Meet our winners as we close out our first year
This month we’re very excited to wrap up the first year of our Referral Reward Program. It’s pretty simple: every time a new client says you referred them, we make a donation in your name to the charity of your choice. The program’s been very popular with our clients, and it’s certainly been good for the groups involved. Including our quarterly and yearly awards, our clients have donated over $6300 to non-profits doing good work in our area. Now, at the close of the first year of our program, we wanted to remind you of all the amazingly diverse groups our clients have chosen so far, announce our final Quarterly award winner, and announce the recipient of our first-ever Yearly award. And, we want you to know this as well… Referral Reward is coming back for another year!
Monthly Awards
Our Monthly awards have certainly stacked up over this first year! Currently, our clients have made 131 separate donations to 93 different groups (some groups received multiple donations) for an amazing total of $5,114.81! Here are all the groups who have received donations in the program so far, along with links to any group you’re interested in. If there is a number by the group, that’s how many separate awards they received. We wish each group continued success, and would like to once again thank our clients for making all this possible!
PHAME 2
XRAY-FM 2
OPB 2
Aris Bishop Memorial Scholarship Fund
Bonneville Environmental Foundation
Ford Center for Healthy Children & Families
Portland Community College Foundation
Bicycle Transportation Alliance
Matunda Orphans Community Center
Menucha Retreat and Conference Center
Oregon Humane Society Portland Women’s Crisis Line
Multnomah County Animal Shelter
HHH Memorial Foundation (Notes of Hope)
Native American Youth Association
Peninsula Children’s Learning Center
OPB 2
Quarterly Winners- (Each group received a $200 additional donation)
First Quarter- Artichoke Music
(from Artichoke Music) In an era where people too often allow the “experts” do it for them, we offer a friendly, encouraging place where people of all ages and backgrounds can discover, learn and play music themselves. Whether you’ve just picked up your first guitar, or you’ve been playing for years and want to write music, or you’re ready to learn how to make your living through the business of music, you’ll feel welcomed and supported at Artichoke.
Second Quarter- Janus Youth Programs
(from Janus Youth Programs) Since originating in 1972 as a Multnomah County demonstration project providing residential care for adolescents struggling with homelessness and drug abuse, Janus has provided a second chance for at-risk youth with few resources and no place to turn for help. Today, Janus is one of the largest nonprofits in the Northwest, operating more than 40 different programs across Oregon and Washington. Many Janus programs are regarded as best practice models and have been replicated both in and out of the United States.
Third Quarter- Madison High School
(from WikiPedia) James Madison High School, named after the fourth US President and co-author of the Constitution, was founded in 1957. It serves neighborhood students and many transfer students grades 9-12. Madison offers a full range of college preparatory core content classes as well as unique elective options in the areas of Mathematics, Performing & Visual Arts, Science, Social Science, and World Languages. Students may challenge themselves by enrolling in Advanced Placement and Dual Credit courses. Dual Credit courses are taught by Madison faculty who work in partnership with Portland Community College.
Our fourth Quarterly award (and another check for $200) goes to…
Rose Haven Family Services
(from the Rose Haven website) “Rose Haven, a Portland, Oregon agency, serves women and children experiencing the trauma of abuse, loss of home and other disruptive life challenges. Rose Haven’s mission is to maintain a safe, respectful community while providing our guests with support and services to assist them in regaining stability in their lives. Rose Haven promotes self-sufficiency by providing on-site advocacy, informal counseling, and referral services that assist women in obtaining housing, medical, and legal services.
In addition to providing access to social services and education, Rose Haven offers guests a safe haven from the street, a sense of community, and a place to build relationships. Much of Rose Haven’s success over the past decade is due to the focus on long-term, personal care. Guests are provided with clothing, hygiene products, diapers, voicemail accounts and a mailing address. Rose Haven offers writing classes, resume assistance, math tutoring, creative art programs and health education programs for its guests.
Rose Haven was designed using the results of a survey done in 1997 by Sr. Cathie Boerboom, which asked the women of Old Town what they most needed and wanted. Sr. Cathie built connections with other agencies and churches that met some of the needs of the women expressed. From there, Rose Haven became a program under the umbrella of Catholic Charities and in 2007, Rose Haven became an independent non-profit organization.”
If you would like to help Rose Haven in their work, here’s how…
Full information on the program is on the Rose Haven website at www.rosehaven.org.
To donate by credit card by phone please call 503 248-6364.
