WINGS Celebrates Its 10th Anniversary, Recognizes Growing Community Need

Last weekend, WINGS, one of Northfield’s prominent charities, celebrated its 10th year in existence, kicking off its second decade with a pledge to donate $10,000 this year to a focused cause based on perceived community needs. 

WINGS (Women In Northfield Giving Support) held its 10th Anniversary Celebration in conjunction with their annual winter meeting last Saturday morning in the lower level of the Community Resource Bank.  The celebration and meeting opened with a brief speech by WINGS president Nancy Carlson, who noted WINGS’ growth in 10 years from forty to over 300 members. In WINGS' first decade, the organization gave nearly $400,000 in grants within Northfield, and in 2009 alone, the organization gave nearly $50,000 to local programs.  Carlson set the tone for the tenth anniversary meeting by asking, “Where do we want to go? Who are we in WINGS? Are we meeting the goals and mission statement set before us?”

The next hour was dedicated to reassessing the needs of the Northfield community. Grants Chair Catherine McBride noted that “the world’s a very different place than it was ten years ago when we first started,” and emphasized the “need to stay relevant” as a supplier of grants in the face of new needs. McBride then introduced Jim Blaha, director of the Northfield Community Action Center.

Blaha opened positively, asserting that “philanthropy in Northfield is strong and generous,” and congratulating WINGS members on their achievements. Yet Blaha emphasized that need in the Northfield area has grown in recent years. Blaha said that even in the last year, the CCAC and the food shelf program has seen a large increase in program participants. In 1999, 169 households per month were reliant or partially reliant on the food shelf’s offerings for sustenance, and by 2008 the number grew to 414 households. In the past year the number has grown again to over 500 households, or more than 1300 individuals. Thus far, Blaha said, Northfield has “been able to meet the demand because of the generosity here,” but said that “poverty, however you describe it, has taken root here.” Blaha mentioned a recent Brookings Institute study that confirms the growth of suburban poverty as a trend of the past decade, suggesting that the work of groups like WINGS would become even more important to the local community in coming years. In particular, Blaha felt that two particularly underserved areas of the local demographic were the elderly and young adult poor.

Given the information provided by Blaha, Elizabeth Childs, member of the WINGS Grants Committee, introduced the prospect of giving $10,000 in focused grants to three “top needs” categories. These categories were presented based on a survey conducted by WINGS with current and former grant recipients. According to the survey, grant recipients saw great needs in the areas of Adult Education and Literacy, Transportation, Early Childhood Education, Youth Development, Health and Human Services, Basic Needs, and the Environment. Attendants of the WINGS 10th Anniversary meeting were encouraged to discuss which of these areas needed to be addressed most urgently in the coming year. The three categories receiving the most votes would be areas the towards which the $10,000 focused grant would go.

One WINGS member, Pat Allen, shared her opinion that microlending encouraged small business growth and entrepreneurship that could benefit the community as a whole by encouraging self-sustaining ventures such as the HealthFinders Collaborative, which was started with a number of grants, but which has continued autonomously to serve the needs of the community’s poor, particularly those of the Latino community. Encouraging small business owners, particularly women entrepreneurs, with a microlending program seemed to be a popular possibility for the $10,000 grant among WINGS members present at the event.

hile women distributed their votes among the various categories, Jacqui Dorsey, one of WINGS’ former presidents, spoke of her own “huge leap of faith” when she first got involved with WINGS, and encouraged others to “move out of your comfort zone.” Dorsey had balloons distributed to all the members present, and encouraged them to be “risk takers,” blowing up the balloons to the bursting point. She presented the balloons as a metaphor for positive risk-taking and daring to do the seemingly impossible to ultimately benefit the community.

Finally, Sue Boxrud, WINGS Treasurer, talked about the improvements the organization has made this year. WINGS has an “updated and streamlined mission statement,” new contribution forms to indicate how donations should be distributed, a redesigned website, a new logo, a complete computer database, and a new Communications Department headed by Erin Mayberry. In addition, Boxrud was enthusiastic to report that WINGS had gained fifty new members in the past year alone. The meeting closed by approving new board members for the next year, resulting in a number of changes. Margit Johnson stepped up to fill the role of WINGS president, while Nancy Carlson would continue work with WINGS as the organization's 10th Anniversary Chair.