The United Way of Chatham-Kent is preparing for its 2019 campaign with a unique new twist to the campaign chair role.
The organization announced on Wednesday that for the annual United Way fundraising campaign this year, Advanced Realty Solutions will be the campaign cabinet chair. This marks the first time that the United Way in Chatham-Kent will have a company act as campaign chair rather than an individual.
The campaign cabinet chair is a volunteer role and acts at the "public face" of the fundraising campaign and assists the United Way is helping to reach their fundraising goals.
"Right now we're brainstorming with ideas on how to make it a great campaign," explained Bill Myers, broker and co-owner of Advanced Realty Solutions. "Our team brings seven people to the mix. Normally it would be one person doing this which is a very big job. With our team of seven, we hope to split up some of the jobs and accomplish more in the long run for United Way."
According to Tricia Weese, a sales representative at Advanced Realty Solutions, one of the big undertakings will be going out over the next few weeks and promoting the United Way of CK's first 50/50 raffle.
"That's going to be a big portion of fundraising for us," she said. "We'll be out in the community in different locations, people will be able to buy the tickets online as well as the United Way office. We're hoping that's going to be a big portion of what we're doing as cabinet."
Weese said the company had been involved with the United Way for over three years when the organization approached them about becoming campaign chairs.
"They thought it's something outside the box to have a company co-chair the campaign. Hopefully moving forward they'll be other small businesses or companies that will want to do the same," said Weese.
Myers added that they're thrilled to take their community involvement to the next level and bring their unique expertise to the role.
"We're involved every day going into people's homes. All different types of homes. We see people that are in situations that aren't that nice, like hoarding or poverty. We just see the issues in Chatham-Kent and we'd like to be part of the solution," he said.
On Friday, Advanced Realty Solutions will be hosting a United Way Campaign Kickoff in Chatham which will reveal the campaign theme and campaign fundraising goal.
