Month of Giving is the newest version of Giving Tuesday, an annual tradition where Tourism Sun Peaks (TSP) matches public donations to a number of local non-profit organizations.
Ending on Nov. 30, the Month of Giving has officially wrapped up, and by Nov. 28, the tally of funds raised across each organization was $18,000.
With the generosity of the community putting the total well above what TSP agreed to match, executive director for TSP Naomi Kerchinsky said their contribution of an additional $12,000 will be spread around to the 10 participating non-profits, rather than matching donations one-to-one.
“All these different organizations in our community, if we help strengthen them, then it makes our destination a better place,” she added.
What is the Month of Giving?
Initially intended to correlate with Giving Tuesday, TSP’s idea was to make the local initiative one day only for its first year.
As this year’s Giving Tuesday fell in December, TSP expanded it to the Month of Giving to keep it in November.
“It has grown to expand the timeline, to get a little bit more advertisement,” events manager for TSP Theresa St. Louis said about this third year.
Starting with an invitation to everybody they had access to, she said TSP received requests from 10 organizations asking to participate. From there, each group launched a donation platform and information was posted online at sunpeaksresort.com, as well as on social media.
Along with this, TSP sent out a couple of emails, one in October and another in November as a reminder.
During the entire month, people were encouraged to donate to these organizations and St. Louis said TSP deemed the response a huge success.
Participating organizations
Opting into the campaign this year was Adaptive Sports at Sun Peaks (ASSP), ArtZone Sun Peaks, Sun Peaks Alpine Club (SPAC), Sun Peaks Bear Aware (SPBA), Sun Peaks Education Society, Sun Peaks Freestyle Club (SPFC), Sun Peaks Historical Society, Sun Peaks Nordic Club, Sun Peaks Skate Park Foundation and Sun Peaks Volunteer Fire Department Society.
Of this collective, many chose to highlight specific uses for the money they hoped to receive as a part of their individual campaigns.
ASSP is putting the money toward upgrading their fleet of sit skis, hoping to add another brand new model to the two other two they’ve already acquired.
At SPAC, their roof is in need of repair and they’re hoping to keep their space up-to-date by replacing it.
SPBA has two main objectives. One is completion of a bear hazard assessment and the other is for educational resources contributing to community education via their Sun Peaks market display booth, staff training presentations and more.
The focus for SPFC is keeping registration fees affordable ensuring inclusion of all athletes excited about freestyle skiing.
Continuing to expand next year
Next year, TSP is looking to tie this initiative in with Canadian Thanksgiving.
“We can have a public presence on the Thanksgiving weekend and a little bit of a celebration around it,” St. Louis said.
As part of this, she explained they may have participating groups come in as market vendors for a daytime presence on Sunday, then the Tuesday after the weekend would wrap up the campaign.
“Whether or not we allow donations on just the one day, or up until that thirteenth or fourteenth of October for next year, it’s not etched in stone,” she said. “But that’ll be our Giving Tuesday.”
Beyond donations, Kerchinsky said they’ll be inviting volunteers to benefit the non-profits with hands-on help.
