Good Neighbor Podcast: Rochester
Bringing Together Local Businesses and Neighbors of Rochester
Good Neighbor Podcast: Rochester
EP#124 Assistance League of Southeastern Michigan with Lisa Fuson
Lisa Fuson from the Assistance League of Southeastern Michigan reveals how a century-old organization continues to make a difference in modern times. Join us as we learn about their impactful mission to transform lives through initiatives like Operation School Bell, which helps children in need, and other programs that provide aid to assault survivors, food pantries, and young mothers. Driven by a personal desire to support my community during the COVID pandemic, I became involved with the Assistance League and now have the pleasure of sharing their incredible story with you.
We're also gearing up for the much-anticipated Mistletoe Marketplace, a major fundraising event that promises a day filled with shopping, raffles, and auctions, all for a noble cause. With over 485 tickets already sold, this event is shaping up to be a success, supporting the League's various programs throughout the year. A heartfelt thank you to Lisa for her time and dedication, and to our listeners, we encourage you to get involved and nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on our show by visiting GNPRochester.com.
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Lisa Swiftney.
Speaker 2:Hi everyone, and welcome to Episode 124 of the Good Neighbor Podcast. Today, we have with us Lisa, and she is with the Assistance League of Southeastern Michigan. How are you doing today, Lisa? I'm doing really great, Lisa. So it's a Lisa Lisa show today? Huh, it is. It is the Lisa Lisa show. So let's start off by telling us what is the Assistance League of Southeastern Michigan?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So Assistance League of Southeastern Michigan is a nonprofit organization located here in Rochester. We've been around for many, many years but it started back in the 1890s out of California by two after that feeling that they needed to help people that were impacted by the war. So they had a group of 12 friends that started the chapter in Southern California. It evolved and as it evolved back in the night. 1985 was their 50-year anniversary of their establishment and during that time period they had 72 chapters in 17 states with about 16,000 dedicated volunteers. So one of our chapter founders came from California and in 1993, she started Southeastern Michigan's Assistance League with a group of ladies about 175 women that were interested in the Detroit area to help feed, clothe and transform the lives of individuals within southeastern Michigan. So that's how our organization began and Cindy Serrar, who was our founder, was one that was instrumental for bringing the Assistance League to Michigan. And we are the only Michigan chapter here in Rochester.
Speaker 3:Some of the things that people don't know about us is that we do have a resale store in downtown Rochester and that helps fund some of our nine philanthropic programs. Most of our money is through donations, through grants and through charitable events that we do and we have nine programs that we support. Let me give you one of the biggest programs, which is called Operation School Bell is where we go into school districts in Oakland, wayne and Macomb County and we take over their facility and we establish a store within the school and we give away brand new coats, hats, gloves, uniforms in some areas underwear, socks, hygiene kits, books and duffel bags to these kids, and some of these children have never had a brand new coat, so it's a great way for them to start their school year. That's our biggest fundraiser, that we look for donations and grants and support from the community to help get that done. That's one of them. The other ones that we do is called Assault Survivors and that's providing personal kits for children and adults who have been abused or sexually assaulted and domestic violence, who have had their clothes destroyed and retained by police for evidence. That's another big one we do.
Speaker 3:Nourishing Neighbors is our partnership with the Neighborhood House where we help the food pantry. That's another big one we do. Nourishing Neighbors is our partnership with the Neighborhood House where we help the food pantry. That's another one. Pass it Forward is where we take donations that we receive at our store, at the resale store and we move those goods to other nonprofit organizations. That's another one. Wehelp is where we take and provide brand new layette kits over 20 items for babies' first weeks, along with their safe pack, their sleep pack. We even provide car seats for these young mothers who have nothing once they leave the hospital with a newborn baby. We do tutoring, we do scholarships, we do creative teaching and then we have what we call community connection, which is helping veterans and seniors in fostering out. So those are some of the nine philanthropic programs that 272 volunteers Lisa, let me just tell you, we are all volunteers help to support our initiative in southeastern Michigan.
Speaker 2:That is amazing, so tell our listeners about your journey. How did you get involved with the Assistance League?
Speaker 3:Well, you know, I felt a need to give back and it's funny because you decide where you want to really put your efforts and someone had shared with me Assistance League. So I kind of looked into it and, oddly enough, I joined during COVID and, believe it or not, we were still doing our monthly meetings via Zoom during COVID and trying to generate some type of revenue for our organization to support our programs. So I joined during COVID and I've just felt a need to give back and again, I'm in my community. I live in Rochester. It was just a good fit for me.
Speaker 2:That is amazing, so tell me a little bit more. You have a couple of events coming up that you'd like to share.
