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JAMESTOWN, NY (WNY News Now) – A months long campaign to raise money for Jamestown’s Saint Susan’s Center concluded today, raising over $26,000 dollars to help fund the soup kitchen.
Kicking off earlier in the year, the “Cents for St. Susan’s” campaign is one of their major fundraisers for the year, as executive director Cherie Rowland tells us, it attempts to raise money through the community that helps fund operations.
“It will be used for feeding over 30,000 people this year,“ explained Rowland. “It will be used for operating expenses, as well as buying food.”
Rowland goes on to say that the Soup Kitchen does more than just provide meals, it is also a place for human connection.
“St. Susan’s not only feeds folks,“ stated Rowland. “We provide that human contact, community, and that’s almost just as important as having a nourishing meal is having human contact.”
While no goal was set for this year’s campaign, numbers were a little lower compared to last year.
Over the past two decades, the community has raised more than $300,000 dollars in this event alone.
“It started out as a food drive,“ explained Communications Coordinator for the BPU Becky Robbins. “I believe they raised about $6,000 dollars. So every year it’s just grown and grown.”
Robbins touts many reasons for the event’s success, some of which are their sponsors, community giveback, and help from the media.
“We put canisters out, like 50 of them,“ stated Robbins. “Those brought in about $2,000 dollars, which was very generous. We urged people to collect bottles, and cans, redeemable containers. We didn’t do as much in that this year, but still raised $200 for that. At the BPU i had asked different people to come that worked on the hotdog sale, and we raised over $700 dollars for that.”
Since the campaign started in 2000 the drive has now earned a total of $306,964.15
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