{"id":1721,"date":"2013-04-30T15:11:51","date_gmt":"2013-04-30T19:11:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=1721"},"modified":"2013-05-07T14:47:23","modified_gmt":"2013-05-07T18:47:23","slug":"charities-team-up-as-hoedown-planning-gets-underway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/charities-team-up-as-hoedown-planning-gets-underway\/","title":{"rendered":"Charities team up as Hoedown planning gets underway"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well on the way to their 25th anniversary celebrations, Magna\u2019s Wild West Hoedown has worked not just to throw one of York Region\u2019s biggest annual parties, but engage local charities in the process. <\/p>\n

Traditionally, 20 charities are selected to help sell event and raffle tickets for a fundraising pot they all get equal shares in. This year, a quarter century on, Magna for the Community has upped the ante to 25 charities, and now local organizations are teaming up to make the most of the opportunity. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to make sure we get a good balance of organizations right across York Region,\u201d says Magna for the Community\u2019s Steve Hinder. \u201cOur challenge is selling raffle tickets because 100 per cent of the sales go straight to the charities. Our license has always allowed us to sell up to 60,000 raffle tickets and, quite frankly, we have never met that maximum and that means there are dollars that aren\u2019t going to charities.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe felt a lot of them were going after the same market geographically in the same area, so this year we decided to reach out a little bit broader across the Region so that the charities can reap the awards of the maximum amount of dollars coming to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is also an emphasis this year \u2013 as there has been in years past \u2013 to make sure the wealth is spread evenly amongst the charities, particularly charities who have been at the receiving end of Hoedown dollars previously. Over 60 community organizations applied to get a piece of the action this year, which was then whittled down to the final 25.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are so many deserving organizations that we try to spread it around as much as possible,\u201d says Mr. Hinder. \u201cThere has been this level of interest for the last few years, but it never used to be [this high] and I think that is because the need is greater. There are a lot of new organizations too, some of them are pretty small, and the money they get will do a lot in keeping them viable.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne thing I thought was very interesting is the application coming from three different York Region hospices who are collaborating to reach out. They will have a bigger network now in which to reach out and because everybody is looking for funding, they\u2019ll also spread the funds that come their way and everyone will benefit. It is spreading the pot a little bit and we have never seen that before. <\/p>\n

The three hospices putting their heads together on the fundraising this year is Doane House Hospice, Hospice Richmond Hill, and Hospice Georgina. Rounding out this year\u2019s charities are:<\/p>\n

\u2022 Aurora Barbarians Rugby
\n\u2022 Aurora Youth Soccer
\n\u2022 Autism Ontario (York Region Chapter)
\n\u2022 Big Brothers Big Sisters of York
\n\u2022 Community Living Newmarket Aurora
\n\u2022 Epilepsy York Region
\n\u2022 Georgina Arts Centre and Gallery
\n\u2022 Georgina Cares
\n\u2022 Habitat for Humanity York Region
\n\u2022 Hilltop Skating Club
\n\u2022 Hospice Vaughan
\n\u2022 Kinark Child and Family Services
\n\u2022 Newmarket Soccer Club
\n\u2022 Optimist Club of Newmarket
\n\u2022 Richmond Hill Mobility Accessibility Foundation
\n\u2022 Shenderey Gymnastics
\n\u2022 Safehaven
\n\u2022 Welcoming Arms
\n\u2022 Women\u2019s Centre of York Region
\n\u2022 Yellow Brick House
\n\u2022 York North Family Resource Programmes (The Family Place)
\n\u2022 York Simcoe Minor Football
\n\u2022 York Support Services Network
\n\u2022 Youth Assisting Youth<\/p>\n

Event tickets are scheduled to go on sale in July and will be available for purchase for $75 from the 25 selected charities, or from Neighbourhood Network and Jonathan\u2019s Restaurant in Aurora.<\/p>\n

In addition to the fun one normally expects from the yearly bash, this year they\u2019re reviving the Hoedown Showdown as a lead-up to the big event.
\nThe Showdown will be hosted by Magna in partnership with the Town of Aurora at the annual Ribfest. Amateur country artists from across York Region will be invited to enter the competition to see who will come out on top. The winning artist will have a chance to perform on stage at Hoedown itself. Details on how to enter will be announced later this spring.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir Well on the way to their 25th anniversary celebrations, Magna\u2019s Wild West Hoedown has worked not just to throw one of York Region\u2019s biggest annual parties, but engage local charities in the process. Traditionally, 20 charities are selected to help sell event and raffle tickets for a fundraising pot they all get […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1722,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/2013-04-30-14.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-rL","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-10 12:19:25","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1721\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}