they do and have a chance to hang out together is what the event is all about.
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“About 50% of our teams this year were returning so we’re pretty excited about that,” beamed Johnson. “The coolest thing I think is when we see the returning teams, this should’ve been our 10th year but Covid canceled it for three and to see the teams come back year after year after year tells you that you must be doing something right and then to see the new teams come and be excited about it, it’s just really fun.”
To register, there was an online link on the center’s social media page and Johnson said past participants were a good word-of-mouth. Tickets started at $25 and then as the month went on, they reduced those down to $10 so more families would be able to participate as well as other community members.
“We we are sponsored we raise sponsorships and so what’s really incredible about this is that before the teams even got here we raised $39,000 with our sponsorship,” said Johnson. “We really couldn’t have done an event like this without them because what that means is that even after our expenses we’re gonna raise at least $35,000 and that goes directly back to our programming, and we don’t have overhead cost because of your new relationship with others so it’s all going back to the kids, It’s all going back to the programming.”
Johnson added that with the success of the event so far, they hope to continue with the event annually. To find out more about the fundraising event and the Howe Community Resource Center, click here.
