BROKEN BOW – The Custer County Foundation officially closed its 2023 “Give 4 Custer County” campaign on Thursday afternoon with a celebration in Broken Bow’s Town Square.
Over $250,000 was raised for 29 nonprofits over the two-week June fundraising drive, $201,000 of which was raised directly by Custer County residents. The Foundation, true to its promise, proportionally matched an additional $50,000 for participating nonprofits.
The Arnold Area Historical Society came away with the largest overall donation; the organization managed to raise nearly $52,000 in the month of June.
The money will be used for as many purposes as there were non-profits, and most likely more; Paul Loy of the Broken Bow Elks, who received just over $3,500, said that in addition to jumpstarting the Elks’ coat drive, there could very well be a few more uses for the remaining dough.
“We always provide a banner to Ord every year for the kids’ softball, which I don’t think has been done yet. If we need extra money for the veterans’ programs, this is a big deal for us.”
Megan Svoboda, director of the Broken Bow Public Library, said that her organization is laser-focused with what it wants to do with its $4,100.
“We’re actually going to be getting some more things for our Makerspace area. So we’ll be getting a new printer, which means we’ll be able to make stickers and things like that, so we’re pretty excited.”
With the Custer County DYO’s healthy $9,364 chunk of change, American Legion Baseball Coach Jeff Denson said long-overdue softball field renovations will get a much-needed boost.
“This money’s going to go to the Tyke Arnold Field project. We’re going to try and redo the fencing behind the field, similar to what we did at Paul Brown Field, and we should be able to start on that this fall because of these funds.”
Custer County Foundation Executive Director Lindsay Cook said that her foundation was beyond impressed with the unyielding generosity of her community.
“The community showed up in a big way by donating dollars to help all these great nonprofits raise an impressive amount of money in two short weeks. With the matching funds, we ended at over $251,000. It’s very exciting, we were pretty much on cloud nine with those results.”
Though Cook’s foundation might have matched 20% of the overall total, the 14 days of giving was 100% Custer County.
