2014 The Unity Foundation of La Porte Hosts Annual Luncheon
On Wednesday, the Unity Foundation of La Porte County held their annual luncheon at the historic La Porte Civic Auditorium. Maggi Spartz, Unity Foundation President, welcomed the crowd of over 150 to the event. She then spoke of the highlights of the organization over the past year. The Unity Foundation is a nonprofit charitable organization that gives grants and scholarships to the local community. It helps donors establish long-term charitable giving plans and works with local organizations to support their service of helping individuals in the La Porte community. Thanks to the donors of the "unrestricted" funds, the organization gave over $107,000 to 55 local nonprofit projects.
"The Indianapolis based Lilly Endowment, Inc. believes so much in this concept of unrestricted funds, they are offering to match dollar for dollar on unrestricted or 'community funds' given to Indiana community foundations. So, if everyone who could, would leave a nickel for every dollar they have accumulated, to the community where they have been supported, La Porte County and Northwest Indiana will have a shinier future!" said Spartz. The Lilly Endowment will match up to $1,000,000 raised by the Unity Foundation of La Porte County by March 31, 2016. The foundation encourages forward thinking families and individuals who can support good work in the community to double their giving impart during this 1-1 match opportunity from Lilly.
"Today is a celebration of what Unity does for the community. I'm very proud to be a board member and have learned a lot while on the board." said Jon Gilmore, Co-Chair, Board of Directors of the Unity Foundation. He shared that today was also about not only sharing what the organization has done, but, what they plan to do.
A Hand Up, an award recipient, shared that the funds from the award today would help their current project of rehabbing a home for transitional housing for homeless women veterans.