Donations to charities?

SPCA

The dogs and cats need chairs? They did a stellar job of helping to pick up the chickens last week. Did you hear about Buffalo’s chicken disaster?

I tried to get a link to the story, but it seems broken. Short version:
A tractor trailer rolled over on the highway, spilling 9700 live chickens. Traffic is deadlocked and people are running all over trying to catch the chickens. The SPCA shows up and insists on taking all recovered live chickens back to their place for their vet to check out, just to hand the chickens back over to the owners, who then proceeds to drop them off at the slaughter house…SPCA donations at work.

Here is the link, not much of a story:
http://www.wgrz.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=59908&provider=top

-- Rich, WNY, www.nyrockingchairs.com

sounds like a good addition to a support centre for new mothers.

that’s strange that you didn’t get a response back. Keep trying.. you’ll find that “right place” for the chair and they’ll greatly appreciate it.

-- "Functional WoodArt" by Debbie, Canada (http://www.execulink.com/~yohan)

Thinking more about the larger shelters. Many have nice waiting rooms, administrators offices, etc.

Maybe one of these would be better http://allwny.com/charity.html

I did talk to Lollipop Farms and they have a charity auction, so they are very interested.

Good idea Debbie, I tried the local hospitals and their maternity wards, but they didn’t seem that interested. Maybe their chairs have to be AMA and OSHA approved for insurance reasons.

-- Rich, WNY, www.nyrockingchairs.com

it seems funny to me that it would be so difficult to give away what I’m sure is a beautiful chair!
I’ve been thinking for a while now about donating some furniture… I just haven’t come up with a solid game plan yet.

-- ~ www.darrylmasterson.com ~ www.woodworkingdungeon.blogspot.com ~

You may want to contact your local United Way and/or Rotary Club. I have donated pieces to both organizations. Both instances the pieces were part of fund raising auctions. This type of donation helps the organization raise cash, puts your work in front of a lot of civic leaders, and provides a tax write off. Both instances also provided admittance into the event and provided networking opportunities.

-- My favorite piece is my last one, my best piece is my next one.

I just finished working on a Habitat house that has a porch. Maybe something like that in your area?

-- Bob K. East Northport, NY

we have “Early Learning Centres” here.. they’d appreciate them
or the Children’s Aid Society
Library maybe.. limited space, though
group homes

It is interesting how many organizations cannot take donations.. sad, really—liability issues really put up road blocks. We’ve made it that they have to spend millions when they could get the same stuff donated.

-- "Functional WoodArt" by Debbie, Canada (http://www.execulink.com/~yohan)

We have worked out a deal with Lollipop Farms, which I think is associated with the SPCA. Anyway, they handle all animals from the normal dogs and cats up to farm animals like horses and cows. Members of the extended family have adopted from there and they have a charity auction event in November so the timing works out well.

Always open to next year’s suggestion, think this will be an annual thing if I can fit it in the schedule.

-- Rich, WNY, www.nyrockingchairs.com

that’s wonderful!!
“Hats off” to Lollipop Farms who opened their doors to donations! (and of course to all the work they do)

-- "Functional WoodArt" by Debbie, Canada (http://www.execulink.com/~yohan)

oh and to you for the donation!!

-- "Functional WoodArt" by Debbie, Canada (http://www.execulink.com/~yohan)

Not sure if you’re affliated with any church. But my church does an auction once a year and loves getting donations. Just a thought.

nursing homes or senior citizen centers

-- Joey, Magee, Ms http://woodnwaresms.com

A few years back I participated in a charity bike ride for the NY Special Olympics in the Central NY region. The local Elks clubs in the towns where the ride ended each night was very supportive. I don’t know if they have an auction scheduled in their fundraising program but it is a very worthwhile organization. You might try doing a search of Pedal For Medals if you would like more information or contacting the local Elks club in your area. They donate more to charity than Uncle Sam does the less fortunate.