By mail, please send check or money order to Rose Haven, PO Box 10405, Portland, OR, 97296.
If you would like to donate your time you’ll find a range of opportunities by clicking here.
We offer our congratulations to Rose Haven, and our thanks for the great work they’re doing in the lives of women and children at their most vulnerable.
And now, without much further ado…
We expected this when we started the project… the hardest part of the whole program has been choosing which of the many deserving groups to give our Quarterly awards to. Now, from the 93 groups who could make good use of every dollar, we have to pick one for the Yearly award. Agony! But, we think we found a good one. It’s a local charity with a more-than-30-year history of helping people in our city, our state, and beyond. The group is an excellent steward of your donations; according to Charity Navigator, 94.3% of their total expenses are spent on programs and services. And it was certainly popular with our Referrers, garnering 14 donations during our program’s first year. So, that’s all the “ado”. Here’s the announcement…
Our first ever Yearly award, the $500 prize, and our heartfelt congratulations goes to…
The Oregon Food Bank
(from Oregon Food Bank) “Our mission is to eliminate hunger and its root causes … because no one should be hungry!”
Oregon Food Bank takes a holistic approach to ending hunger by bringing our community together to provide food, education and hope to our neighbors in need. We provide emergency food to people who are hungry through a cooperative statewide network of hunger-relief agencies, helping 1 in 5 households fend off hunger. OFB also leads statewide efforts to increase resources for hungry families and to eliminate the root causes of hunger by advocating for fair public policies, strengthening community food systems and providing nutrition and garden education to help people become more self-sufficient and resourceful.
Oregon Food Bank distributes emergency food to hunger-relief agencies throughout Oregon and Clark County, Washington, but that’s just the beginning…
- Metro and Statewide Services teams provide technical assistance and training to hunger-relief agencies.
- Our Network Support Fund matches local donations to help agencies build capacity to better serve people who are hungry.
- Our innovative Fresh Alliance program collects and distributes nutritious, perishable foods for people who are hungry.
- Education programs teach low-income participants to grow food from seed and to stretch food dollars while cooking healthy meals.
- Community organizing work through FEAST (Food, Education, Agriculture Solutions Together) workshops and other partnerships help communities build stronger and more equitable local food systems.
- And our Advocacy team works to find long-term, public-policy solutions that benefit people with low incomes.
Your generous donations keep our trucks on the road delivering food statewide, our freezers running and our warehouse operating. Donations allow us to supplement food donations with large food purchases to meet increasing need. We also use funds to deliver programs that address the root causes of hunger through advocacy and education. More than Ninety-four cents of every dollar donated goes to directly to fighting hunger”.
Referral Reward Program details
Now that we’ve told you about the success of the Referral Reward Program so far, we hope you’ll want to take part. The Program really is as straightforward as it sounds, but in anything like this there’s always some fine print. Here’s all the details, and we hope you’ll use them to donate to your favorite charity soon!
- For every new client who tells us they came in because of your recommendation, we’ll donate 20% (up to $50) of the qualifying purchases from their first invoice to the non-profit group of your choice. This offer only applies to new, first-time clients who come to us through your referral.
- The person you refer must have a 1998-or-newer vehicle of a type we service. Sorry, but our 1998-and-newer policy still has to apply, and we can’t help with their Lamborghinis or 18-wheel trucks. (We should remind you that the “1998 or newer” restriction applies ONLY to NEW clients. If we’ve been servicing YOUR older vehicles, we’ll gladly continue to do so!)
- Once someone mentions your referral, we’ll contact you for information on the organization you’d like us to donate to. You can choose any environmental, political, social, community, or other non-profit group you support, but we do reserve the right to refuse to donate to them if we find them inappropriate for some reason. In the unlikely situation that we refuse your group, we will either ask you to choose another group or we will issue you a personal coupon for 20% off labor costs on your next visit.
- You can refer a friend, family member, co-worker, or any random person on the street that you think needs superior automotive care, but the person must mention you by name as a referral source to qualify. We ask every new client how they heard about us, but if they don’t tell us YOU referred them then we can’t make the donation YOU want.
- We’ll be thankful for anyone you send us, but spending for oil changes, tires, and batteries won’t count toward their qualifying purchases.
- Each quarter we’ll highlight a group in our newsletter and make an additional donation of up to $200.00 to their cause. At the end of the year we’ll highlight another group in our newsletter and make an additional donation of up to $500.00 to their cause.
