Charity Information

An integral part of the Welcome Club is supporting a charity. Each year in May our membership selects a new charity from a choice of three. The club comes together to raise money and donate needed items for that cause. It also gives us a chance to learn more about organizations in our community. A recent charity we have supported is Families Helping Families. Our current charity is Central Furniture Rescue.

We have a fun time with our many fundraisers. At each monthly luncheon, members can purchase tickets for a chane to win, and half the proceeds goes to our charity. Our members also donate and created beautiful gift baskets consisting of themed merchandise. Examples are the Book Group created a basket with books, gift cards, and related items; the Dining Out group's basket included several gift cards to local restaurants and businesses, a bottle of wine, and jewelry items. Tickets are sold to members for an opportunity to win the basket. The money raised goes to our charity.

2022 - 2023 Central Furniture Rescue

 

Central Furniture Rescue: Turning a place to live into a home. Central Furniture Rescue provides furniture and household items at no cost to individuals and families transitioning out of homelessness and into a new place to live. Lots of furniture and household items are being diverted from the landfill to help clients set up a home. The donations are then delivered to the clients by volunteers. Donations of money, furniture, and other household items helped turn a place to live into a home for 610 households in 2022.

This year the Welcome Club has been able to provide household items such as utensils, pans, towels, blankets; purses filled with personal items for women, Christmas decorations, and other items, plus monetary donations to support Central Furniture Rescue.

2021 - 2022 Families Helping Families

 

Families Helping families is a non-profit volunteer group designed to help and support children in foster care in all 99 of Iowa counties. Their vision is to create positive opportunities, relationships and better overall health for youth who have been removed from their home. The Welcome Club provided school supplies, clothing donations for children newborn to 18 years, toys, and monetary donations.

2020 - 2021 Madge Phillips Center-Waypoint

The Madge Phillips Center has been a community resource since 1894. In the last few years the Center has annually inspired nearly 7,500 individuals and households to move forward by empowering victims of domestic violience, providing housing options for indifiduals and households experiencing homelessness, creating proactive solutions for those experiencing poverty, and ensuring all families have access to quality, affordable child care.