Leadership McMinnville donates to non-profits

The Leadership McMinnville 2006 class has now distributed the funds collected from last year’s Autumn Street Fair, opting to provide funds to a number of local non-profits.

Class president David G. Snowden said the class had discussed several alternatives, but eventually decided on using the money to help support charitable organizations.

The Leadership McMinnville program affords opportunities for the class to meet with various civic organizations in an effort to learn how the groups operate, what services they provide, how they deal with local needs and issues, and, since they are non-profits, how they obtain their funding.

‘Based on what we saw throughout the year, and on our human services day, where there were several service organizations that we met with and talked with,’ Snowden said, ‘we saw an evident need in the community and thought this would be a great way for us to use our money.’

Organizations receiving donations from the 2006 class include the Child Advocacy Center, Families in Crisis, the Senior Center, Healing Hearts, and Meals on Wheels.

Class member Bill Myers said the group is pleased to help finance organizations which work to provide important services in the community that might not otherwise be addressed.

‘In the time we spent visiting with these organizations on human services day, all of us felt the need and saw so many things that need to be done in our community,’ Myers said. ‘So we began thinking about how we could help, particularly the one’s that we visited, so we decided to interview each one and ask them what they needed, and to give them the money to address those needs. So that’s how we dispersed the money, based on the needs of the human services and non-profits that we visited.

‘That was the mutual feeling of everyone in our class,’ Myers continued. ‘How do we help them’?

Myers said being involved with the Leadership McMinnville class made all the members more aware of the vital roles these groups play in the community.

‘They are very important,’ Myers said. ‘There’s so much that the non-profits do. And many of the people doing this work don’t get paid, but they need money just to keep things going and that’s what we tried to do. We helped them get cameras and color laser printers to print brochures, we helped get treadmills for the Senior Center. The needs that they had are what we tried to fill.’