By Laurie Whittier
THE ERICKSON TRIBUNE

Thanks to the commitment and creativity of residents and staff, Team Wind Crest raised a total of $10,064, placing it sixth among the top local fund-raisers for the Alzheimer’s Association’s 19th Annual Memory Walk, conducted in September.

Other donors to the Denver event this year included the Colorado chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association, Holland and Hart Foundation, Standing Proud, Kaiser Permanente Memory Walkers, and Lois’s Angels. The Denver Memory Walk raised nearly $650,000 in total.

One Wind Crest fundraiser was “E-mail-Free Friday,” when every in-house staff e-mail on Friday, Aug. 17, cost $1. Minutes after arriving at work that day, Dining Services Manager Claire Menefee wrote a $25 check to the Alzheimer’s Association. “I knew I’d end up sending a bunch of e-mails that day, so I figured I’d just go ahead and pay for mine ahead of time,” she says.

Among the residents who conducted their own fundraising projects was Joyce Pearson, who spearheaded a letter-writing campaign aimed at friends and relatives coast to coast. As a result of her handwritten letters, checks and cash poured in to the tune of $1,630 for Colorado’s 64,000 Alzheimer’s sufferers.

“Wind Crest staff and residents stepped up to the plate with some thoughtful and creative fund-raising concepts,” says Executive Director Craig Erickson, who personally baked a cake from scratch for the bake sale. “We were all delighted to learn that Wind Crest’s donation ranked among the largest for our local Alzheimer’s Association chapter.”

Some of Wind Crest’s Memory Walk fundraising efforts: