Erie County 100+ Women Who Care to meet Thursday

SANDUSKY — Erie County's newest charity is about to raise another $10,000 for a worthy local organization.Erie County 100+ Women Who Care will hold the group's its quarterly meeting at 6:15 p.m. Thursday, at the Sandusky Yacht Club, 529 E. Water St., with social hour scheduled to begin at 5:30 p.m.Everyone is welcome to come to the meeting and join the club, or just find out more, said Mary Anne Baxter, a club member."They are more than welcome to come to see if it is something they are interested in," she said.Members of the club agree to donate $100 to a tax deductible charity chosen at each of the meetings, held four times a year.Each club member will be invited to write down on a piece of paper the name of a local charity she supports. It must be a 501(c)(3) organization recognized as a nonprofit by the IRS. If it's a national group, it must have a local chapter that can guarantee that all of the money raised will stay in Erie County.Three pieces of paper will then be drawn out of a fishbowl, and three members will each get 10 minutes to give a presentation — five minutes to speak, and five minutes to answer questions. Members will then vote to pick their favorite among the three, and will write out $100 checks to the winning group.The first meeting was in October. It raised about $10,000 to support Sandusky Imagination Library, a project of the Kiwanis Club of Sandusky that seeks to supply 12 books a year to every Erie County child from birth to age five.Baxter said there are plenty of local groups that deserve support.At the first meeting, "Some of the women who came didn't get to present, but we saw organizations that were in the fishbowl that we didn't know were 501(c)(3)s. There's some really great things out there that we can help," Baxter said.Everyone can attend, but women who want to vote for the winning group must sign up as members of the club.The club was proposed by Martha Miller, a Perkins Township resident, who enlisted Baxter and other friends to help. More information is available at the Erie County chapter's website.