EnvistaCares Challenge Announces Lawrence Old-Fashioned Christmas Parade Donation Results

The Lawrence Old-Fashioned Christmas Parade and Envista Credit Union are pleased to announce that thanks to community support totaling $9,249, the Lawrence Old-Fashioned Christmas Parade will receive the challenge match of $2,500 from Envista. In total, $11,749 in contributions during the month of November.

“We have never highlighted an organization quite like the parade and I love that the timing of this partnership aligns so well with the holidays. We’re able to give them a greater platform, create more awareness for their event, and allow more people to partake in the joy they bring,” said Erika McNeill, Engagement Coordinator for Envista Credit Union.

In 1993, one man’s idea to gather friends and spotlight the Historic Eldridge Hotel in downtown Lawrence has grown to a nationally recognized all horse power event to celebrate the beginning of the holiday season. From a humble beginning of 21 horse-drawn entries, the Lawrence Old-Fashioned Christmas Parade has hosted as many as 70 horse-powered vehicles paying tribute to the contribution of the group’s horse transportation heritage.

“EnvistaCares Challenge is the highlight of our parade this year, we so appreciate Envista for choosing our organization; we also want to thank our community, who donated to the parade. We hope everyone can make it downtown to the parade this Saturday, December 4 at 11 a.m.; it’s truly a special event,” said Marty Kennedy, President of the Lawrence Old-Fashioned Christmas Parade.

The EnvistaCares Challenge was created in April of 2019 and has helped raise more than $300,000 for local organizations. The Challenge includes an in-kind gift to the organization of a media buy that is valued at more than $10,000 and a $2,500 challenge grant. The media buy includes radio, emails, online ads, social media and interviews. The challenge grant provides a dollar-for-dollar match up to $2,500 for gifts given during the month that the organization is spotlighted. In 2021, Envista added an evergreen video to the gifts so that each organization could have a quality video that could tell their story.

“We found that marketing dollars for nonprofits are in short supply and we wanted to be sure that the impact of the EnvistaCares Challenge could last beyond one month,” said Dimick. “We wanted to help provide a tool that local organizations could use for many months or even years to come.”