{"id":38199,"date":"2026-05-21T13:35:28","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T17:35:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=38199"},"modified":"2026-05-21T13:35:41","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T17:35:41","slug":"100-men-who-give-a-damn-benevolent-club-celebrates-10th-anniversary-with-15k-donation-to-newmarket-food-pantry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/100-men-who-give-a-damn-benevolent-club-celebrates-10th-anniversary-with-15k-donation-to-newmarket-food-pantry\/","title":{"rendered":"100+ Men Who Give a Damn benevolent club celebrates 10th anniversary with $15K donation to Newmarket Food Pantry"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

100+ Men Who Give a Damn celebrated their tenth anniversary of community benevolence on Thursday evening at Stonehaven Banquet Hall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

President Mike Smith welcomed more than 150 attendees, including 132 current members, to the society\u2019s quarterly gathering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three local charities\u2014Newmarket Food Pantry, Peaceful Hearts, and Shine Through the Rain\u2014delivered presentations to the donors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After listening to the charity reps\u2019 pitches, it was decided through a club vote that Newmarket Food Pantry would receive the \u201clion\u2019s share\u201d consisting of a $15,000 donation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peaceful Hearts and Shine Through the Rain received $1,500 each.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Newmarket Food Pantry representative Erin Cartwright expressed her appreciation towards 100+ Men for the organization\u2019s timely monetary support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe live in a generous community. With these funds, we can ensure that our purchasing power for needed items remains strong. It\u2019s going to give us funds we need to make sure our shelves are full.  We\u2019re serving 55 families a day and providing food for over 3,000 individuals weekly. There\u2019s been a substantial increase in families who require our assistance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cartwright\u2019s colleague Vanessa Gorgonio added a poignant statistic to our post-event discussion: \u201c33% of our clients are children.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In her presentation earlier in the evening, Gorgonio noted a recent run on breakfast foods at the Pantry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur needs change on the fly. We recently did a food drive for cereal since our shelves were empty.  Cereal\u2019s an important start to the day for so many kids. Hunger should never be part of childhood. You\u2019re not just making a donation tonight\u2014you\u2019re offering stability and hope. Thanks for choosing to care. We\u2019re just not fighting hunger\u2014we\u2019re building community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the Q and A session that followed their succinct presentation, Cartwright and Gorgonio cited some daunting statistics for the membership assembled at Stonehaven.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re serving 977 households and over 2,000 individuals a month. Donations are used to replenish staple items like pasta, rice, beans, and peanut butter.  We\u2019re running out of these items more often now. We\u2019re experiencing a 138% increase in visits to the Pantry since 2020.  Our staff of five and our 300 volunteers are very busy stocking shelves and making deliveries.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When asked which kinds of food the Pantry needs the most, Cartwright noted they are in constant need of five groups at the Newmarket hub.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe first one would be peanut butter; secondly, pasta and meat sauce; third is tuna; fourth is baked beans without pork due to some of our clients\u2019 diet restrictions; and we always need coffee. In every donation we receive, we experience the power of community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Concierge Realty Group\u2019s Wasim Jarrah, one of the sponsors of Thursday night\u2019s event, echoed Cartwright\u2019s emphatic points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBy helping the most vulnerable in our communities, we\u2019re blessed to be able to help.  What we\u2019ve proven here tonight is that we\u2019ve created a positive ripple effect by working together.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Working together has been a rallying cry during the organization\u2019s ten years of Giving a Damn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since 2016, \u201c100+ Men\u201d has donated to 66 local organizations and bestowed a total of $370,000 to social agencies and registered charities in Newmarket and Aurora.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As part of the 10th<\/sup> anniversary celebrations, a series of videotaped testimonials from community organizations \u2013 including Hope House, Rose of Sharon, Deaf\/Blind, and Bridge North \u2013 were presented to reinforce one of the emergent themes of the evening:  \u201cYou give where you live.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

President Mike Smith, whose company Smith Rogers Financial also sponsored the event, provided a concise \u201cstate-of-the-club\u201d address and discussed the growth and good fortunes of the benevolent society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re very lucky. We have businesses in town and money fixes a lot of things. If charities don\u2019t have money, they\u2019re stuck. For $401 per year, including only $1 per member for administration costs, we\u2019re able to distribute almost $75,000 yearly to organizations in need in Aurora and Newmarket. We\u2019re up to 185 members and our goal is to get it to \u201c200 Men that Give a Damn\u201d by the end of the month. Our year-to-date donations are record-breaking.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smith thanked Stonehaven for \u201cdonating the banquet hall tonight\u201d and announced the society\u2019s next meeting will be held on Thursday, September 16 at the Hungry Brew Hops on Main Street in Newmarket\u2014”where we\u2019ll be getting back to our roots.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Jim Stewart
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

100+ Men Who Give a Damn celebrated their tenth anniversary of community benevolence on Thursday evening at Stonehaven Banquet Hall. President Mike Smith welcomed more than 150 attendees, including 132 current members, to the society\u2019s quarterly gathering. Three local charities\u2014Newmarket Food Pantry, Peaceful Hearts, and Shine Through the Rain\u2014delivered presentations to the donors. After listening […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":38200,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_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},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/2026-05-21-04.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-9W7","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-28 18:21:13","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\/38199","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=38199"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38201,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38199\/revisions\/38201"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}