Day Of Giving: Community supports children and youth

Day Of

Giving:

Community supports children and youth

We’ve dubbed it the Day of Giving — a day in which Steele Countians show just how generous they can be when it comes to supporting youth-related organizations. Once a year on a Saturday, generally in April, three organizations here in Owatonna host remarkable fundraising events one on top of the other. Each event by itself will raise tens of thousands of dollars. Collectively, that number will reach into the hundreds of thousands. For any one organization to do as well as it does on that one single day is pretty remarkable. For all three to collect as much as they do on the same day is nothing short of astounding. Of course, there’s a lot of hard work that goes into the planning of these events. Events like Big Brothers Big Sisters of Southern Minnesota’s Bowl for Kids’ Sake, the Young Life Cake Auction and the Night of Knights auctions don’t just happen. They take months of planning and promoting by volunteers who are giving of their time and energy to make the events seem awless. auctioned off or space to be used free of charge, like Spare Time Entertainment’s bowling lanes. We always knew that Owatonna and Steele County had a very generous business community. All we had to do was to look at the generosity of those businesses, both large and small, to prove how generous they truly are. Then, of course, there are the people who attend the various events and open up their pocketbooks to support these organizations. Two years ago, the three programs combined raised more than $290,000 in that single day. Last year it was in the neighborhood of $295,000. This year they might break that $300,000 mark. And wouldn’t that be great. But it takes those people in attendance at the events to raise that kind of money. What’s most amazing is that all three events in their own way help support programs that support children and youth in Steele County — Big Brothers Big Sisters with its youth-mentoring programs, Young Life with its faith-based programing for youth and St. Mary’s School, supported by the Night of Knights auctions.