Interested in establishing a central donation and request-fulfillment hub in the Crestwood community?
Plan on attending an organizational meeting at 6:30 p.m. May 29 at the Village of Mantua Town Hall. You’ll be laying the groundwork for the Crestwood One Fund, a partnership between the Mantua-Shalersville Area Chamber of Commerce and the Portage Foundation.
Committee members should plan on meeting for three or four months to create advisory board bylaws and to determine what kind of requests that board would be willing to fund.
“Then the advisory board members will be selected and the real work begins: soliciting contributions and, once collected, accepting requests and disbursing the funds,” Portage Foundation Executive Director Janice Simmons-Mortimer said.
Modeled after the Aurora One Fund, which has for years served as a one-stop shop for those seeking donations and those willing to give what they can, the Crestwood One Fund will streamline what can be a frustrating experience.
“One of our concerns from the business owners was it seems like people are constantly asking for donations, for gift cards, for money, for prizes, for little things, and it seems like a big part of their day is deciding what to do about that,” said Randy Ellis, president of the Mantua-Shalersville Area Chamber of Commerce.
With the Crestwood One Fund up and running, businesses and residents in the Mantua, Shalersville and Hiram communities — townships and villages alike — would no longer need to solicit numerous businesses for fundraiser or program donations. They’d simply need to complete an application on the Portage Foundation’s website.
“This allows businesses to be as philanthropic as works for them. It also provides individual residents of a community with a place if they want to support their friends and neighbors. They know that they, too, can donate to this fund to help support the youth groups, the church groups, the other nonprofits operating in their area,” Simmons-Mortimer said.
People who can’t attend the meeting but who want to participate or learn more about the Crestwood One Fund should contact Ellis at msacoc@gmail.com.
Wendy DiAlesandro
Wendy DiAlesandro is a former Record Publishing Co. reporter and contributing writer for The Portager.