Hello, Pro-life Heroes
Thank you so much for all of your fantastic public support for all human life from conception until natural death during all the AWESOME pro-life events in January!!! Thank you for attending and participating in the Rose Mass on January 19! Thank you for ordering and lighting luminaries on the night of January 21! Thank you for joining the 2nd Annual Motor City Caravan once again on January 22!
February and March are typically pretty quiet months around the office, so I will use this opportunity to give a brief State of the Chapter report. While a few years ago, the Chapter was hurting financially, it is now relatively safe to say that we have stabilized our budget and expect to be in the black for the third consecutive year in 2022. Office costs and overhead expenditures have been cut in the budget as much as possible. There was a lot of uncertainty headed into 2021 centered around Covid-19, but despite this, donations were higher than budgeted for Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and General Donations. As a surprise bonus, we even received a most generous $15,000 donation from a charitable trust late in 2021 which may allow us to expand offerings soon or save up to do so in the long-term.
Two long-time, valued Chapter Board members resigned in 2021: Barb Schmid and Carmen Mosquera. Both will be missed greatly. With 9 active Board members, we do not need to fill their positions, however please contact Tim if you feel a strong desire to serve on our Board. Cori Zyglinski has stepped up to serve as our new Volunteer Coordinator. Although the number of active volunteers is much lower now compared to before the pandemic, we receive and value all of your awesome assistance! Again, if you feel called to serve, we will welcome you with open arms!
Our current paid-up membership for 2022 has been ticking up daily, but we have approximately 150 Chapter members current with dues for 2022. This is a bit over 60% of our 2021 membership and we did expect this lag as we move to calendar year memberships rather than the traditional practice of rolling renewals based on membership anniversary dates. With follow-up operations this winter, we expect Chapter membership to remain stable between 225-250 households for 2022.
In terms of events, in 2021 we added the inaugural Links for Life Chapter Golf Outing and the inaugural Motor City Caravan for Life (a LIFESPAN, Inc. event, but led by our Chapter). We also implemented a Chapter Annual Appeal campaign. Many events cancelled in 2020 due to the pandemic were restored in 2021. We also moved the Pro-Life Legislative Luncheon to June. Some adjustments to the timing of events will occur, but no major new initiatives are planned in 2022 as we will concentrate on growing and improving the core events and campaigns we operated in 2021.
“So there are…circumstances in which a decision may be overruled, properly overruled, when it must be overruled simply because it was egregiously wrong at the moment it was decided?” –Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito during the Dobbs Oral Arguments on 12/1/21
Yours in LIFE,
Timothy Pruse
Wayne County Chapter Director