During the month of December, Stanford Inn & Suites held a fundraiser with cash donation boxes in their restaurants at the hotel, Monica’s and Sipps. Customers were able to donate through these boxes following their purchases at either restaurant. The hotel matched these donations and contributed two dollars for every $20 spent at the restaurants, with the end result being a $1,250 donation to the local United Way in Grande Prairie.
Corien Sieders, Executive Vice President with the hotel says that they try to be as active in the community as possible, and this is just another example.
“We’ve been contributing to the community for numerous years now. We chose to give to United Way this year but every year we do something. For the homeless people, we offer breakfasts, for Christmas, we serve them meals.”
In addition to helping out the homeless, they also provide assistance to young people having a hard time in their life.
“We had them working for us on different projects and served them food as well. We really try to be active in the community, in every way,” she says.
With everything that’s going on the hotel decided to do something a little bigger, which is why they donated to United Way.
“We feel that United Way will use the extra funds to best serve our local community, in more than one way,” she explains. “For us to see that people are willing to donate is always really nice because it shows that we all care about each other.”
Sieders says that at the end of the day, knowing that the additional funds are going to help people, is crucial.
“That’s so important to us. We also donated our extra linen when we changed the linen in the hotel. Those are good blankets going to people who need them too. Instead of throwing them out, you give them to these people.”
The $1,250 donated to United Way in Grande Prairie matches the original goal they set out to accomplish at the beginning of the month of December.