2 weeks Ago By By Bill O’brien [email protected]
TRAVERSE CITY — Dozens of area nonprofit organizations will share more than $21,000 in donations from merchants across Downtown Traverse City raised during the downtown’s 20th annual Shop Your Community Day. Proceeds were tabulated earlier this week by the city’s Downtown Development Authority, which sponsors the annual event in conjunction with the Downtown Traverse City Association merchants organization. This year’s event, which took place Nov.
9, saw a total of $21,205 raised for 30 local non-profit organizations, according to DDA Executive Director Harry Burkholder. “It’s an amazing collaboration between our downtown business community and our nonprofit community,” Burkholder said. “They both work really hard to promote the event.
” Shop Your Community Day started in 2005 as a way for downtown merchants to give back to local charities through an event that also encourages area consumers to shop at locally owned businesses. The event has raised more than $300,000 for local non-profits over the past 20 years, as participating merchants donate 15 percent of their customers’ purchase to the nonprofit or charitable organization of the patrons’ choice. Burkholder said 41 downtown businesses participated in this year’s event, which saw donations increase slightly from just over $20,000 received last year.
Donations are divided among six categories that include animal welfare and rights, arts and culture organizations, educational institutions, environmental conservation and outdoor recreation organizations, health and medical nonprofits and social service/humanities. Burkholder said the top non-profit organizations tapped by shoppers this year included the Women’s Resource Center, Project Feed the Kids operated by J & S Hamburg South, the Cherryland Humane Society, which is annually among the top recipients of donations, plus Boots for Kids and Noah’s Animal Rescue Center. Tiffany McQueer, co-owner of J & S Hamburg South on South Airport Road, said this was the first year that Project Feed the Kids participated in the event.
Project Feed the Kids was launched by Tiffany and her husband, Jason, four years ago and has donated more than 470,000 meals to help area families fight food insecurity in the Grand Traverse region. The business is also in the midst of its annual Adopt a Family Program for the Christmas holiday, and local families can sign up for that program until Dec. 15.
“It was really a great opportunity for us,” McQueer said. “It was very busy downtown and there were a lot of people taking part ..
. any donation that comes in for us is just fantastic.” Dawn Gildersleeve, general manager of the Cherry Republic store in downtown Traverse City and president of the DTCA, said Shop Your Community Day continues to generate strong community support over its 20-year history.
“It’s always a big day,” Gildersleeve said. “That’s because the non-profits funnel the information to people on their mailing lists and that really makes a difference.” Gildersleeve said the event is typically scheduled for early November so it creates some commercial buzz before the traditional holiday shopping season, including today’s annual “Small Business Saturday” national shopping day that’s also designed to support locally-owned businesses and is typically a big day for downtown merchants.
“We do slow down a bit during those first couple weeks of November, so it’s a good time to bring people downtown,” she said. “The feedback has always been positive ..
. it’s a great event and it drives people downtown.” The DTCA and DDA also tweaked the event for this year, limiting the number of participating nonprofits to 30 to increase the impact of the donations.
More than 50 nonprofits applied for the program this year, and the 30 participating organizations where selected through a lottery drawing — a system that will continue going forward, Burkholder said. “We were able to channel more resources to the involved organizations,” Burkholder said..
