Every December, our employees from Missoula and Vancouver come together to celebrate what we’ve accomplished over the last year at our annual Christmas party. One of our employee’s favorite traditions at the party is our charity raffle. DJ&A purchases some great prizes, our employees purchase tickets, and all of the money is donated to a nonprofit or deserving cause nominated by our employees.
This year, right around the time we were selecting our raffle beneficiary, an article appeared in the Missoulian that inspired us to kick our fundraising up a notch. After learning that our local Salvation Army was $11,000 short of their fundraising goal to operate a much-needed Warming Center in Missoula, we decided to not only pledge our charity raffle funds to support the need, but also put out a challenge to other businesses and Missoula residents to join us.
We pledged an initial donation of $5,000 from our raffle funds and set up a GoFundMe page to encourage others to help us meet the goal. The Missoulian generously helped us get the word out, and we watched as donations started to trickle in.
On the night of our party, our employees blew through all previous charity raffle records and raised $6,770 for the shelter, beating our previous fundraising efforts by more than $1,000. And, our community stepped up to the challenge to donate additional funds, bringing the grand total to $12,614 in less than two weeks.
We want to thank all who stepped up and generously donated to support this critical need for our neighbors in Missoula.
You can read more about the warming center and DJ&A’s challenge here.