4/19/2024
The Straits Area Community Foundation (SACF) is hosting the first-ever YAC Day on Tuesday, May 7, 2024. YAC Day is a special event focused on fundraising and building awareness of the Foundation’s Youth Advisory Council, or YAC, which awards annual grant funding to youth projects in their communities. The event is in partnership with the Community Foundation for Northeast Michigan (CFNEM), which is the lead foundation for SACF. YAC Day is a primarily online, 24-hour giving event aimed at helping local YACs increase their grantmaking capabilities.
Youth Advisory Councils are groups of youth ages 12-21 who are engaged in philanthropy through grantmaking, leadership opportunities, and community service. Through this program, young people throughout northeast Michigan are learning about the important role philanthropy plays in a community. The Straits Area YAC has members from across Cheboygan County and Mackinaw City.
“Our YAC program has quite a reach across all of northeast Michigan. We have about 130 YAC members serving in 19 different schools across our nine-county service area,” says CFNEM Affiliate Director, Christine Hitch. “The impact these youth are having on their communities is so positive, so inspiring, and so needed. We are very excited to have a special day of fundraising that is geared 100% toward helping our YACs increase their impact.”
On YAC Day on May 7, community members will be able to visit SACF’s website at sacf.net and donate to support the Straits Area YAC. Half of each donation will be permanently endowed to increase future grantmaking, forever. The other half will be used for grantmaking in the YACs next round of grants, which will be awarded in early 2025.
Hitch added that the Community Foundation for Northeast Michigan will match the first $4,000 donated to the Straits Area YAC.
“This program is truly growing the next generation of givers in our communities by connecting them to their communities through philanthropy and through this grantmaking process,” said Hitch. “We have seen our former YAC members become donors, leaders in their communities, and even trustees on our own governing boards.”
The Straits Area YAC grants are awarded from the Straits Area Youth Endowment Fund held at SACF. Since the YAC program started in Cheboygan County and Mackinaw City in 1999, it has awarded more than $114,000 to nonprofits for youth-related projects serving local youth.
As a fun addition to YAC Day, the YAC that raises the most donations on May 7 will win “Mac the Golden Yak”. Mac was named by Youth Advisory Council members from across northeast Michigan.
To support the Straits Area YAC on YAC Day, visit sacf.net on Tuesday, May 7, between 12 a.m. and 11:59 p.m. to donate online. Donations can also be mailed to the Community Foundation office at SACF, P.O. Box 495, Alpena, MI 49707.