Non-profits win the lottery

Eleven non-profit organizations with clients ranging from children to veterans to cancer patients to abandoned animals received donations April 14 from Fred Meyer as a result of a winning lottery ticket. The donations, totaling $90,000, were made to charities which serve the Shoreline area.

The money comes from a retail selling bonus from a winning Washington’s Lottery ticket sold at the Shoreline Fred Meyer last year. Fred Meyer received $90,000 bonus for selling the winning ticket worth $9 million. Employees of the store selected the organizations that received donations, with a clear theme on organizations which support children and families.

The $90,000 was awarded as follows:

• PAWS (Progressive Animal Welfare Society), $10,000;

• Shoreline/South County Family YMCA, $10,000;

• North Puget Sound Young Life, $10,000;

• Shoreline Community Based Transitions Program, $10,000;

• American Cancer Society, $10,000;

• Food Lifeline, $10,000;

• Union Gospel Mission-Battered Women’s Shelter, $10,000;

• Children’s Hospital, $10,000;

• Youth Advocates, $5,000;

• Shoreline Community College baseball program, $3,000;

• Veterans of Vietnam War – Post 12, $2,000.

According to Tasha Fekeshazy, marketing coordinator for Food Lifeline, the $10,000 donation will be converted into 50,000 meals throughout 17 counties in Western Washington.

“We’re very efficient with the money we receive and with the donation we’re able to leverage five meals for every dollar donated,” she said.

The organization places a strong emphasis on fighting childhood hunger, she added, and 37 percent of the more than half million people who are helped by the organization are children.

The Shoreline/South County Family YMCA intends to use the funds to continue to support families in our area struggling to make ends meet, Courtney Whitaker, executive director said.

“We are thrilled to be one of the 11 organizations chosen by the staff associates of the Shoreline Fred Meyer store for our work in the local community,” she said. “With more than 43 percent of our youth and families receiving scholarship assistance to participate in our programs, this unexpected gift will make a huge difference in our YMCA.”

Fred Meyer was not required to donated the money to the organizations, Lottery director Chris Liu said in a press release.

“The corporation sent this decision back to the local store so the Fred Meyer employees who live in that area could decide which local organizations in Shoreline would receive these dollars,” Liu said.

Fred Meyer often chooses to donate its Lottery selling bonuses to charities in its stores’ communities. The dollars come as a result of a $9 million winning Lotto ticket won last year by a Shoreline man last August.