Last week Shannon (our Exec Dir) asked me how many donors we had in fiscal year that just ended. A few clicks of the keyboard and I had an answer. When I provided the number 717, he was thrilled. I was excited, too, but not to his level. I wondered why?

It seems that when he first came to GSH in 2000, Shirley, our Exec Dir at the time, talked about how cool it would be to have as many supporters as we do households served. Everyone agreed, and every year we got closer, but reaching that ratio looked way off in the future. Well, last year we helped 680 households - - 717 donor households, and 680 client households - - AHA! The number of financial supporters exceeded the number of families served.

Upon further examination, I realized that a lot of the credit for this large number of donors goes to memorial and honorary contributions. Often, when a loved one passes away, family members ask for a gift to be made to Good Shepherd Housing in lieu of sending flowers. Other supporters have asked for donations to be made to Good Shepherd Housing instead of receiving birthday or anniversary gifts. What a nice sign of secondary endorsement for the agency. This really shows me the close connection we have with our donors.

On that note, in fiscal year 2009 we had 190 memorial and honorarium donations on behalf of the following:

In Memory of Joseph Adinaro

In Memory of Frank Bauer

In Memory of Ann Marie Cutting

In Memory of Richard Ehrman

In Memory of Joseph Gartlan

In Honor of Judy Kaiser

In Memory of John Kerkering

In Memory of David Meade

In Honor of Nell Murray

In Memory of Iris Pardini

In Honor of Richard and Mary Rice

In Memory of Landon Schmitt

In Memory of Jean Scully

In Memory of Mary Kay Seymour

In Memory of Elaine Sonosky

In Honor of Jim Sullivan