(100+ Women Who Care Red Deer)

By Sheldon Spackman

Women Helping Women

Turning Point receives funding support from 100+ Women Who Care Red Deer

Sep 18, 2019 | 4:03 PM

A local program providing access to non-judgmental health and social supports for street-involved women who are pregnant, received a major funding boost this week.

Turning Point’s Women’s Program was selected as the latest recipient of 100+ Women Who Care Red Deer’s charity of choice on Monday night.

Susan Knopp, co-founder of 100+ Women Who Care Red Deer, says roughly 120 women attended the charitable fundraiser held at the Red Deer Golf and Country Club.

She notes 10 nominations were received and three presentations made, including from Family Services of Central Alberta pitching for their Art Program supporting dementia clients, the Central Alberta Brain Injury Society and Turning Point Society for their Women’s Program.

Knopp says Turning Point’s pitch was made by 100+ Women Who Care Red Deer member Kath Hoffman executive director at Red Deer’s Safe Harbour Society.

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“Of course she works closely with all the people down at Turning Point, so she felt she would give a passionate plea and at the end of the night, the votes landed with her,” exclaims Knopp. “I think it’s fair to say that Turning Point is kind of on the front lines of the opioid crisis and they’re facing a lot of support but also a lot of criticism in the community for some of the services they offer. Kath was pitching for the Women’s Program which helps young women that are in crisis and pregnant and on the streets.”

Knopp feels some of the stories that Hoffman was able to share, struck a nerve with those in the crowd.

“Some of the troubled lives these young women have led and some of the challenges they face, some of the horrific conditions that they live under, I think just really resonated with our members,” adds Knopp. “I think we’ll raise between $18,000-$19,000. It’s a very efficient fundraising system.”

In addition to the money raised on Monday, Knopp says they were thrilled to welcome 20 new members to 100+ Women Who Care Red Deer.

“We’ve been hovering around the 180-200 members for the last little while,” explains Knopp. “We’d like to consistently get over 200 members so that we can get our dollars up to $20,000 or over per meeting. I think the other thing that is worth mentioning, is the feedback we here from some of our members is how much they enjoy hearing about all the organizations within our community and all the great work that is being done.”

As an added bonus to the evening, Knopp says they heard a presentation from Jack Wheeler of 100 Men Red Deer.

“They’ve been struggling a little bit with keeping their membership numbers up, so they were there to tell us a little bit about their organization and encourage all of our members to encourage the men in their lives to consider joining the 100 Men group,” she exclaims. “So that was really great to do a little bit of cooperative teamwork to build their numbers as well.”