Monday, February 1st, 2021
Prince George, BC – Earlier today over a virtual media conference on Zoom, the Prince George Community Foundation announced their exciting upcoming event ‘Prince George Live!’. The event is designed to feature local entertainers, artists, people, and community initiatives, as well as raise funds for the Foundations 25th Anniversary year all while boosting community spirit. As made clear in today’s announcement, it is thanks to a number of valued partners, sponsors, and volunteers as to why this event is possible.
Prince George Live! is an evening of local music, art, comedy, interviews, and inspiring stories put together into one live broadcast in an effort to raise funds for the tremendous work the Prince George Community Foundation does to help build a better community from widespread philanthropy. Tune into the broadcast on Sunday February 28th to take in the full event and consider making a donation through one of the available options. The original goal for this event was $25,000.00 for the 25th Anniversary but has been increased to $50,000.00 thanks to the generosity of a donor who will be matching donations up to $25,000.00.
Director of Development for the Prince George Community Foundation, Mindy Stroet says, “We have a lot planned for our 25th Anniversary year, but Prince George Live! is certainly going to be one of our most exciting and flashy initiatives! A lot of what was in the hopper for 2020 and now going forward had to be adjusted or postponed due to Covid-19, but we put this event together with the pandemic in mind and we are meeting all health restrictions to bring a safe and exciting event forward. When we originally came together to plan this event, we agreed on a $25,000.00 goal to go along with our 25th Anniversary theme, but we are excited to announce that a very generous donor has come onboard and will be matching the first $25,000.00 so we are now setting the target at $50,000.00 which would be significant dollars for us to rollout throughout the community.”
In addition to the donation matching campaign, the event is made possible by a number of sponsors. Canadian Tire Prince George has come onboard as the Title Partner for the event, while Wood Wheaton Supercentre stepped up to support as a Gold Partner, Scotiabank as a Silver Partner, and the Jim Pattison Broadcast Group as the Broadcast Partner. In their announcement of the event the Foundation thanks their committed sponsors but wanted to invite other businesses or organizations to reach out if they too would like to sponsor the event.
“We are overwhelmed by the commitment and support of our sponsors and partners; without them we would not be able to pull this thing off. That said, we are certainly welcoming more into the mix so if there is a business in town who would like to be a part of ‘Prince George Live!’ or with the Foundation in general, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me at the Foundation office and we can chat about opportunities,” says Stroet.
The creation of Prince George Live! came as a result of a meeting of minds that took place after originally looking at how the Foundation could replicate it’s successful ‘Stay at Home Gala’ from last May. The ‘Stay at Home Gala’ was a live-streamed Zoom event where the public could pre-purchase access to watch the broadcast over Zoom which featured a series of local speakers, entertainers, and stories. Foundation staff met with ‘Stay at Home Gala’ host, Kyle Sampson and sponsor Selen Alpay and over a few meetings group came up with the vision and plan for ‘Prince George Live!’.
‘Prince George Live!’ will be broadcast to the masses free of charge via CKPG-TV, online at www.pgcf.ca, and on Facebook Live on the Community Foundation’s website at 6pm on Sunday February 28th, 2021. It is free to watch the broadcast, but viewers will be encouraged to donate through a series of methods during the broadcast like by calling into the phone lines, donating online through the website, or potentially through a ‘text-to-donate’ program organizers are still working to secure.
Event Manager, Kyle Sampson says, “This is going to be a really exciting evening in Prince George. We’re bringing together what I believe is a great sample of the variety of entertainers and artists we have right here in PG, and we’ll be able to effectively highlight just how deep the Community Foundations roots are in our City when it comes to supporting countless initiatives, charities, non-for-profits, or other funds that help make our City what it is. It is my understanding the foundation contributed over $850,000.00 last year which is money that is injected into our community to make it a better place!”
“We’ve been working hard with our broadcast partners at CKPG to pull the vision Mindy, Selen, Rae-Ann, and myself came up with together and I think it’s really exciting for everyone involved to try to take this broadcast to the next level for what we’ve done in the past. We’ve got a lot of work still ahead of us, but I think the show will certainly be impressive, and I hope it will do the trick to encouraging folks to be generous and contribute to the Foundations 25th Anniversary Fund.”
Stroet says, “Prince George Live! will have a number of components outside of just the broadcast. We are working with the folks at Farmhouse Catering to provide an order-in dinner opportunity which will see partial proceeds returning to the Foundation. The dinner program will have options for pickup or delivery and will be available online soon with links from the Foundation’s website. And lastly, we will also be doing a Virtual Silent Auction online which will include dozens of great items from local businesses, and also will be where you can place your bids on the painting that will be done LIVE during our broadcast from Emily Holmes Artwork. The online auction will be live March 22nd 2021.”
Please visit www.PGCF.ca to learn more about the Prince George Community Foundation and this event.
For more information or to arrange interviews:
MEDIA CONTACTS:
Kyle Sampson
Event Manager, Prince George Live
T: 250.649.9231
E: kyle@kylesampson.ca
Mindy Stroet
Director of Development, Prince George Community Foundation
T: 778.281.1372
E: mindy.stroet@pgcf.ca
