{"id":5755,"date":"2014-03-05T15:04:26","date_gmt":"2014-03-05T20:04:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=5755"},"modified":"2014-03-12T14:36:48","modified_gmt":"2014-03-12T18:36:48","slug":"women-offer-community-support-over-wine-and-chocolate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/women-offer-community-support-over-wine-and-chocolate\/","title":{"rendered":"Women offer community support over wine and chocolate"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Kelly Reid<\/strong><\/p>\n

Aurora\u2019s Jennifer Ettinger offered her \u201cultimate cheat day\u201d Thursday night, hosting the fifth annual \u201cWomen, Wine & Chocolate\u201d fundraiser at Cardinal Golf and Country Club. <\/p>\n

Ettinger, a personal trainer and founder of Fit Your Style Inc., created the event in 2010 in order to raise money for the Women\u2019s Centre of York Region. <\/p>\n

\u201cTonight is for women and men to come together and indulge,\u201d said Ettinger, \u201cIt\u2019s the ultimate cheat day. But what they\u2019re really doing by participating is changing a woman\u2019s life in our community. The Women\u2019s Centre of York Region is a smaller non-profit organization, and they need the support. They\u2019re really out there making it happen.\u201d <\/p>\n

Kirsten Eastwood, Executive Director of the Centre, said, \u201cWe help women connect to employment so they can get back on their feet. We really want women to build the skills they need to be sustainable.\u201d <\/p>\n

The proceeds from Thursday\u2019s event will be directed at the Centre\u2019s Enterprising Women program, which focuses on entrepreneurial and workplace skills. The funding for that particular initiative is coming to an end this month, and so it has the greatest need of outside support. <\/p>\n

The Centre provides services to more that sixteen hundred women every year, with many programs on waiting lists. Their operating costs are about $800,000 a year, not including any expansion to their programming. Community fundraising accounts for more than 20 percent of their funding. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are getting about a 12-to-1 social return on investment,\u201d Eastwood explained. \u201cWhat that means is that for every one dollar of investment in the Centre, we can return a value of twelve dollars to the women and to the community. That means that fewer women will be dependent on social assistance. That\u2019s going to mean fewer hospital visits, fewer police calls.\u201d <\/p>\n

The event included a fashion show from Lemon Drop clothiers, raffles, \u201cswag bags,\u201d a wine garden, astrological readings, glamour photos, as well as an auction of a custom-made Mark Lash diamond pendant. One of Ettinger\u2019s surprises during the course of the evening\u2019s festivities included a speakerphone call to her own mom, during which the entire audience gave her mom a round of rousing applause. <\/p>\n

\u201cTonight is about my mom,\u201d Ettinger said, \u201cbecause when I was younger, my mom could have used the Centre. My mom is so strong.\u201d<\/p>\n

The final fundraising numbers from vendor donations as well as ticket sales are still being tallied, as Ettinger jetsetted to L.A. immediately after the event in order to cover the Academy Awards red carpet with The Insider. <\/p>\n

Last year\u2019s event, though, raised a total of $31,911. <\/p>\n

Ettinger hopes that Thursday\u2019s proceeds will exceed that number. \u201cThank God today, women have somewhere to go where they can get empowered and make change,\u201d she said. \u201cTo me, that\u2019s profound.\u201d<\/p>\n

To make a donation, or to learn more about the Women\u2019s Centre of York Region, visit www.womenscentreyorkregion.com.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aurora\u2019s Jennifer Ettinger offered her \u201cultimate cheat day\u201d Thursday night, hosting the fifth annual \u201cWomen, Wine & Chocolate\u201d fundraiser at Cardinal Golf and Country Club.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5729,"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-5755","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\/2014\/03\/2014-03-06-10.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-1uP","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-06 16:38:52","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\/5755","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=5755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5755\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}