Shelburne Kinettes taking ‘virtual approach’ to fundraising

Written By PAULA BROWN

LOCAL JOURNALISM INITIATIVE REPORTER

With the holiday season quickly nearing, the Shelburne Kinettes are taking a virtual approach to their fundraising efforts for local groups and organizations in town, asking community members to purchase gift cards through FundScrip. 

“We want to inform and encourage the residents of Shelburne to buy from FundScrip, because every time they buy something there's an automatic donation to Kinettes, so we can give back to the community,” said Kinettes member Jennifer Lapschies. 

The Shelburne Kinettes are part of Kin Canada, a volunteer service organization that looks to support the needs of their local community. The Shelburne Kinettes, who were chartered in 1960, raise funds throughout the year via events in town to help organizations like the Shepherd's Cupboard Food Bank and Shelburne Christmas Hampers. 

With COVID-19, the group has seen some of their largest fundraising events, including the Heritage Music Festival and Elves for Santa Sale, which typically saw around 650 presents wrapped over the course of the event, cancelled. 

“COVID has impacted all of us, we're finding that the events that we relied on to participate in, especially in Shelburne, were canceled because they are usually involving a large group of people gathered in one place, and so we are looking for options for virtual fundraising,” said Francine Burt, President of the Shelburne Kinettes. 

Adding she said, “We have to think outside the box. So this is one thing we have and we're looking to come up with other ideas for virtual and handoff type of projects and fundraising.” 

Thinking outside the box, the group is turning to one of their less known fundraising methods FundScrip. FundScrip is a fundraising program that sells gift cards that provide percentage based donation to specific organizations.

“People can order them online, they'll get their gift card and then a percentage goes into the Shelburne Kinettes account and then we can use that to donate back into the community,” said Burt.

“They get the face value of the card, they lose nothing, then that purchase gives a donation to Kinettes, and then the Kinettes will use that money in turn for our fundraising and donations to the community,” said Lapschies. 

Funds brought into Kinettes through FundScrip, Burt said, have primarily been raised by the members of the group themselves. 

Now they are asking the community to take part in the fundraising by purchasing gift cards for holiday gifts. 

“They're helping us, raising money for us for Kinettes, to give back to them,” said Lapschies. 

Gift cards can be bought at www.fundscrip.com, with the code K6N BEK to give funds directly to the Shelburne Kinettes.