Community Foundation announces first YAC Day on May 7

Cheboygan Daily Tribune
·2 min read
YAC programs across Northeast Michigan will compete on May 7 during the first YAC Day fundraising event.
YAC programs across Northeast Michigan will compete on May 7 during the first YAC Day fundraising event.

CHEBOYGAN — The Straits Area Community Foundation is hosting the first-ever YAC Day on Tuesday, May 7.

YAC Day is a special event focused on fundraising and building awareness of the foundation’s Youth Advisory Council (YAC), which awards annual grant funding to youth projects in their communities. The Straits Area YAC has members from across Cheboygan County and Mackinaw City.

The event is in partnership with the Community Foundation for Northeast Michigan (CFNEM), which is the lead foundation for the Straits Area Community Foundation (SACF).

“Our YAC program has quite a reach across all of northeast Michigan. We have about 130 YAC members serving in 19 different schools across our nine-county service area,” said CFNEM Affiliate Director Christine Hitch. “The impact these youth are having on their communities is so positive, so inspiring and so needed. We are very excited to have a special day of fundraising that is geared 100 percent toward helping our YACs increase their impact.”

YAC Day will be a primarily online, 24-hour giving event aimed at helping local YACs increase their grantmaking capabilities. Community members will be able to visit sacf.net and donate to support the Straits Area YAC. Half of each donation will be permanently endowed to increase future grantmaking. The other half will be used for grantmaking in the YAC's next round of grants, which will be awarded in early 2025.

Hitch added that CFNEM will match the first $4,000 donated to the Straits Area YAC.

“This program is truly growing the next generation of givers in our communities by connecting them to their communities through philanthropy and through this grantmaking process,” said Hitch. “We have seen our former YAC members become donors, leaders in their communities and even trustees on our own governing boards.”

The YAC that raises the most donations on May 7 will win “Mac the Golden Yak.” Mac was named by Youth Advisory Council members from across northeast Michigan.

To support the Straits Area YAC on YAC Day, visit sacf.net on Tuesday, May 7, between 12 a.m. and 11:59 p.m. to donate online. Donations can also be mailed to the Community Foundation office at SACF, P.O. Box 495, Alpena, MI 49707.

This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Straits Area Community Foundation announces first YAC Day on May 7