Foundation Completes Biggest-Ever Annual Appeal, Showcasing Broad and Deep Support for its Mission

February 20, 2023

More than 200 members of the Chicago Yacht Club showed their generosity and confidence in the value that the CYC Foundation creates for our community and club by donating to the 2022 annual fundraising appeal. Last year’s appeal was a true grassroots success, raising the most in the foundation’s history, totaling more than $255,000 and comprising donations as small as $50 and as large as $50,000.

CYC members Matthew and Emily Gallagher hosted a $1,000 matching campaign on Facebook, raising $1,075 from more than a dozen friends through the social media platform.

“I was happy to share the Foundation’s good work with my social network,” Matt Gallagher said. “This fundraiser was a great chance to leverage our friends’ donations, but even more than that, to see friends who aren’t even involved in boating support the Foundation’s mission.”

This extraordinary generosity on the part of the entire breadth of CYC membership will offer scope for transformative additions to the Foundation’s capacity, including new community sailing camps, doubled enrollment to the Foundation’s Maritime Academy, increasing support to the Sea Scouts, doubling the size of the Lead HER Ship great lakes cruising experience for teenage girls, the development of a scholarship program for graduates of Foundation programs and a competition fund to support competitive sailing, and more to be announced throughout the course of the year.

“This tells me that there is in fact an appetite to do this thing in a major way,” said Greg Miarecki, the Foundation’s president and a past CYC commodore. “We can do some big things; we have the capacity. Let’s just unlock it.”