Updated Friday, 2:45 pm:
The Community Foundation of the Ozarks updated its Give Ozarks fundraising totals Friday, saying that $1,397,147.64 was raised for more than 240 local nonprofit organizations.
Original post:
The annual Give Ozarks Day on Tuesday assisted 240 nonprofit agencies throughout the region in furthering their impact on the community. We traveled around Springfield that day as organizations went on to raise over $1.2 million.
During the lunch hour Tuesday, staff at Community Partnership of the Ozarks sang karaoke on its front steps and provided lunch for a minimum $5 donation.
“There are a lot of great agencies and a lot of great people doing a lot of great work to help our community and to make life better,” Jacque Harness, director of communications said.
CPO’s mission is to promote and help build communities. Members of the staff showed their dedication to the cause by staying on site the length of the 24-hour fundraiser.
“It really brings awareness to what all of these great organizations are doing in this community and the contributions that they’re making but it also helps them further their mission but obviously having the funding that they need to do the work that they’re doing,” Brooke Ash, caring communities program director at CPO said.
The organization exceeded its $20,000 goal.
Ozarks Food Harvest set a $30,000 goal for the day. By midnight the online total reached $28,188. The agency tweeted “Because of your gifts for give Ozarks, we’ll provide 21,141 meals to kids through out Backpack Program. We cannot say thank you enough.”
OFH Communication and Public Relations Coordinator Christine Temple told KSMU, “We just think about the impact of that one day that so many people are giving it just really goes to show what this community is all about, we really like to support causes in this community and we care about our neighbors.”
University of Missouri Greene County Extension hosted an oldies concert at Nathanael Green - Close Memorial Park.
“We had so much fun with music and music always carried a message and usually the messages at those times were positive,” performer Harold Bender said.
Bender and partner Joe Crim, chairman for Greene County Extension Council, gathered a small crowd Tuesday morning with tunes from the 60s, 70s and folk music they hoped would send the right message.
“I hope Give Ozarks is allowing people to see that your money is not going to some one idea it’s going to enrich the community you live in” Crim said. “We have a message, our message is, we need help and you can help us and it doesn’t take a whole lot to do that we just ask a little bit of support from ya.”
In total, $1,212,647 was raised by 240 agencies that partner with Community Foundation of the Ozarks. Louis Knauer is CFO’s senior vice president for communications.
“The most gratifying feedback we get about Give Ozarks is actually just seeing the outcome of the projects that are funded on that day,” Knauer says.
She says the fundraiser has seen an increase in agency participation since it began in 2015.
