GREAT FALLS – Volunteers from various businesses in the community came together to kick off NeighborWorks Great Falls’ Annual Fund Drive on Wednesday morning.
Between March 6 and March 22, over 80 volunteers will call over 300 businesses in Great Falls to spread NeighborWorks’ mission and ask for their support.
Volunteers are placed on a team and each team member contacts around five businesses.
NeighborWorks Executive Director Sherrie Arey and Board President Jack Prothero began advance calls earlier this year to some of Great Falls’ most prominent businesses to ask for their continued support.
The two-week fundraising goal is $147,500.
Amanda Maher, who is this year’s Fund Drive Chairperson, said her role is to motivate the teams to complete their calls.
Maher said, “As a financial advisor, I’ve seen firsthand the effect that homeownership has on a family and a person and a community and the investment in a neighborhood, the domino effect when someone has the pride of ownership, how it affects the whole block and I enjoy seeing people reach their goals of homeownership.”
At the kickoff event, Beth McKinney was this year’s guest speaker. McKinney is a NeighborWorks homebuyer who shared her story about homeownership and the impacts it has had on her family the past ten years.
NeighborWorks Great Falls fundraises year-round, but the annual fund drive is where they get most of their funds to continue their mission.
Since 1980, NeighborWorks has helped over 2,200 first-time homebuyers into homeownership.
Reporting by Kasey Herman for MTN News
