Welcome to 2017! 

Each new year brings promise of good things to come.  I am looking forward to what the new year will bring.  We had some exciting things happen in the way of donations and grants in 2016 that I want to share with you.  Donations and grants are important for two reasons: 

1. Donated funds allow us to provide more services to individuals who have special needs in our community

2. Donated funds allow us to do more for our dedicated staff members who work in our programs 

Here are some philanthropic highlights for 2016:

• Wines of the World raised $20,000+.  We hope to exceed that at our 2017 Wines of the World event on March 3^rd.  Let your friends and neighbors know what a great event this is!  More information about the Wines of the World can be found here:   Link to Wines of the World

• The Hanson Foundation donated $5,000 to purchase a new lift for our Westberry group home

• Mayo Clinic Foundation granted us $20,000 for expansion of our Bear Creek Independent Living Services (BCILS) program to add another training apartment which we hope to open in March.

• The Otter Bremer Trust granted us $62,000 that allowed us to add a second Program Director to oversee our group home programs

• A wonderful anonymous donor contributed $7,500 as a matching grant, with a goal to build a new fence at Allendale.   More than $15,000 was raised and the fence is already up!

• The Rochester City Council granted us roughly $20,000 over the last two years to make the Bear Creek Services office more handicap accessible.  This work will commence in April of 2017.

• The Rochester Area Foundation granted us $6,000 to assist with the expansion of our BCILS program

• The Bear Creek Cookie Classic event raised more than $8,000.  That is a record for this event!  We were fortunate to have many new cookie bakers and event attendees participate this year.

• Individual Donors:   We have way too many individual donors to mention each of them.   But they are just as important as those listed above!   As a matter of fact, their dedication to Bear Creek Services extends beyond the money they donate.  Without our dedicated supporters, we would not be the agency that we are. 

In 2016, we raised $246,731 through donations, sponsorships, and grants!  Thanks goes to Brian Hale, Pam Alberts, all the volunteers throughout the agency, our Board of Directors, and our “Relationship Building” Committee for all of the hard work to advance the mission of Bear Creek Services to provide personalized community life experiences to people with developmental disabilities and brain injuries.

If you would like to learn more about us, please sign up for one of our community presentations that we offer each month.  The link for dates and times of presentations can be found here:  Community Presentations Link