By Lucky Kidd
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Reno County residents came out in force Wednesday for the Hutchinson Community Foundation’s Match Day, which raised donations of $376,936.13 from 1,355 gifts made to 45 funds within the Foundation.
Foundation CEO Aubrey Abbott Patterson says the response this year was similar to the 2016 Match Day, 2020’s event impacted by COVID. “People just came through all day today, and that feels good,” she told Ad Astra News late Wednesday afternoon prior to the end of the in-person event at the Wiley Building.
“A lot of really good conversations happening, people kind of hanging around and wanting to be part of something important for the community,” Patterson added.
Those 1,355 gifts were of about every size you could imagine, some very large, and some very small which Patterson said also reflected the type of donors. Among the donors were children from the Early Education Center who brought in coins and dollar bills to support Match Day.
Boys and Girls Club members also contributed to the day’s total, and one person who brought in a check also donated two sandwich sized bags of coins for a couple of organizations.
The funds donated are matched by a $100,000 pool, which will be proportionally distributed based on what each of the 38 participating funds raised towards the overall total, with a maximum $20,000 to any one fund.
The top organizational donation total was $50,505.62 given to the Hutchinson Regional Medical Medical Center Foundation, with the Boys and Girls Clubs of Hutchinson receiving $31,195.05 and Hutchinson’s Historic Fox Theatre bringing in $30,751.44. The Fox had the most donors with 102, followed by 84 from the Boys and Girls Club and 67 from the Hutchinson Animal Shelter.
As part of the event, there were also hourly drawings where donors could enter organizational names to receive an additional $100 prize. Those getting the prizes were Stage 9, Cosmosphere, Central Christian School, Hutchinson Art Center, Cause for Paws, Dillon Nature Center, BrightHouse, and Hutchinson Animal Shelter.
