(BEDFORD) – Leaders of the Boys & Girls Club of Lawrence County announced today they can pay off their mortgage .
In December of 2019, an anonymous donor generously offered the Club $100,000 to help pay off the mortgage. However, the anonymous donor asked the club to consider creating a match campaign challenge that would ask the community to assist with the overall mission to pay the club’s mortgage off in full.
Club officials obliged the anonymous donor’s wishes and set a stiff deadline of Leap Day, Feb. 29. This date was determined because long term community champion of the club, Jimmy Sowders, announced that if the goal was met he would jump off the Limestone Unit building.
The estimated $335,000 mortgage pay off would give the club an annual budget relief of $44,000. To help kick off the newly named Burn the Mortgage campaign, Club officials decided to take $25,000 from their 2019 operating budget and $25,000 from their 2020 operating budget. The club officials made this decision understanding, if the mortgage was paid in full, they would gain $44,000 of that $50,000 within one year. The club officials also had the impression that reaching such a large pay off amount would be a daunting task to accomplish in such a short period of time.
However, the community of Lawrence County rose to meet this overwhelming challenge! The club and community came together to raise $336,310. Club officials are astonished and appreciate how amazing and giving the community of Lawrence County truly is.
With one week remaining until the Burn the Mortgage celebration, the goal now will be to continue to strive to raise $25,000. Raising this $25,000 would allow the club to repurpose the 2020 $25,000 operational funds.
“We are extremely excited and proud,” says Frank Decker, the club’s chief professional officer. “We have had an amazing run over the past 10 days and now reached a level of the mortgage match. Every dollar going forward through February 29th will still go to the mortgage payoff, allowing us to directly reduce the amount of daily operational funds ($50,000) we felt necessary to dedicate to this campaign in order to meet the lofty goal of this wonderful opportunity. Every penny counts! Please help us finish this campaign off in grand fashion!”
Volunteer and community activist for the Club Jim Sowders says the dream of reaching more will now be a reality.
“Our future possibilities are limitless,” he added.
