Out Next Meeting is at Oskar Blues on Tuesday, April 18, 2023 at 6:30pm
How it works
100 Friends meet at Oskar Blues
100 Friends meet at Oskar Blues
100 Friends meet at Oskar Blues
Each Donating $100
100 Friends meet at Oskar Blues
100 Friends meet at Oskar Blues
To Give to 1 Local Charity
100 Friends meet at Oskar Blues
To Give to 1 Local Charity
Click below to view our media coverage
1st quarter winner
In 2020, Adam & Son founded the Stranded Motorist Fund, a 501(c)3 non-profit that helps the people in our community who can’t afford to fix their cars. We realized that we were seeing a large increase in the number of vehicle owners unable to afford necessary safety repairs. Although we have always had customers who might need to put something on a credit card, current data shows that 1 in 3 motorists cannot afford an unexpected car repair over $500 without going into debt. We also saw many people who needed to get to work and get their children to school, and they had nowhere to go to ensure they had a safe, reliable vehicle. Often these are domestic violence victims, low-income or homeless veterans, or single moms. You can’t go to the food bank or housing department for help with car repairs, so the Stranded Motorist Fund exists to help our community members that have safety concerns with their vehicles but cannot afford to fix them. We write grants and fundraise to secure this funding, but customers are the most impactful funders as every purchase they make with us helps others, as you will see with our other two social impact programs. Together we have given over $80,0000 in repairs and dated vehicles through the Stranded Motorist Fund.
The Giving Group
Thank you for visiting, we're Mark and Kasia Blum. When we lived in Phoenix, our friend Brian started a non-profit called The Giving Group AZ. The idea was simple, yet powerful and we were part of it.
We are a group of 100 people who meet for 1 hour every 3 months. During our meetings we select 4 random members to speak for 5 minutes about a local non-profit they care about. Whether they worked there, volunteered or just seen the impact it has had in our community, we want to hear it.
After the 4 presentations, the group votes on which local non-profit to support.
The votes are tallied and 1 local non-profit receives a check for $10,000!
Civitan Foundation
In Phoenix, Kasia and I owned Coffee News Arizona. A newspaper filled with silly jokes and horoscopes. They were delivered weekly and picked up for free by thousands of people in restaurants and coffee shops throughout the valley.
We hired The Civitan Foundation to deliver our paper every week. The Civitan Foundation is a local non-profit that creates opportunities for people with developmental disabilities in Arizona. They offer classes to their members that include cooking, music, yoga and even paid work experience.
A Crazy 5 Minutes!
It was Kasia's and my second meeting at The Giving Group when the unexpected happened. Our ticket was pulled from the fish bowl! Now we had to go talk about a local non-profit we believed in. To be honest, we didn't think there was a chance of it happening, so we didn't prepare for it. We were both so nervous!
We got up there and just spoke from the heart. Unscripted, but sincere. We talked about the relationships we built with our delivery team and the staff at The Civitan Foundation. We talked about how reliable they were and the growth we saw from each one of them. We talked about how they slowly opened up to us and eventually we all became friends. It was amazing!
Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!
It was a suspense filled room as the votes were being counted. Brian then came out, gave us a quick wink and announced that the winner was the Civitan Foundation!!! Now, we're in complete SHOCK!
The meeting ended at 7pm, but coincidentally, The Civitan Foundation was having a special evening event for their members that ended at 8pm. We had to go tell them!
Kasia and I jumped in the car and drove across town to see if we could catch them. We were filled with extreme excitement like we had just won the lotto. We both remember feeling overwhelmed because everything was happening so fast.
We got to The Civitan Foundation in time and you can watch the reaction in the video to the right.
In all, the experience was one of the most gratifying and fulling we've ever had. It was something we will never forget and we would like to give the people of Colorado Springs that same opportunity.
