THUNDER BAY – One of the biggest evenings of the year for Our Kids Count has turned into a major boost to their overall operations.
The Half-Way Motors Winederful holiday event celebrated its ninth year last month and raised $34,110 for the local charity.
Since it was first held, nearly $130,000 has been raised for Our Kids Count through Winederful.
“We couldn’t offer all the free programming to families without the support of the community,” Our Kids Count executive director Jackie Knough said. “It was wonderful to see so many people come out to support this event.”
Our Kids Count is a grassroots organization that works with families, youth and children in the community and supports them through food security, parenting support, pre- and post-natal support, counselling and various workshops.
“We base our programs on the needs of the community,” Knough said. “We actually have a planning team of participants who really steer and guide our programming, so depending on what’s going on, we can adapt and change as needed.
“For example, during COVID we had to sort of pivot and be flexible to change some of our programming to be more virtual and more home visits.
“Now that we are back to normal, our enrollment is busy and we don’t have a lot of spaces in our programs, but we continue to add things as needed and hire people based on the money we raise so that we can continue to offer more services.”
Fundraising events are a big part of what keeps Our Kids Count going.
They only have 40 per cent of their funds coming from guaranteed government funding, with the rest of their operations being paid for through grants, fundraising, third-party events and donations.
“The money from things like Winederful goes towards purchasing food for programming, different materials for our childcare spaces,” Knough said. “We don’t have a set budget for all these resources … it all comes from events like this”
Our Kids Count is already gearing up for a busy 2024 with several fundraising events.
Pizza Tuesday, Ribfest and the Big Brothers Big Sisters golf tournament are all set to return, along with May’s Kam River Ultimate Duck Race, which is being held in conjunction with the Superior International Junior Hockey League’s Kam River Fighting Walleye.
“It’s not easy to fundraise these days with everything that’s going on,” Knough said. “We want to let the community know that we appreciate everything that they do for us through all these events to help us out.”
More information on Our Kids Count can be found on their website and Facebook page
