By Kris Leonhardt

Editor

MARSHFIELD — A new fundraiser will give local residents a chance to stock their shelves while raising money for a good cause.

“The Hannah Center right now, in general, our costs have gone up due to two main reasons. We restructured how the home is staffed, so our expenses as far as staffing has increased, and then we also have a major water leak in our basement. It’s an old home, over a 100 years old, so the foundation has major water seeping in, and it is just a health hazard to the home, and it is getting worse,” explained Diana Ugoretz, Hannah Center board treasurer and organizer. “We are in the process of repairing it, but it is $20,000. … We also know that in the next year, year and a half, we also have to replace the roof.”

“The other factor is many periods of time we’ve been at full capacity, so that drives costs — food costs, electricity, utilities, and such — so that drives our costs too,” added Sue Church, board president. “We do not get any government funding. We are totally dependent on donations, grants, fundraisers. We have to raise upwards of $150,000 a year. It costs $75 a day to support a woman.”

With the immediate need for funding, the board of directors reincarnated the concept of the shopping spree.

“We were brainstorming additional fundraisers. … This was just one of the ideas that we had come up with as a board,” Ugoretz said.

“Every year we do the (Festival Foods) brat barn a couple of times,” Ugoretz stated. “Festival is super generous in general. They approached me about if they could donate some necessities for the house. …  Since I was already talking to them and I knew we had this idea, I asked them if that would even be something that Festival would allow.”

With Festival Foods on board, the Hannah Center began selling 500 tickets for a 90-second shopping spree, where the holder of the winning ticket could race around and fill a shopping cart.

Tickets will be sold until Sept. 17 at 4:30 p.m. with the winning ticket drawn at 5 p.m.

“You don’t have to be present to win, but we do have it where we will draw a ticket at 5 p.m., contact the person via phone. If they are not there and they do not respond to us within 15 minutes, like, by 5:15, then we draw another person,” said Ugoretz.

The shopping spree will take place at Festival Foods on Sept. 18 at 7 p.m.

Tickets can be purchased at the Hannah Center or Arby’s.