-- John, Long Island, NY

My favorite charity is the Shriners Hospitals.
They provide FREE care to kids with Orthopedic problems, and kids that have been burned.
If you imagine what these kids go through having all the reconstruction surgeries. When we tried soothing our kids for just the normal run of the mill upsets, our rocker was priceless.
I’m not sure what part of NY your in, But the Shriers are all over the place. Our you could contact any Masonic Lodge. Any Mason in your area can put you in touch with a Shriner.

Another Charity I give a lot of time, effort and money is Little League Baseball.
I cant think of any League that doesn’t use Silent Auctions as a Major fundraiser.
The great thing about supporting Little League is that it stays in your community!
The funds that could be raised on a Rocker could easily mean the difference of a dozen kids playing ball, for a season. By giving these kids something constructive to do keeps them from a lot of the problems they can find themselves in.
With the amount of single parents we have now adays, alot of them just need help with covering the cost of registration. For our 14 year old we paid out $300.00 thats a lot of money if you dont have it.
The second part of supoerting the local Little League is that it also gets your name in front of the people in your local area. When they are in the market looking for a product they remember the names of the Artists and companies who donated items.
So it is a Win Win situation for al involved.

I’m sorry about getting long winded. This topic is very close to my heart.

We arrived at our Little League facility to have practice today and one of the other Coaches found that we had been broken into. So we most likely lost a couple of Grand in $1000 to $2000 equipment plus another $2000 to fix all the damage of being broke into such as kicked in doors and so on.
You have to wonder about our society these days???

-- Ed Collinge- Edmonds, WA.

All great ideas, thanks. I didn’t even know the Masons were behind the Shriners, so I learned something everyday.

I could support little league, unless I lived in Connecticut. I don’t think we have an organized little league though, not enough kids in the area. On weekends the town hosts pick-up games so everyone who wants to play shows up and they get sorted by age and then teams are randomly choosen. They do this for baseball, soccer and flag football. It is actually pretty cool and a lot of fun for the kids and parents. Plus since you don’t have selected teams no one gets left out and you don’t have to worry about the over-competitive parent.

-- Rich, WNY, www.nyrockingchairs.com

Hospice?

-- Ciao, gth.

I’ve been considering donating one of my rockers to charity also.
To be honest there’s more to the idea than simply being generous. I’ve been told that it’s a good idea from a business promotional point of view.
Has anyone ever actually received orders after making a donation?

-- www.brianpenning.com

This is my first donation but the charity is featuring me on their main web site (since they consider it a “high-end” item and I get 2 free tickets ($100 a person tickets) to the event where I will have brochures and business cards, will let you know how it turns out.

-- Rich, WNY, www.nyrockingchairs.com

So this past Saturday was the event. There were about a dozen corporate sponsors present and about 50 ticket-buying general public, if people who live in $600k houses driving Mercedes and Lexus can be considered general public.

It was a good time, free wine, beer and good food. The rocking chair was featured up on a platform and the MC did all of her announcement while sitting and rocking in it. We invited anybody to come up and sit in it during the event.

The auction was a huge success.

As far as my tangible results, I walked out with orders for 3 new rocking chairs. The couple who purchased the rocking chair is very interested in solid wood furniture in general and we are working out the new commissions for the rest of the house. They live in a neighborhood of 4000-10,000 sq ft homes averaging $600k. So I delivered the chair and they took a stack of my cards to pass out in the neighborhood to their friends and neighbors. About 40 of my cards dissappeared to the people attending the event.

So, in short, a donation of a $3500 chair brought in $12,000 instant sales and about another $20,000 to $30,000 to be designed and worked out, with the potential for a lot more. It was well worth the investment of the material and time. Plus we helped the animals.

-Rich

-- Rich, WNY, www.nyrockingchairs.com

Who says that giving to charity doesn’t bring back good rewards? (Kharma?)

Congrats. In this economy, that’s a big score.

-- Respect your shop tools and they will respect you - Ric