Centerville Stroll Red Buckets for Needy Families
Donation protected
The Centerville Civic Association raises money for the Families in Need Fund. This fund provides direct monetary support to help local families buy food and gifts for their holiday celebration. It also helps to pay for the occasional "emergency" taxi ride for a child who has no other way to get to school to ensure that they do not miss a day of their education. It has also been used to help families who face a sudden unexpected calamity, such as a house fire.
By far the largest single source of donations is the annual Christmas Stroll.
For those of you unfamiliar with Strolls, they are a wonderful Cape Cod tradition. In Centerville, our Main Street is closed to traffic and food and entertainment are set up all along the road. People wander along the street meeting friends and enjoying the completely free food and entertainment. Of course, the highlight is Santa who stays as long as necessary to see each child in line and listen to their Christmas wishes. We put red buckets all along the street at the various points of entertainment and hope that people will drop in their spare change, a dollar or two or maybe the occasional larger bill.
This raises over $5,000 each year.
This year because of COVID-19, we have had to dramatically change the format of our Stroll. In fact, we are calling it a "Drive" just to be particularly clear.
Main Street will become one way so that participants can remain in their cars and follow the bright lights to Santa's Workshop. Santa and his elves will be on hand to take wish lists from every child from inside their cars. While elves with buckets will pass among the slowly moving cars asking for donations, we anticipate a much smaller crowd. And, times are difficult, so many who may have been able to give in the past might not have that flexibility this year.
That is why we are putting up a virtual red bucket on GoFundMe.
We will be so very grateful if we are able to come close to the donations of the previous years by the end of 2020. Don't be shy about just giving a few dollars. Little by little it will add up.
We have no paid staff, so all donations either go to the Needy Family Fund or to support one of our free community events. While it might be some time before we can hold our next event, there is no shortage of need these days.
To learn a bit more about the Civic Association and see photos of all our activities, use this link: https://www.facebook.com/02632Civic (As for who I am and why I organized this fundraiser, I serve on the volunteer Board of Directors to assist with PR and Social Media. It seemed to fall within my area to help out with this.)
On behalf of the Centerville Civic Association and the community we serve, thank you and Merry Christmas!
By far the largest single source of donations is the annual Christmas Stroll.
For those of you unfamiliar with Strolls, they are a wonderful Cape Cod tradition. In Centerville, our Main Street is closed to traffic and food and entertainment are set up all along the road. People wander along the street meeting friends and enjoying the completely free food and entertainment. Of course, the highlight is Santa who stays as long as necessary to see each child in line and listen to their Christmas wishes. We put red buckets all along the street at the various points of entertainment and hope that people will drop in their spare change, a dollar or two or maybe the occasional larger bill.
This raises over $5,000 each year.
This year because of COVID-19, we have had to dramatically change the format of our Stroll. In fact, we are calling it a "Drive" just to be particularly clear.
Main Street will become one way so that participants can remain in their cars and follow the bright lights to Santa's Workshop. Santa and his elves will be on hand to take wish lists from every child from inside their cars. While elves with buckets will pass among the slowly moving cars asking for donations, we anticipate a much smaller crowd. And, times are difficult, so many who may have been able to give in the past might not have that flexibility this year.
That is why we are putting up a virtual red bucket on GoFundMe.
We will be so very grateful if we are able to come close to the donations of the previous years by the end of 2020. Don't be shy about just giving a few dollars. Little by little it will add up.
We have no paid staff, so all donations either go to the Needy Family Fund or to support one of our free community events. While it might be some time before we can hold our next event, there is no shortage of need these days.
To learn a bit more about the Civic Association and see photos of all our activities, use this link: https://www.facebook.com/02632Civic (As for who I am and why I organized this fundraiser, I serve on the volunteer Board of Directors to assist with PR and Social Media. It seemed to fall within my area to help out with this.)
On behalf of the Centerville Civic Association and the community we serve, thank you and Merry Christmas!
Organizer and beneficiary
Deborah Growitz
Organizer
Centerville, MA
Gary Brown
Beneficiary