Janice Fogarty took advantage of the season of giving and hosted a fundraiser for the STEPS program at Ecole Steffie Woima Elementary School.
Fogarty said her desire to do a bit of fundraising for the program was twofold.
“One of them was simply to give back to the program because it has been fantastic and any of the parents that I know whose kids are involved it’s such a big deal to them, even in the smallest ways [it] just makes such a big difference to a lot of the kids that are using the program, so I wanted to give back,” said Fogarty, who’s three children are in the STEPS program.
“I wanted our kids to have that experience of giving back and interacting with the public and taking on a project and having some responsibility for something they have been involved in and will be involved in,” added Fogarty.
Alongside being a mom, Fogarty sells Epicure, which had come out with a new fundraising program.
She felt using Epicure was a good fundraising platform for her kids because it is something they are familiar with and felt it was a perfect match to donate the money to STEPS, as it is an organization that could use the funding.
Fogarty and her three kids ran the fundraiser over two different days at two markets in town, the Lions Club Fall Craft and Vendor Fair and the Black Sunday market at the Sylvan Lake Community Centre.
“Between the two of them they got $100 of just straight donations and they sold, I think it was, $290 worth of product, so 40 per cent of that will go to the STEPS program,” explained Fogarty.
She added the program was saying there is a couple of items around that price range they were looking at, but they are going to bring her kids in so they can have some input as to what they should put the money towards.
“I’m really interested to know what they’re going to do with it,” said Fogarty.
Fogarty says including her children in the fundraiser, getting them out of their comfort zones and having them be able to see how many people will be affected by this money is a good lesson.
“To be able to draw back on and reflect on that experience is, I mean for everybody, that’s a great experience.”
Fogarty says during their time at the markets people were “incredibly kind” and “absolutely lovely.”
“They were courteous to my children who were outside of their comfort zone, they were polite, they were friendly, they were generous, and as any parent it is so heart-warming to see those people being kind to your child and how positively it effects your child to be out there and so well received,” gushed Fogarty.
Fogarty says the people at Steffie Woima are fantastic and the STEPS program is “spot on.”
“They’re lovely people and they love the kids that they deal with,” said Fogarty. “They get them and they want to help them and they just want to be the adult for those kids and it’s very comforting as a parent to know that when my kids go to school they’re going to be supported in the way that they need to be supported.”
“I think that the school has done an incredibly good job of being inclusive and welcoming,” added Fogarty.
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