The Big Birthday Match presented by Gresham Smith, a virtual event and auction celebrating GraceWorks’ 25
thbirthday, is live now through July 15.
Generous sponsors provided a $67,000 match that will double gifts given to The Big Birthday Match for GraceWorks. As of Friday July 10, nearly $9,000 has been raised towards this match.
A livestream event at 7 p.m. July 15 will include a 30-minute program with updates from GraceWorks CEO Valencia A. Breckenridge, a look at the organization’s history, greetings from local supporters and officials and the premiere of a video of what GraceWorks is today.
Three ways to get your gift doubled include:
- Give online from July 3 – July 15 at graceworksministries.net/bigbirthdaymatch
- Bid on an auction item at graceworksministries.net/bigbirthdaymatch . Auction closes at 9pm on July 15. Auction items include golf outings, art, a Pilgrimage guitar, gift certificates, jewelry and vacations to Lake Tahoe, Chicago, Vancouver and much more.
- Mail a check to GraceWorks. Checks postmarked by July 31 will be applied to the match until the $67,000 is reached. Mail checks to 104 Southeast Parkway, Franklin, TN 37064. Please write Birthday in the memo for your gift to be applied to the match.
Contributions will be used to help GraceWorks continue serving higher demands for food, rent/utility assistance, and more during this difficult time.
GraceWorks has distributed food to more than 13,000 people since March 19, when the organization slimmed its many programs to offering only the most requested services of food and help with rent and utility bills – this is more people than they served the entire year last fiscal year. Requests for rent and utility assistance have doubled as well, with 288 total requests.
At the same time, GraceWorks lost planned income with the postponement of events such as the dinner and a fashion show celebrating the 25
th anniversary of the opening of the community resource center.
The virtual event is designed to help GraceWorks celebrate its anniversary and recover some of the loss of income from its annual benefit dinner cancelled after the onset of COVID-19.
Original dinner sponsors and table hosts have pledged the $67,000 match funds for the Big Birthday Match. With community participation, GraceWorks hopes to raise $134,000 with this virtual match race event.
Economic effects of the virus have hit both the community at large and GraceWorks itself. The shutdown of the GraceWorks Thrift Store for 10 weeks was a loss of $20,000 per week for programming expenses – a total of around $200,000.
