ELLY GRIMM
• Leader & Times
The High Plains Heritage Foundation (HPHF) is always looking for ways to help the community, and Saturday night, the group kicked off an upcoming new fund to help with just that.
The foundation hosted its first color run Saturday evening to kick off its new United Play fund, and coordinators said they were very pleased with the event.
“I felt like everything went really well, especially since we had to make a last-minute change due to Friday night's weather,” coordinator Teresa Randle said. “I was really happy to see the community out and supporting our efforts, I especially loved seeing the children run around and get colored up.”
“I was really thrilled with how things turned out because this was the first big fundraiser the High Plains Heritage Foundation has done, so I appreciated having Teresa's expertise to help us,” HPHF Board President Kay Burtzloff added. “I was really excited about the turnout, and this was a great kickoff to our upcoming United Play fund. Throughout the years, we've gotten multiple requests from different groups, including a local robotics team last year that went to a regional tournament and then a national tournament and other events like that. There are groups like that doing amazing work, but all of that time and travel and other costs really add up quickly, so what we've done is allowed them to use the Foundation as a fundraising mechanism so they can raise some money, and we'd also really like to have a fund where we can give groups like that a bit of a jump start.”
“I was also really happy with how Saturday ended up, we ended up having 33 people participate, and 13 of them did the 5K, so we were happy about that,” HPHF Executive Director Karem Gallo said. “We also had a couple pets out and about, so that was also great. We were just all really happy and excited with this kickoff.”
Gallo and Burtzloff added having to postpone the event from Friday night to Saturday night did not seem to dampen enthusiasm too much.
“The turnout was a little lower than what we had expected for Friday, but we were still happy with the numbers we did see,” Gallo said. “I'm really glad this was how we kicked everything off with the United Play fund, and I'm glad we're starting to do more in town to let people know what the High Plains Heritage Foundation is and what all we can do for them.”
“I would agree, we were expecting closer to 40 participants, but since we had to make a last-minute decision to postpone it, plus with this being our inaugural fundraiser, I'm really happy with the turnout we saw,” Burtzloff added. “And Saturday night's weather could not have worked out better for us, so that was something else that made us happy. Another big thing I’ve mentioned before about this event is the foundation as a whole has not done fundraisers – we've been focused more on individual donations and those types of things and the more behind-the-scenes stuff, and a lot of that had to do with the foundation not having a full-time executive director, I was the de facto director simply because I'm the chair of the board. Having Karem as the executive director and coordinating and focusing on those aspects is great. This is the first fundraiser for the foundation, so we were all pretty excited to see how things turn out.”
And as Gallo and Burtzloff tell it, they will not remain silent about the new fund and the foundation’s new work.
“We're going to spend some time working up the application, we decided to hold off on doing that until we actually had some money in the fund, and that application will be available through the foundation's Web site,” Burtzloff said. “We'll also be advertising it and talking about it with some different media and on our social media pages, so we definitely won't be quiet about all of this. What I've discovered throughout the years, however, is if people know there is money available to help them with necessities like what we're doing with the United Play fund, they do a good job of finding you and going through that process. We will be getting some funding from the city in the near future, and that will definitely be a good help, and we've also had some businesses in town indicate they are very interested in supporting this fund as well, and we'll continue seeking out those business partners.”
“This was definitely a good kickoff to help raise some funds, and it's great to have the community out and about and supporting what we're doing for them,” Gallo said. “I've actually got a couple other fundraisers already planned – one will be an art auction in November, and another one in December has some details being finalized. With the auction, we're going to get art donations from local artists who would like to share their art, and it'll be a really nice auction and event. The art auction is something I've wanted to do for a long time since I have a long background in art, and I don't think there's ever been a major art auction in Liberal like what we're planning.”
Overall, coordinators agreed the evening was a great success.
“I would want to say a huge thank you to the Seward County Community College women's basketball team and Coach Will Marchino for helping splash color on everyone and helping with some of the setup, and I also can't thank Teresa and Kay and the other board members enough for helping put this together,” Gallo said.
“I would want to give a big thank you to all the community members who came out and participated, they all did an amazing job,” Randle added. “We've got plenty to keep us busy for the rest of the year and then some, and I can't wait to see how all of that goes!”
