This year, over $105,000 was presented making it not only the largest contribution the local employees have ever raised for a worthy cause, but the largest donation the Autumn House has received at one time.
This year, over $105,000 was presented making it not only the largest contribution the local employees have ever raised for a worthy cause, but the largest donation the Autumn House has received at one time.
“It’s the biggest and the most,” Autumn House board member Wanda Smith said. “ It’s totally amazing.”
The success of the program, plant manager Tyler McLeod says, is the employees’ participation. From presenting possible recipients, to voting on the recipient, coming up with four weeks of fundraisers and committing to a year of payroll deduction to top up their contribution, the 85 employees dig deep to make their head office dig just as deep.
The contribution is supported by the Wonder Care program with Weston Foods.
Last year, the company contributed $96,280 to the IWK Children’s Hospital and it gave $92,000 to the Cumberland YMCA’s Strong Kids Campaign in 2014.
Today, that team is recognized by their peers as leaders across North America.
“When they do competitions between all the plants they’ll give updates on where all the plants are and we have, say, 85 people other plants have 300 and they don’t come even close to what we raise,” McLeod said. “They [Weston’s head office] sent out the rankings and Amherst finished number 1 on everything again this year and 14 of the top 25 fundraisers have come out of Amherst.”
The donation, Smith said, will be used towards the service’s children and youth programming. Now that the project has significant backing, its probably the funds will help maintain the new program for a number of years.
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