Updates from Looking Glass
Lane Transit District’s Transportation Options Marketing Specialist Julia Woolley helped coordinate a week long series of free bike tune ups provided to Looking Glass staff members as a way to give back to social service workers affected by the pandemic.
The annual Looking Forward, Giving Back auction gala fundraiser was held virtually this year, due to the pandemic, of course, but was a huge success despite the fact that we could not gather physically with supporters. On Saturday, April 10th, Looking Glass fundraising staff members turned the large conference room at administrative offices into a production studio and interacted with over 100 supporters via Zoom and an online auction platform that made for some very competitive and last minute bidding. In the end, donors helped to raise more than $130,000 for Looking Glass youth & family programs (and post-event cleanup was much easier).
See videos shared at the event in this post!
Despite the pandemic and challenges surrounding this year’s annual Giving Tree program (or maybe because of them), Looking Glass programs received an amazing amount of support and donations - enough to ensure every youth who requested them a gift covering their needs and wishes. Covid-19 may have closed a lot of the businesses that would have normally hosted physical trees and ornaments but it didn’t close the hearts of our donors. In addition to the physical gifts picked up at Valley River Center, Oakway Centre, Umpqua Bank, McKenzie Commercial and other amazing business supporters, we received thousands of dollars in restricted cash donations and dozens of Amazon wish list items.
In October the local bike donation nonprofit Free Bikes 4 Kidz delivered 20 bikes to Looking Glass for various program use and direct youth client access. The bikes were delivered to Looking Glass residential programs as well as Riverfront’s Independent Living and Job Training Program clients and also the Looking Glass New Roads homeless youth program.
The 8th annual Healthy Kids, Healthy Futures breakfast was forced to go virtual this year along with so many other typically in-person gatherings but still drove a lot of donations and community support as well as providing inspiring stories of the amazing work done by Looking Glass staff and volunteers.
The 2nd annual Looking Glass Socktoberfest sock donation drive was another huge success thanks to amazing local business partners and their store customers as well as generous Amazon wish list buyers who shipped packages of new socks to our admin office. We received thousands of new and gently used socks for our New Roads homeless youth drop-in center!
Unity of the Valley began an outreach to Looking Glass Residential Services in November 2019. They provide a weekly celebration service based on the outline of Youth of Unity (Y.O.U.) meetings. Prayer shawls are provided to all participants and some of their family members. Since the end of June, Unity of the Valley has also provided an evening Zoom Prayer time when the teens are able to connect one-on-one with a chaplain.
The Eugene River Road Grocery Outlet staff and patrons once again helped raise crucial funds for Looking Glass youth and programs through their annual Independence From Hunger campaign in July. Including a donation from the corporate group, the donation this year was just under $11,000!
The annual Looking Glass “Looking Forward, Giving Back,” event for 2020 is in the books and by all measures it was a resounding success. The 007-James-Bond-themed event was quite a hit, providing fun for roughly 250 supporters who helped raise crucial funds for Looking Glass at-risk youth & family services.
A local family with an annual tradition of coming together to collectively donate to a local nonprofit took it upon themselves to outfit every single Looking Glass residential bed with new sheets and pillows this holiday season. The Floyd family, whose annual tradition of giving goes back several years, decided to support Looking Glass this year.