Speaker 3:Yeah, our biggest event and our biggest fundraiser is called Mistletoe Marketplace and it is held at the Plaza Grande in Shelby Township. We've been doing it. This will be our 21st year of fundraising and, again, as I mentioned earlier, proceeds from our event help support our nine philanthropic programs. Last year we had 672 attendees attend this event and let me just tell you how it works. You walk in, you're greeted by a host of members from the Assistance League and we have a 50-50 raffle. We have a basket raffle, we have a silent auction.
Speaker 3:We have over 34 vendors that set up and sell their items throughout. We get a luncheon. It's all well maintained, it's organized and orchestrated Unbelievable. It's a great place to have a venue. We take over all four halls of the plaza, so it is a big event and it starts at 930 in the morning and it runs to three o'clock in the afternoon, so it's a great way to sit down, have a nice lunch with some friends and shop for the holidays, and we look forward to having the guests come year over year. We're already at. We're only a month away from our event. We're already at. 485 attendees have already purchased their tickets for our Mistletoe Marketplace. Again, it helps support everything that we do.
Speaker 2:That is amazing. And then, what are you looking for for ongoing support? Are you looking for sponsors? Are you looking for more ticket sales?
Speaker 3:all of the above, as we do get a large amount of sponsorships. We start our sponsorship early in the year, trying to get our name out, because most people don't really know much about the Assistance League of Southeastern Michigan. So we hope you know. We go up and down Rochester asking for donations and sponsorships from a lot of the local businesses in the Rochester area and then we utilize, you know, facebook, marketplace, the events pieces and obviously your tools that you provide to get the word out so that people know you know we're there to help support the community. And the best way to have fun and have a great day at the event is to come and see what we do. Our tickets are $90 a piece. Like I said, it gives you a lot of opportunity and it gives you a really nice luncheon.
Speaker 2:That's great, and can people buy a table of tickets?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. They can buy a table, they can do a sponsorship. Most of our sponsorships give those sponsors one or two tickets each. You know it just depends on the dollar amount of the sponsorship. We go anywhere from $250 to $8,000 in different categories, on the sponsor. So those individuals' names will appear in slides throughout our event, as well as the posters that we have within our store and the publications that we give to all the attendees that attend the event.
Speaker 2:That is amazing. And then, what is the date of your event this year?
Speaker 3:It is November 13th and, just to give you kind of an idea, you don't have to attend, although we would love for you to attend, because we do allow people to go in to our site and look at our items that they may want to bid on, because there is a bidding process that starts on November 8th at noon. So the silent auction bidding starts at November 8th at noon and it runs till noon on the 13th of November. They can go into alsmcboio to purchase a ticket or even just to become a bidder, and we've had that happen in the past, where people can attend but they want to participate and see what we have to offer.
Speaker 2:That is great, and we will share those links on the bottom of our blog post as well. For you, great, and so we'll be able to click on that to purchase tickets. So that sounds like a very amazing event and I look forward for it to come up. You said a month away, so November 13th, and it's like you said it's a good way to get together, grab some girlfriends, have lunch and do some Christmas shopping.
Speaker 3:They come year over year and that's how we really do generate a lot of the revenue to help support our nine philanthropic programs. This is our largest and biggest fundraiser, year over year.
Speaker 2:Good. So anything else you would like us to know about the Assistance League or about the event coming up?
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely Part of you know. If you haven't seen our store, it's on the resale connection. It's right on Main Street and 2nd right on the street front. But we had some exciting news this year After searching for a building for over 10 years, we found a warehouse building on South Street which is going to house a lot of our goods that we keep in our warehouse now for all our philanthropic programs as well, as we're looking in the near future to have furniture for sale there.
Speaker 3:So not only can people come in our resale store and buy nice women's clothing and home goods, but they will also be able to look at some of our items at our warehouse for furniture, because we do sell little, small pieces of furniture at our resale store but we, you know we don't have the space for some of the stuff that we receive as donations. So that's exciting news. You know, again, we're looking obviously for some support. We were able to purchase the building. Some of the proceeds from our Mistletoe Marketplace are going to help support us paying off that building loan pretty soon, sooner than we thought.
Speaker 2:Well, you have a lot of amazing things going on with the Assistance League this year, so kudos to you guys and I wish you guys much success. Lisa, I want to thank you for being a guest today on our Good Neighbor podcast and sharing with us how we can help and be part of the Assistance League. Thank you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thank you so much, Lisa. We appreciate your support too, so we hope to see you at our Mistletoe marketplace. Yes, thanks again.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast, rochester. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to GNPRochestercom. That's GNPRochestercom, or call 248-988-9640.