Chris Lorentz celebrates a sum of just under $4,000 for the Seeley Lake Nordic Ski Club. Lorentz said this money will help support building a house to store the club's snow cat. "Our motivation to keep doing this is pretty much to have outdoor recreation for the kids at Seeley Lake Elementary and all of us other kids that don't want to ever grow up," Lorentz said.
Folks gathered under a direct sun to have a free lunch and learn about money raised for various organizations in the Seeley Lake area during the ninth annual Change Your Pace fundraising challenge.
On a sunny day buzzing with the anticipation of summer days to come - people lining up outside The Ice Cream Place, a boutique pop up outside of Good Times Gifts - some Seeley Lake locals were gathered outside the Seeley Lake Community Foundation building to celebrate the end of a month-long fundraising event.
Twenty groups participated to raise $126,000 during the ninth annual Change Your Pace fundraising challenge. Both of those numbers are record-breaking, Seeley Lake Community Foundation Executive Director Claire Muller said. It was the largest number of groups to be involved and surpassed last year's total of $95,000 and the historically highest total of $113,000 in 2016, which was the first year the challenge was hosted.
Since its inception, Change Your Pace has raised over $700,000 for the Seeley Lake community and surrounding areas.
"This is a huge partnership. Hundreds of people have come together to make this happen," Muller said.
Tom Beers, Seeley Lake Community Foundation board member, said at the event that the organizations involved in the fundraising, like the Upper Swan Valley Historical Society, Ovando School and the Seeley Lake Elementary Parent Teacher Club along with many others, are all community-based and encouraged those gathered to think community-wide when choosing organizations to donate to.
"I don't care whether it's the natural resources or the people," Beers said. "It's the people and the place. That's what we all live for here."
A match fund was provided for the groups raising money in the Change Your Pace Challenge. Every dollar that was donated had a 60-cent match, which ultimately provided $41,000 to the match fund.
Energy Partners was the headlining sponsor of the match fund. The Change Your Pace celebration was hosted in tandem with Energy Partners' customer appreciation event on June 14. Energy Partners provided free lunch to attendees and filled people's propane tanks, the money from which they donated to next year's match fund.
"Being part of something bigger is something we really focus on at Energy Partners," DeWayne O'Brien, general manager of Energy Partners, said. "We believe that there's a purpose behind what we do more than just selling propane, really serving the communities that we're in and also being involved and being good stewards in the community."
Two hundred and eighty-four households and businesses donated to the Change Your Pace challenge this year, which is about 500 people and a third of the Seeley area, Muller said.
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