More than 4,300 Books and $5,000 Donated to Hope Gospel Mission
Article By: Becky Seelen, Director of Marketing & Corporate Communications for SFB
Every child deserves the chance to learn to read, and community members throughout Western Wisconsin made sure homeless children had access to plenty of books. To support the cause, 4,301 books were recently collected.
The book collection was part of Security Financial Bank's (SFB) "Bank Some Books" campaign, which encouraged the public to drop off their favorite childhood classics to a SFB location in Bloomer, Durand, Eau Claire, Ladysmith or River Falls. All books were donated to Hope Gospel Mission's new facility for homeless women and children. The facility is set to open in Eau Claire in December.
For every book collected during the month-long campaign, SFB pledged to donate $1 to Hope Gospel Mission up to $5,000. While the campaign didn't quite hit 5,000 books, SFB was inspired by the generosity of all those who donated books and contributed $5,000 to the homeless facility.
"It was really heartwarming to see the generous donations of SFB clients and community members. SFB also wanted to contribute to help these families in need," SFB President & CEO Paul Rudersdorf said.
According to Hope Gospel Mission, recent data indicates that the Eau Claire Area School District classified 360 students as homeless, and Chippewa Falls School District indicated that another 70 students were homeless. Because Hope Gospel Mission had to routinely turn away women and their children, they embarked on a campaign to open the New Hope Renewal Center for Women & Children.
The most books were collected in SFB's Durand location with 2,722 books followed by SFB's Bloomer location with 657 books.
