Richard Wegener concludes second annual charity challenge

By John Watson Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Strathmore Coun. Richard Wegener has concluded his second annual charity challenge, encouraging locals to donate to a good cause.

This year, Wegener decided to challenge Strathmore to raise donations for the Wheatland County Food Bank, both monetary and of non-perishable food items. 

“I think it went quite well. At this point, it is a little hard to determine how much was actually raised for it. Speaking with Lynnette (Aschenbrenner), they were getting quite a few donations, but there was also a couple of other initiatives going on for the food bank at the same time, so it is going to be a little bit hard to tell exactly what my challenge brought in,” he said.

Wegener himself, similar to last year’s challenge which raised money for the Overnight Shelter, donated $1,000 in addition to anything that the community was able to raise.

The challenge ran for approximately six weeks, from the beginning of September until mid-October this year. 

“I heard from a couple of people that they thought it was a good challenge and they were supporting it, and then there was somebody who, their daughter is a big proponent of it and always looks after a lot of the hygiene stuff, so they were happy,” said Wegener. “When you look at what we have in town with people who are paycheck to paycheck, people who are one paycheck away from not being able to stay in their house, food insecurity, I am pretty excited with anything that I can do to draw awareness to the food bank and hopefully help them out.”

He added in a written statement, a thank you to all the members of the Strathmore community who generously donated food and money to support the food bank.

Due to other initiatives which raised donations for the food bank which were occurring concurrently with Wegener’s challenge, the exact amount raised through his influence remains unknown. 

“A couple of the learnings are getting yourself with the paper and the getting the radio involved. I promote it on my council Facebook page, as well as my personal one. I get the word out there to the other councillors that I am doing this,” added Wegener. “As far as growing, I am not sure if it has or has not … there was a lot of donations, but not a lot that were specifically marked for the challenge to keep track. We may not know exactly how successful this one was, but I think it is growing.”

Wegener wished to continue encouraging the community to donate to the food bank, beyond the charity challenge, as they are always in need of more supplies. 

Information regarding exactly what they need or items which are good to donate can be found on the Wheatland County Food Bank website.