North Cariboo residents gave like they’ve never given before this year when it comes to the Quesnel Community Foundation’s annual fundraising campaign.
President Mary Sjostrom confirms that they went well beyond their target this year…
“With the contribution of our anonymous donor, we are just slightly short of 155 thousand dollars, so that is remarkable.  I stand to be corrected but I think this is the most that we’ve ever raised, so it is extremely exciting.”
An anonymous donor offered to match the community dollar for dollar up to 50 thousand dollars.
Sjostrom says they started the campaign three or four weeks earlier this year…
“I firmly believe that made a difference because once you get into December, even late November , folks are busy with Christmas and what not, so we will I think, if the Board agrees, we will open the campaign earlier.”
Sjostrom says their endowment continues to grow and all of this money, as always, will stay in the Quesnel area…
“The endowment that we currently have, and that doesn’t include this figure, but the endowment that we had at our last Board meeting was 3.456 million.  We have a wonderful investment committee that monitors this very closely, they’re all local volunteers, and they keep a close eye on where we should be investing the money, and then 3.5 percent of our earnings can be given out as grants.”
Sjostrom says they won’t know exactly how much will go out to community groups and organizations until year end.
She was a little concerned going into this year’s campaign, with COVID and everything that is happening in the world, but in the end she says she couldn’t be happier with the way things turned out…
“I am very, very excited and I just want to thank the community and previous residents as well of Quesnel ,because everybody always comes to the plate when we’re doing a fundraiser, and certainly to our anonymous donor, we couldn’t do it without them.”
The Quesnel Community Foundation was formed back in 2001 with just 50 thousand dollars as part of a legacy fund from the community hosting the BC Winter Games.