Northeast Michigan’s Community Foundation Reveals Giving Tuesday Results

Yesterday morning, the Northeast Community Foundation conference room was buzzing with excitement, as over thirty local charities gathered together to find out how much money was raised on Giving Tuesday.

Executive director Barb Frantz gave a warm welcome to local non–profit members in attendance, and began by thanking the many different organizations that worked together this year to raise money for Giving Tuesday. She admitted that something this big does not happen with just one organization, and expressed her deep gratitude for the group effort among the non–profits. “I am so excited at the exponential growth of Giving Tuesday in northeast Michigan. It really shows that it’s fulfilling a need…people care,” Frantz said.

In just twenty-four hours, the Northeast Community Foundation was able to raise over $41,000 and more than double the amount of gifts received last year.

The Mid-Michigan Medical Center in Alpena says their check is going straight to the Oncology Department, to get new, top–of–the–line tools that will better equip doctors to treat cancer patients in Alpena.

Douglas Kreis, director of Diagnostic Imaging and Oncology at Mid-Michigan reiterates, “we are very fortunate to have a community here in Alpena that is very supportive of our cancer program. Every year we get community members that wrap their arms around the cancer program whether they’ve been touched by cancer or received treatment themselves. People continue to donate to the cancer center so that we can continue to offer world–class services in Alpena.”

Kreis says the money will go toward an ongoing project they have to purchase new equipment including a linear accelerator and a new simulator, which is used for all their pre–planning for cancer patients receiving radiation therapy. “We have some phenomenal tools coming to us that will enable us to reduce the treatment times, and give physicians and radiation therapists new techniques that we don’t offer currently in Alpena,” said Kreis.

Helping cancer patients get better care is just one of the many happy ripples that the Alpena community will see coming away from the most successful Giving Tuesday to date.