Published: December 03, 2008 09:16 am      

Dale’s Harley-Davidson makes $5,000 Christmas donation to Amy Center

By TESA CULLI

tesa.culli@register-news.com

MT. VERNON — The employees of Dale’s Harley-Davidson were able to make Christmas brighter for the Amy Center this year with a donation of $5,000.

“We did a lot of fundraisers to get the money,” Bob Albright of Dale’s said. “We had a barbecue, a chili cookoff, poker run, and the Halloween Dance with the silent auction and live auction. We don’t even know how much we raised.”

The person with the magic number was co-owner Becky Waterkotte, who along with her husband and co-owner Matt, announced the large donation.

“Each year we chose a charity to raise funds for,” Matt Waterkotte said. “This year, we wanted to keep it local.”

Becky Waterkotte said although this is not the first time Dale’s Harley-Davidson has chosen the Amy Center as its official charity, donating funds for a local charity, “felt right. For me, it made me feel better to give to someone local.”

And, Amy Center Executive Director LaDonna Richards said the donation couldn’t have come at a better time.

“It’s such a wonderful thing,” Richards said. “Our grants from the state are four to six months behind. Now we’ll be able to keep going until we get that money. I spoke with the controller’s office just today to find out what we had to do to get our name bumped to the top of the list to get our funding. They’re two quarterly checks behind, and now we won’t have to worry as much about getting it immediately.”

Amy Center founder Dennis Schulz said the donation means a lot to the center.

“Now we can do extra things for the kids,” Schulz said. “We can expand our services and activities with the kids, such as the Good Touch, Bad Touch program, which is very important. We had talked about hiring an extra educator so we can serve more kids. We can’t do that without donations and support. It’s donations that makes things like that available.”

Schulz said although Dale’s Harley-Davidson has been able to raise a large amount of money, “any small donation is very, very appreciated.”

“Every donation, whether it’s $5 or $10, helps the kids,” Schulz said.