Sturgis HFC Club Holds Summer Fundraiser to overcome Covid-related Fundraising Hurdles

by Robin Singer

The Sturgis “Her Future Coalition club” has been supporting survivors of human trafficking since 2007, as a club first at Sturgis East, then at Sturgis West and now at both schools.  The club supports HFC, an organization which provides training and education to freed human trafficking victims and others at-risk of gender-based exploitation.  The training and education provided by HFC supplements existing shelter home services and gives a future to those who would otherwise be at high risk to be trafficked or re-trafficked due to lack of skills,  knowledge and career opportunities.

The Sturgis club has had many creative fundraisers over the years, many involving the purchase of jewelry from HFC jewelry makers and thus supporting the efforts of trained survivors.  For example, the club purchases survivor-made jewelry to raffle off before the holidays, and also purchases jewelry to donate to the SPAuction with the added benefit of supporting Sturgis.  Fundraising has often taken the form of food sales, both weekly pizza sales and also the very popular International Banquets, which align beautifully with the IB mission and provide feasts at low cost for the school population four times a year.  

The club members realized in the spring that the Covid pandemic was going to impact the club very seriously this school-year because it would not be possible to do the usual types of food-related fundraising.  At the same time, the pandemic made the needs of the at-risk girls even more serious, due to quarantines and food insecurity.  So the club, for the first time in its history, in a joint venture with alumni/ae of the club, held a summer raffle and raised over $1000 for HFC, before the school year even began.

The basket pictured above was assembled and included pandemic necessities (toilet paper, hand sanitizer, masks, soap, goodies), some gift cards, tote bags, and some lovely HFC jewelry.  The club sold tickets safely by having people donate $5 per ticket using the HFC on-line donor site and write “Sturgis HFC raffle” in the donor bar; the club put the names on a spreadsheet, made raffle tickets with the names, and put them in a raffle jar.  

When the winner was drawn, we were delighted to see that it was West theater teacher, Anna Botsford, who has been a long time supporter of HFC, including co-sponsoring a coffee house fundraiser through the STAGE club.  One of the two club student presidents delivered the basket to her during the summer.  

Many of the Sturgis teachers had supported the raffle and one teacher, Sarah Ward, even gifted all the women teachers and staff at Sturgis West with a raffle ticket!  With the help of our former club members, our current club members, family and friends and caring faculty, we were able to donate over $1000 to HFC.  

The club will be meeting (remotely) to focus on how we can fulfill our mission this year, despite the pandemic restrictions.  We are considering a Covid-safe car wash and other fundraisers, as well as broadening our educational mission to provide information to our community about the scale of the world human trafficking problem.  The HFC web site at https://herfuturecoalition.org/ provides a lot of information on the problem and also how HFC is helping.  Navigating to the bottom of that site and clicking on “How to Start a School Club” will bring you to a presentation on our Sturgis HFC club.  

New members are always welcome to join the club.  As the seniors graduate, it is wonderful to have younger members who can pick up the mantle to keep the program going.  Prospective club members at West should contact any of the following faculty members:  Robin Singer, Jennifer Murphy (school librarian), Heidi Wilson, or Sarah Ward.  At East, the faculty member to contact is Dia Prantis.

We are hoping to interest other IB schools in starting a similar program, although the pandemic may slow down that process.  It is a natural program for an IB school for a number of reasons:  The mission is International in scope.  Participation is an excellent CAS activity.  And the traits required to be successful are many of the IB profile traits including  “Caring”  “Knowledgeable”  “Principled” and  “Communicators”.   Finally, as the Covid pandemic presents more challenges to this dedicated group of students, they will have to be “Thinkers” in order to find ways to meet their goals and succeed at the club mission.